Tim Grittani has started doing recaps of selected trades on YouTube, which are interesting to review. Here's an annotated chart with my comments for his short trade in $MOSY, initiated on July 14, 2017.
Position size: ~$85,000
Tim Grittani has started doing recaps of selected trades on YouTube, which are interesting to review. Here's an annotated chart with my comments for his short trade in $MOSY, initiated on July 14, 2017.
Position size: ~$85,000
A Billboard #1 when I was two ... I remember it well.
Episode 96 ... "Nico" (71:07)
The notorious $DRYS did yet another reverse split on Friday, July 21 (this one 1:7). I've been avoiding shorting this stock because I've been fearing a squeeze, which would happen the moment I got short, thinks Mr. Paranoid. I hadn't thrown in the towel and finally shorted it, but there was a wicked short squeeze last Friday. I didn't make a dime off of this expected squeeze, mainly because I was too busy tweeting about it instead of playing it.
My Twitter addiction costs me so many opportunities, and I have to work on curbing my need to be publicly "right." I really need to force myself to shut off Twitter during market hours ... I just have to go cold turkey. Catching this one trade could have made my week / month / year!
Episode 98 ... Peter To (80:04)
Episode 101 ... Siam Kidd (113:27)
This section from @tagrtrades recent blog post caught my eye:
I’m slowly trying to move from a scalper to a bigger picture trader. The biggest catalyst to this change was letting the subscription to my intraday scanning service lapse and focus on my pre selected watch list. Sure I miss trades, but I know the trigger points I’m looking for and don’t find myself shooting from the hip nearly as much as I have in the past. I’m also trying to look at charts outside of just the 1-5min timeframe I’ve done for years. Pulling back and getting a clear hourly view has helped me look for areas where I can target for more than just a few cents and get more % out of each trade.
I've had a few thoughts about the pitfalls of using a real-time market scanner:
Even when you really fine-tune your scanner, it's still spitting out dozens of things to look at every day. There's just too much to look at. I have what I consider to be an incredibly rigorous set of criteria that has to be met to qualify as an "Unusual Suspect," and still I get at least a dozen candidates every day (today I got 18). If you're looking at everything, you're looking at nothing. The human brain can only focus on a few things.
Every time the scanner dings, you get excited and think about making a trade. If you're looking at an intraday time frame like the three minute chart, you're going to start overtrading. You'll be generating a lot of commissions and very little profit, if any.
I use the scanner to find "Unusual Suspects" in real time. They are generally low float, micro-cap junk stocks that are on a tear, (or they are bigger stocks that have been hit with news, good or bad (earnings, FDA decisions, etc.)).
The trouble with the low float, micro-cap junk is that after the initial burst of activity, volume dries up and there's no way to exit your position in a graceful way, even if you're on the right side of the market. You get stuck. And I mean stuck at a profit. It isn't as simple as crossing the spread and getting out. If you have 10,000 shares of a dollar stock, or more likely tens of thousands of shares, you just can't exit without tipping your hand, and they'll move the market away from you fast. It's frustrating.
It's possible that you may shape your whole trading strategy around the scanner and grow overly dependent on it. I like to think that everyone should strive to be able to trade profitably while still using an old 14" cracked laptop on a dial-up connection from the Australian Outback.
I've always thought that your broker should supply you with a first-rate market scanner, gratis. My broker, IB, does have a pretty good market scanner, but it's nothing like Trade-Ideas, not even in the same league. Schwab probably uses the old CyberTrader technology for their scanner, but I really don't know. Fido, Schwab, TD, IB, etc. should all license the Trade Ideas technology and offer it to their "pro" users for free.
I might think of some more things later and update the post, but that's it for now.
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My son is doing a three-week-long robotics camp this summer in Maryland, organized by Hopkins' Center for Talented Youth. I just sent him to the camp yesterday and wanted to record my impressions before I forget them.
I estimate that 90 out of 100 campers are ethnically Chinese. Another 5% are Indian ("subcontinent, not Injun," as my friend Carl likes to say) and 4% are Jewish. This leaves a sad and beleaguered 1% of WASP attendees. The lopsidedness was shocking.
It makes me suspect that the Center for Talented Youth isn't interested in identifying exceptionally smart kids from all backgrounds, but instead is filled with bright kids who happen to have pushy parents who are trying to get their little darlings an edge, at any cost. Anybody with money can sign their kids up for prep courses or get their kids tutors who can help them pass "above grade level" tests. I thought CTY was all about finding weirdly brilliant kids, untutored, of any race, from all over the country, and all kinds of different circumstances. Looking around the campus on drop-off day, I was wrong.
I think Chinese parents must see CTY as some kind of backdoor into the Ivy League, and they might be right that it is, for now. But the overwhelming number of ethnically Chinese kids in the program makes me think that Hopkins is going to have to start limiting them in some way, a quota system perhaps, not far in the future. Striking a balance is going to be a very tricky thing.
Episode 102 ... Eugene Soltes (86:41)
Episode 103 ... Dave Bergstrom (55:32)
Reminded of this great Mazzy Star song while watching episode seven of Gypsy. God bless Hope Sandoval, an honest-to-god dream girl, and her backing band with slide guitarist. No live version so I'm forced to embed this....
Episode 105 ... Alex AT09_Trader (58:11)
Episode 105 ... Brendan Poots (58:00)
I lived in Beijing from May 2005 to July 2015. The main reason we left was the deadly air pollution, but a contributing factor, and not an insignificant one, was the tightening grip the State had on the Internet. I first began using a VPN in China after Twitter got blocked in June of 2009? (if memory serves). More and more sites got blocked over the following years making it essential to have a VPN, with Gmail being "the last straw" for the few remaining VPN holdouts when it got blocked in early 2015? (again if memory serves).
I cannot imagine living in China and not being able to access the global internet. I certainly wouldn't consider living there now, or even doing a semester of study abroad there, without unfettered access to the global internet (via a VPN). Maybe that's what Xi wants?
Episode 106 ... Turney Duff (76:04)
As I mentioned before, I have begun to drive for Uber, sort of as an experiment in sociology and economics. I'm not sure how long this research project will last, but I'm willing to give it a few weeks or months of very part-time attention.
I turned on the driver app for the first time yesterday and accepted a request. When I arrived at the pick-up point, the kids said they had cancelled the Uber, but I said go ahead and get in since I was just learning the ropes. Uber charges people $5 for a cancellation, and the driver collects $3.84? of that (will have to check the exact number).
Today I turned on the app and accepted a request, which again got cancelled just as I arrived (and a cab pulled up) -- another $3.84. The next request I accepted, I messed up starting the journey on the app at the pick-up point, and totally botched that trip which resulted in *no* money, but it was a short jaunt and a small price to pay for figuring out how to operate the app in real time.
The third request I accepted, I worked the app correctly, and took some kids from the airport to a rental car office. The details from that trip are in the screenshot below ... it looks like you get around $1 a mile, which ain't great, certainly less than I expected ... I will have to collect a larger data sample before I can conclude that it doesn't make economic sense to drive for Uber.
Another Netflix Original Series. I love Naomi Watts, always have ... she's another super-talented Aussie actress. She's exactly my age (ok, two years older) and still looks great, usually ... I mean from some angles, in some lighting, she looks her age, but generally she looks good.
She plays a shrink here ... a bored shrink, with a boring fake sociopath lawyer husband, and troubled elementary-school-aged daughter. They live in Westchester or Rockland county and commute into the City for work. Big house, fancy clothes, "upper middle class white people." Naomi pops anti-anxiety drugs and steals prescription pads from her doctor friends (she's a Ph.D., not an M.D., so not a real drug-dispensing shrink, more of a cognitive therapist). Her husband may or may not be diddling his secretary (he isn't of course, because he's boring).
She gets involved in her patients' lives in weird, inappropriate ways. She's a nutcase in short, you know, this is a "psychological thriller." Anyway, I don't know where this show is going, it's ten episodes long ... again, I would probably instantly drop it if it weren't for Naomi Watts, who is just *so good* (remember Mulholland Drive? Yes, Naomi Watts did that breakdown scene at the end, where you realize it's all a dream, which still sends shivers down my spine just thinking about it).
In episode two we learn that Naomi drives a Volvo SUV, masturbates, and can't pronounce "Rorschach," which makes me wonder about her psychoanalytic capabilities. She gets closer to the girl who has such power over one of her customers, er, clients. This is some kind of feminine power play thing I'm not terribly interested in... paid attention to the credits this time to learn that the show was "created and written by Lisa Rubin." Uh oh, a C.W. By thing. I'm not sure if I can keep my interest up for this ... I may be too much of a manly man to deal with this bullshit for much longer.
In episode three we learn that they live in Fairfield county, CT, not downstate NY. Naomi pops some pills she stole from one of her Stepford wife (Soulcycle wife?) "friends," and plans a brilliant birthday party for her kid. But she has a blow-up with the same Stepford wife at the party, very embarrassing. Will lead to permanent ostracism, but Naomi sort of wants that. And there's Blythe Danner, playing Naomi's mother ... she's now the go-to actress for evil WASP moms in their 70s.
This show will appeal to women and homosexual men, but not so much straight guys. Beautiful bored Gen-X women, popping pills in posh suburbs, pursuing lesbian relationships with someone half their age, pining for their lost youth or looking for some excitement in middle age ... I'm not sure how interesting this really is. But Naomi Watts *is* very attractive and talented so I will soldier on.
On to episode four, I really don't know what's going on. Nice to see a Zippo lighter being given as a gift, and I was wrong about Naomi driving a Volvo; it's an Infiniti QX60. Oddly they obscured the front badge of it, I guess there are no freebies in Product Placement Land. The hot black (light black) secretary is starting to make a move on boring old married-to-Naomi guy... will he crack? We also learn that Naomi has a degree from Johns Hopkins. Her weird meddling in her patients' lives seems less sinister in this episode ... it's more like unconventional problem solving now. Anyway, will I be able to get through eight or ten of these episodes?? Not sure.
On to episode five ... ok, this is basically a midlife crisis story, but instead of a middle-aged married man having a fling with a younger model, it's a middle-aged married woman having a fling with a younger model. Naomi sneaks off again and has dinner at this hippie-dippie commune place (where I wondered who's paying for the wine?) ... she decides there and then to go all-in on the young lass from Sussex. Hubby left at home with idiot football buddies and a sad bag of ancient weed. There was a really good shot of the Infiniti QX60's grille with the brand obscured ... nearly looked like a Chinese Chery!
Boring hubby tries to rekindle things with Naomi via a night of hot sex in a swank hotel in episode six. All I could think during the sex scene was, "don't pinch your fingers in the door! don't pinch your fingers in the door!" And of course since both these actors are approaching 50 years old, the scene was totally unrealistic.
Boring hubby is going to Texas for two nights (with hot secretary, so maybe he'll crack there), which gives Naomi a chance to plan something big with the lass from Sussex. Oh, I almost forgot, but the episode ends with Naomi having a panic attack. Blurred vision, rapid breathing, fear of death, the whole thing -- not fun.
Episode seven ... I *loved* this episode, great, great stuff, and not least because of the music. Booze, pot, Blue Is The Warmest Color style sex, infidelity ... it just captured the mood and feelings really well, the pacing was great, I thought. Spoiler: Boring hubby did not crack and give in to the offer from his beautiful black secretary, which was truly dumb, er, heroic behavior. As I said, after the hippie dippie dinner, Naomi *knew* she was going to hook up with the lass from Sussex, there was no stopping her, no second thoughts.
Why they had the black secretary coming out of the other lawyer's room at the end of the episode, I don't know, I thought it was unnecessary, it just makes her out as a slut, which she isn't really, or wasn't ... it makes boring hubby's decision look like the obvious one in hindsight, and it shouldn't be ... he should be second guessing himself about that one into the grave.
Naomi should know that the pot the kids smoke today is nothing like the stuff from our youth (Louis CK has a very funny bit about this).
Episode eight ... I waited quite a while after episode seven before watching it, since I didn't want to ruin the high of that episode ... and now I can't remember what happened, other than boring lawyer Dad's name is mud at the firm, everybody thinks he slept with his secretary even though he didn't. Also we learn that Naomi keeps an apartment in the City under her maiden name (Hart) and her alias "Diane." Her husband doesn't know about this place. Naomi lets her druggie girl patient stay there (see below). The druggie girl repays the favor by digging through all of Naomi's locked-up stuff and discovering some of her many secrets.
Episode nine ... The lass from Sussex posted the surreptitiously snapped photo of her kiss with Naomi on Instagram ... this news oddly doesn't freak out Naomi ... she knows Sam has a gun, but apparently isn't that worried that he'll go nuts ... Blythe Danner does a beautiful job playing WASP Mommy Dearest and reveals that it is she who pays for the upper west side apartment, and that Naomi never went to Stanford, while sticking the knife in in multiple other ways during their pleasant family meal. Writer Rubin no doubt sees WASP family life as incredibly tortured and twisted, which it is only some of the time; I can report from experience.
Weird scene with Boring Lawyer Dad and his beautiful secretary (see below) ... "I care about you but nothing's gonna happen," what's that all about? Naomi is popping pills trying to hold everything together. The school shrink thinks their kid should be put on Ritalin or something (more Mercedes payments for him!), but Naomi, a PhD psychotherapist, isn't so quick to accept the prescription. The lass from Sussex takes the train out to Darien (we've narrowed it down to the town in Fairfield county now) to pout in Naomi's Infiniti QX60 with obscured badge ... a "Mom car." Next episode is the final episode ... no way they can wrap this all up, must have been angling for a multi-season deal from the start.
Episode 10, final episode of the season ... I've decided that Gypsy belongs in the "Slick but Dumb" file ... the production values are great, the acting is decent, wardrobe, make-up, lighting, sets -- all the technical details -- are very good but the story itself is DUMB or worse, BORING.
Beautiful Naomi may be leading a sort of double life, and messing with her psychotherapy patients in weird ways, but who really cares? Episode seven was good, but one episode does not make a great season, and I certainly won't be watching the next one.
Instead of posting every week, I'm now posting the ETF Trading Portfolio update at the end of every month, based on my monthly trend following system. I've also changed the terminology from "up" and "down" to "long" and "short," which I hope is less confusing.
One change this week, covering the QID short and getting long.
This is the last weekly update I will make for my ETF Trading Portfolio. In future I will be making a once-a-month update based on the monthly trends and will keep the weekly trend changes to myself (because they're just too valuable, ha!).
No changes this week.