Movies Watched -- Green Book (2018)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

129 minute running time which means it was at least 30 minutes too long … I would cut out the punching the cop scene / Bobby Kennedy phone call and the YMCA rescue scene, since they were both no doubt fictionalized to give the movie a little more drama, but frankly it didn’t need it and moviemakers should always be looking to cut cut cut.

Stars Aragorn, son of Arathorn (who has put on 50 pounds in around 15 years), and Remy Danton, acting ever effete … never forget that Jimmy Breslin called Mayor Dinkins "a fancy shvartzer with a mustache."

This wasn’t badly made, but it was pretty heavy-handed (Barry Hertz called it “Racism for Dummies,” which made me laugh) and also didn’t spare the heartstring music, which annoyed me. Nice to see Linda Cardellini get some movie work (I loved her in Bloodline … well, I loved everything about Bloodline). The Negro Motorist Green Book itself does interest me, it was more than the black AAA guide, it was a directory to all the service providers who didn’t discriminate based on skin color, put together by a black postman and his network of other black postmen. That’s fascinating.

Solid yellow rating for sure but doesn’t get the coveted green go.

Dick Brody hated it and called it a “bland, regressive flip on ‘Driving Miss Daisy,’” which may seem overly harsh, but I see what he’s saying and largely agree with him.

Christ, I’m blacker than you are!

Christ, I’m blacker than you are!

Movies Watched -- Siberia (2018)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

97 minute running time, which is a good length, but this was a terrible, terrible movie. I got it out of a Red Box on a lark, and regret it. A Rotten Tomatoes score of 11% (which I learned after the fact) is generous.

An idiotic non-story, badly written. Multiple gratuitous sex scenes, completely unrealistic for a 51-year-old guy (even if he is fit), except for when he was performing Keanulingus. His Russian (actually Romanian) lover was sort of different because she had buck teeth and weird bones — I liked that.

Keanu still can’t act, everyone knows this, including Keanu, but he looks good with his stubble and no eyelashes (1/4 Chinese after all), and thankfully doesn’t open his mouth much, except to perform Keanulingus.

Blue diamonds, private jets, jacked-up Range Rovers, comical Russian gangsters … these are things that might appeal to a certain kind of teenage boy, but even he would throw up his hands about this one.

It’s a complete mystery to me how movies like this get made. Who funds them? Taxpayers in Manitoba? God almighty.

Rex hated it (“direction looks phoned in from a toll booth in the Ukraine … the screenplay is incomprehensible”) along with everyone else.

Burn the house down (with the movie producers trapped inside)

Burn the house down (with the movie producers trapped inside)

Movies Watched -- Battle of the Sexes (2017)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

121 minute running time so at least 20 to 30 minutes too long. I didn’t hate this one. The story of the World Tennis Association is interesting, though they whitewashed Bille Jean’s relationship with Marilyn (which ended badly). The girl who plays Billie Jean King is much more attractive than Billie Jean ever was, and Steve Carell is good as Mike Myers playing degenerate gambler Bobby Riggs. Good production values, slickly made. Also works in some pro-homosexual propaganda, as Hollywood likes to do these days. Not a green rating since it’s overly long, but a solid yellow for sure.

My favorite old fag and brilliant movie critic, Rex Reed, predictably loved it.

Dorky 70s Eyeglasses

Dorky 70s Eyeglasses

Movies Watched -- The Disaster Artist (2017)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

103 minute running time, which is a good length, but I found it sort of unbearable and watched it at 1.5x. Tells the story of a brain-damaged guy named Tommy Wiseau who, along with his friend Mark, made a movie called The Room, which is apparently so terrible that it became a cult classic — I’d never heard of it. It’s a sad story, an awful story really about this deranged guy and his efforts to write, direct, and star in a movie. Maybe Tommy got the money from a medical malpractice lawsuit? He spent $6 million apparently, and the people who helped make the movie were happy to take it, the lowlifes. Red rating, avoid.

Dick Brody also wasn’t thrilled.

I feel you.

I feel you.

All This Science I Don't Understand

Added on by C. Maoxian.

It’s about time he had a single out (1972) …. sort of a companion song to Bowie’s Space Oddity (1969).

Elton John performs "Rocket Man" live at the Honky Chateau debut concert at the Royal Festival Hall in London. - February 5th, 1972

Trading Wisdom

Added on by C. Maoxian.

You have to figure out if you’re trading to win or trading not to lose. You need to trade to win. A bird in the hand is not worth two in the bush. You don’t have an edge. Every trade is a coin flip. Your only edge is trade management: cutting losses short and letting winners run. Don’t double down. “… quite a few participants felt that some sort of doubling down, or Martingale betting strategy, was optimal, wherein the gambler increases the size of his wagers after losses “ Keep your bet size consistent and in line with your bankroll. You have to be able to lose and lose and lose and lose and lose and keep your bet size consistent. You want to bet bigger to “make it back,” and you want to get revenge, that’s only human nature. Recognize the urge and resist it. Hide your P&L to conceal both your losses (which are known, but cumulative) and gains (which are unknown).

When I was a kid I worked as a photocopy boy in an H&R Block office. They offered something to customers called the “Rapid Refund,” which was a high interest loan on a tax refund. People would pay the $20, $30 whatever fee to get their $100 tax refund a month earlier than normal. This struck me and the lesson it taught is forever in my mind as I trade.

“… individuals’ usual tendency to attribute winning performance internally and losing performance externally“

I have no idea why the academics call it the “disposition effect,” but it’s natural for human beings to cut their profits short and let their losses run … it’s also human to attempt to add to a loser to dig yourself out of a hole. The struggle against your own natural tendencies is real and all-important.

Trying to find something that works, you’re going to go down a thousand dead-end roads. Be willing to give up on your cherished ideas when they prove to be worthless. Every one of your brilliant ideas has already been tested and discarded by somebody who is smarter, richer, and faster than you. Don’t be naive. You might think for years that VWAP or Fibonacci or Elliott Wave or whatever is the end all be all, so you won’t be able to drop the idea even when you find no value in it. You have to be able to cut your losses in the idea realm too. Sunk cost fallacy is real.

From Tom Basso: “When you find the proper level [of dollar risk] to trade for you, everything will seems easier and less stressful. If you are just starting out, start with as small a size as you can. As you are successful with trading and are starting to notice a long run of sticking with your strategy, having discipline, and feeling comfortable with the process, you can always dial it up a little at that point. The more experience you have, the more size you can tolerate and still feel comfortable that you are right-sized. Err on the conservative side.”

From Jack Schwager’s interview with Stevie Cohen:

“Q: Has that been something you were always able to do—that is, turn on a dime when you think you're wrong?

A: You better be able to do that. This is not a perfect game. I compile statistics on my traders. My best trader makes money only 63 percent or the time. Most traders make money only in the 50 to 55 percent range. That means you're going to be wrong a lot. If that's the case, you better make sure your losses are as small as they can be, and that your winners are bigger.”

“Use a wider initial stop (say 3 ATRs) … once the market starts moving in your favor, tighten up the stop … use a time stop as well as the initial wide stop … doesn’t hit proft target or stop within X bars, just get out.” — Linda Raschke

Every HTB (hard-to-borrow) is guilty until proven innocent and every ETB (easy-to-borrow) is innocent until proven guilty.

chasten

verb

chas·​ten | \ ˈchā-sᵊn \

chastened; chastening\ ˈchās-​niŋ , ˈchā-​sᵊn-​iŋ \

Definition of chasten

transitive verb

1: to correct by punishment or suffering : DISCIPLINE

2a: to prune (something, such as a work or style of art) of excess, pretense, or falsity : REFINE

b: to cause to be more humble or restrained : SUBDUE

….

Never short the break, always short the bounce. Never long the break, always buy the dip.

You have to figure out which swings matter and which swing don’t. Once you have a clear idea about this, you can really start making money.

“You have to find what triggers the defects in your personality, and then avoid them. You’re driving along the road at 70 mph, the white line is there and on the other side of that is the shoulder and the ditch, and it’s wet. You have to know when you get over that white line, so you can get back in your lane and stay in your lane. What are your emotional defects, your triggers which will put you on tilt, where you can rip up weeks or months of profit after hard work. Stay away from the white line, stay in your lane.” — Jeff Davis

“Control fear with a stop, greed with a target, and revenge with a systematic way of re-entering a trade.” — The Chairman

“We tighten the stop up after the trade moves off in our favor.“ — LBR

“For an initial stop, wider is better. When the trade starts to move off in your favor, then you must tighten the stop. If the trade does not do what you think it should do within a certain amount of time, then close the trade out and cancel the stop. In other words, time can function as a stop parameter as well as price levels.“ — LBR

(I’ll add more when inspired.)

Movies Watched -- The Big Sick (2017)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

120 minute running time so at least 20 to 30 minutes too long. Culture clash rom-com. Promising beginning, but then it became mawkish or soppy and started to drag on and on and on. My big problem with it was the guy was a wimp… a feminized, milquetoast-y, Millennial-type. He didn’t tell his parents straight up, “I’m not marrying a Pakistani girl, I’m in love with Elia Kazan’s granddaughter,” he just sort of strung them along. Tiny Holly Hunter (mom) looks good for her age, but I didn’t care for her foul mouth, and there was old mumbling Ray Romano (dad) in disguise (beard and glasses). No discussion of the girl’s health care expenses in the corrupt American healthcare system (that would have been interesting). I wasn’t thrilled. Yellow rating at best.

Dick Brody gets it right: “‘The Big Sick’ suffers from an excess of pleasantness, and this very pleasantness thins out its substance, blands out its tone, weakens its comedy … wan and flaccid … [the movie] labors under the curse of the relatable, the likable, the admirable.“

You can lose your family… for love

You can lose your family… for love

Goin' Back to a Simpler Place and Time

Added on by C. Maoxian.

An aged Gladys Knight singing her big hit from ‘73 while sharing the stage and the song with some kids… you can see how great she is by comparison, there’s just no comparison, really. God bless true talent!

Skyville Live is a new, groundbreaking, online music series. It's a collaboration of great artists from all generations and all genres of music, offering a peek behind the curtain with artist interviews and unforgettable live performances. Enjoy the highlights from our inaugural concert featuring performances from Martina McBride, Gladys Knight & Estelle!

Mind The Wasp

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Big fan of Morcheeba … check out Skye Edwards’ body language… what a voice.

Darlings of down-tempo, Morcheeba, will return to KCRW with vocalist Skye Edwards to perform songs from their freshly minted CD, Blood Like Lemonade for Morning Becomes Eclectic.

Movies Watched -- Oh Lucy! (2018)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Mostly in Japanese. 95 minute running time so a good length, well within the sacred 100 minute limit. Not a feel-good pic. Unusual one, I liked it, sort of… bleak, but they made sure the ending wasn’t completely tragic. Love that Josh Hartnett played the English teacher… I only know him from Black Hawk Down… I have a lot of respect for him for taking this kind of risk. The critics will love the movie but I’m not sure about the general audience — may be way too dark, too weird. Ideas of loneliness, and middle age, and routine, and… misery. Not a comedy.

Tentatively gets a green rating from me… may make my Top Ten list for 2018, but I haven’t seen many movies from that year yet.

Love conquers all

Love conquers all

Movies Watched -- The Guardians (2018)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

In French. 134 minute running time so at least 30 to 40 minutes too long. I watched it at 2.5x ffwd. World War I France … prosperous farm family takes on a lovely redhead orphan to help them while their sons are off at war … one of the sons knocks up the girl, but then he drops her like a hot potato when he thinks she’s fooling with American soldiers, which she isn’t…. the matriarch of the family turns out to be rather cruel herself, but preserving their social status is everything. It wasn’t terrible, just way way too long. Yellow rating at best.

As good as any man

As good as any man

Movies Watched -- Western (2018)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

120 minute running time which means it was 20 to 30 minutes too long. About a crew of blue-collar German guys building a hydro power plant in Bulgaria. It's sort of a modern cowboy thing, but just strange. The lead actor looks like an aged Marlboro Man with a two-pack a day habit. He's alone and he's lonely ... doesn't really get along with the other crew members, has a weird relationship with the Bulgarian villagers. Everyone looks poor and sort of hopeless, which reminded me of China. I wasn't thrilled, it just sort of made me uncomfortable, the whole movie. Not sure why Netflix has it listed as a thriller, but it's pure Art House stuff. Yellow rating if you’re interested in German expatriates in a Balkan country.

Anything can happen in a village

Anything can happen in a village

Trading Notes -- 20190307 Thursday

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Too exhausted to post at end of day… crazy day with BPTH, I didn’t lose anything thank god (or make anything in it, bah). SEEL also active, I did trade that one and did ok. Feeling sort of burned out from doing these daily notes… I’ll put it on hiatus for now. Here’s a 1-minute chart of BPTH through 12:30PM:

2019-03-07_12-28-17 bpth.jpg

Trading Notes -- 20190306 Wednesday

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Broad tone poor, indexes down half a percent (the horror), but I had no idea since HTB SDJ BPTH (246K EOD) had all my attention. Took one stab at it with the bookie (0.02 borrow), lost, and of course didn’t have another day trade to “make it back.” Little angry with myself since I sized 2.25x in a greedy effort which means the loss was 2.25x more than normal, bad… but with multiple day trades of course woulda “made it back.” See how dangerous the thinking is? :-) Also ignored an early long in it which I approached as a potential short only (fixed thinking), which is terrible and costly. AYTU (34.5K EOD) and SSLJ (8.97K EOD sub-dollah) were interesting briefly in the morning, but BPTH was the only game in town, what a screamer. Kind of thing that could bust a cheesy ‘stache kid from the sunshine state, but we’ll never know since he only wins. Included four Day Two charts for your StuckAtaProfit enjoyment.

Trading Notes -- 20190305 Tuesday

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Wife had doctor appt so more or less out all day … tried a quick short flier on DSS before leaving and stopped out at tightened stop, reversing there woulda worked, but it was a no play gamble, bad. Also the IB borrow effect was in play, since I had a borrow I just shorted willy-nilly as a result. That will change when I move to the bookie with the bulk of trading… also commish on 10,000 shares add up quick ($50 a side). TSX played a nice one minute reversal in PETZ (see chart below), but I didn’t open the bookie. Broad market mixed it looks like.

DSS 50.6K, PETZ 44.8K HTB, NCTY 31.1K HTB, AWSM 24.0K HTB … included CIFS and JMU charts to show what it’s like to be StuckAtaProfit after paying 7x for an overnight borrow.

Trading Notes -- 20190304 Monday

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Broad tone neg, gasp, the horror, but indexes only down slightly. CIFS and JMU to HTBs du jour … IB had some CIFS PO but had to be pre-borrowed … JMU totally impossible to borrow, even the bookie didn’t have some at first (then found some) … CIFS 119K, JMU 55.6K … worked on getting long today, went pretty well though it felt extremely weird and unnatural, but I have to overcome this problem if I want to get back to making half a mill a year. Was flipping through watchlist and STNE was on there and I caught it just about right and it tanked, sort of complete dumb luck. BPTH Day Two was squeezy and I wasn’t involved since there was so much action in CIFS and JMU. YRIC sub-dollar Chynar garbage, no borrow at IB and bookie doesn’t allow sub dollar shorts oh well.

Movies Watched -- The Guilty (2018)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

In Danish. 85 minute running time so well within the sacred 100 minute limit. I loved this movie! It all takes place in a police dispatcher’s room, with one cop on the phone, yet it’s totally thrilling and completely engrossing, with things revealed bit by bit, assumptions getting flip-flopped. Really well done. Highly recommended. Will definitely make my Top Ten Movies of 2018 list (which will come out in 2020 since I’m still working on the 2017 list now). The Danes can make some really good movies (and TV shows). A rare case where the 99% fresh rating on rotten tomatoes is actually accurate. Green go, see this one!

It’s all my fault

It’s all my fault

Trading Notes -- 20190301 Friday

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Broad tone poz, you guessed it, market was up again, can’t have two down days in a row, hasn’t happened since last December. BPTH the HTB du jour… 191K … I took one stab at it in morning, took 0.5R loss and then was locked out under PDT. Crazy that I haven’t sent money over to the bookie yet, but will rectify next week for sure … good opportunity to short it in afternoon, but I’m not sure how many losses I would have taken before catching that, and then it rallied to new highs EOD as stuck shorts covered (didn’t want to pay 7x borrow cost, lol) … PBYI also in play 41.7K, shorted it late morning, got good cover on half, didn’t trail second half aggressively enough but still a sizable gain. Then it ran all the way back and made new highs, brutal. I’m sure people blew up on BPTH, it was nearly ZSAN-like scary.

Trading Notes -- 20190228 Thursday

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Broad tone slightly neg … RKDA the HTB du jour (117K) … TGTX also in play (38.7K)… TTOO less so (20.3K) … ENDP (28.7K) woulda been good , but I didn’t see it in time, too busy goofing on TWTR. Traded RKDA and TGTX well, had to go to bookie broker for afternoon borrow in RKDA (0.02), which was a doozy — they smashed people and I was lucky to be able to hop on for the ride … didn’t handle exits especially well and had to leave early for massage, but I learned from some mistakes once again. TGTX dropped an offering at 16:01 the dirty bastards, but I was long gone. GEVO did 1,600 trades total on Day Two. :) Laying out the chart differently so I still have to tinker with that a bit. Found some neat YouTube videos from Steven Du … can’t say if he’s totally legit, but I like what I see. Glad to finish an atrocious month, probably my worst in the last two years, but I’m still standing and always learning so it’s good.

Trading Notes -- 20190227 Wednesday

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Broad tone mixed … GEVO the HTB du jour, no good spot pre-open, woulda had to chase … shorted TNDM, messed it up a bit (paranoid given number of recent all-day runners) but finally got decent average, happy with covers, shorted SE on a 15 min setup, went my way more than 1R then reversed and I didn’t get out immediately, ended up taking planned loss which was an error, shoulda been a scratch at worst… I’m still working on the 15 minute play, how to manage, it’s tough, woulda been perfect long but of course I couldn’t do that! MTP another HTB SDJ, sub dollar though, didn’t really watch since no way to play.