Movies Watched -- Eye in the Sky

Under the sacred 100 minute mark, so it had that going for it ... the end credits were like 10 minutes long. Sort of reverse War Porn but I wasn't buying any of it. Somali Al-Shabaab Islamic crazies in Kenya ... Colonel "Big Balls" Mirren has finally tracked down several people on the "kill list" and it's time to take 'em out with a drone strike. Trouble is a bunch of Guardian-reading British politicians throw a spanner in the works when the collateral damage estimate comes in a tad high. They have to keep "referring up" to a higher level of Guardian reader to know "where we stand legally."

Jesse Pinkman is the weepy American drone operator accompanied by some big-eyed girl also given to tears. Look, the real drone guys would be high fiving each other given this opportunity... they would be chomping at the bit to blow away some bad guys after doing *years* of boring surveillance runs. Finally, finally we get to kill some people! Oh, there are some kids playing in the street nearby? Tough shit, this is war. The pan flute and violin score ain't going to tug on these heartstrings.

Do we have the authority to prosecute the target? Hell yes! And why are you talking like a lawyer, asshole? 

You remember we dropped two *atomic* bombs on cities *full* of civilians, yes? And you remember we fire-bombed every major Japanese city for THIRTY days straight (and the rotten bastards still wouldn't surrender?). Remember when we dropped hundreds of thousands of gallons of *napalm* (thanks, Dow Chemical) across the Vietnamese jungle? We're not going to go all weak in the knees because there's one kid selling a loaf of bread nearby. Got-damn weak Baby Boomers have ruined everything!

There are no beetle- or bird-sized drones. We don't have that technology yet. Shameless pandering to China scene where the US Secretary of State is playing ping pong there ... thankfully brief. Can't recommend this one ... it's unrealistic, the premise is bullshit ... and though it was not overly long, it could have been even shorter. 

Jesse Pinkman, teary-eyed drone operator

Configurable Buttons at Interactive Brokers

Took me about six months to set up my buttons the way I like them in Interactive Brokers' Trader Workstation (TWS). Here are all the things you have to figure out ... useful ones are Add Target Limit Order, Buy, Sell, Duplicate, Increase and Decrease (size): Modify, and Presets. 

Movies Watched -- Arrival

116 minutes long so at least 16 to 26 minutes too long.

SPOILERS. Mind-bender movie. Alien invasion. If I understood it correctly, the aliens give the gift of their squid-ink language because they're going to need our help in 3,000 years time. For learners of their language, time becomes non-linear. Does this make sense? Wouldn't that change the whole nature of life on earth? I wasn't thrilled with this. 

Have I seen Amy Adams in anything before? Can't remember. Also stars Jeremy "Ugly Bourne" Renner, Forest "Sleepy Eye" Whitaker -- a token black guy who surprisingly isn't killed, and the charming Jewish mobster, Arnold Rothstein -- here a CIA agent. I recognized no one else.

There's a large and annoying part given to China and their "General Shang" in a shameless kowtowing attempt to be chosen as one of the handful of American movies that the Chicoms allow into their protected market. On par with "The Martian's" kowtowing -- disgusting.

If it were 20 minutes shorter and cut out the Chinese, I could give it a sort of weak yellow rating, but as it is, this gets a red AVOID rating. 

"If you had your life to live over again...."

Movies Watched -- The Witch

I haven't watched *any* movies from 2016 so I'll start to work my way through the top 100 now. 

92 minutes so within the sacred 100 minute mark. I was a little leery since The Witch is a W.D. By movie (written and directed by the same person, which means it's their baby, for good or ill). Surprisingly, I enjoyed this one. I'm not big on horror but there were no jump-scares or other cheap ticks in this movie, thankfully ... it's more of a witchcraft thing ... 1630s America, you know, 60 years before the Salem Witch Trials. Well plotted, well acted, well done ... and scary. 

Don't see it if you're sensitive ... kids definitely should NOT see this ... but if you're a jaded old guy like me, you will enjoy it. 

Wouldst thou like to see the world?

Notes for Chat with Traders, Episode 89

Episode 89 ... Blake Morrow (80:41)

• Lives in Phoenix, Arizona
• Went to college after getting out of military
• Mid-1990s, stockbroker friend asked him to join firm since he had gift of gab
• Got the job, got Series 7 and 63
• He was good at selling over the phone but he wasn't interested in the job
• Stockbroker friend sat with market maker for several months, learned to trade
• SOES Bandits from Block Trading made front cover of Inc. Magazine [I remember it well]
• Went to Scottsdale office of Block Trading and started day trading
• Lost 60% of his account in first six months, rich guy had staked him
• Turned things around, did well for himself [doesn't say how?]
• Moved to Dallas, opened a day trading office
• Sold direct access trading company to Wize Trading Group
• Been with Wize Trading Group ever since
• No Pattern Day Trader rule when he started
• Was using 20:1 margin in the early days
• No one traded from home, didn't have the technology, would go to an office
• First book he read was Mark Douglas' Disciplined Trader
• Rich guy who staked him also paid for Blake's education with various chartists
• Rich guy wasn't too alarmed when Blake lost 70% of his money in six months
• Blake was 26 or 27 when he started [born 1970?]
• Dot com boom bailed him out, Blake did well, rich guy did well
• Blake ate a lot of ramen noodles, peanut butter, and bread during lean times
• Mom had a rental property in Phoenix which she let him use at favorable rate
• If you want to trade for a living, can't be stressed out by the money
• Blake was young, no family, no kids, could take a lot of risks
• He was lucky to have caught some dot com stocks which gave him a cushion
• Backbone of his trading: patience, waiting for the market to set up
• No trader education back then, he just learned by trial and error
• Let the trade come to you, don't chase
• Risk-reward a concept he picked up early in his career
• His buddy who sat next to him acted as drill sargeant and trading companion
• Learned by studying charts, which were taboo at the time
• 2003-2004 stopped trading stocks, started trading currencies exclusively
• His analysis isn't fancy, same as 20 years ago
• Matches up indicators and trendlines which causes him to act
• Looks for pullbacks, Fibonacci levels 38% 50% 62%
• Matches Fib levels with trendlines and indicators like the RSI
• Trading isn't glamorous, it's boring
• Everything in nature has some Fibonacci relationship
• Human emotions also have Fibonacci ratios [things that make you go hmmm]
• Fibonacci retracements and extensions places where human emotions are
• Fibonacci confluence or clusters are things you look for
• He wants to buy what people are selling and sell what people are buying
• Managing risk an important part of trading
• Looks at Fibonacci clusters as a "zone"
• Japanese candlesticks are valuable tools, esp. the daily candle
• Loves trading the markets, in front of screen 15 hours a day
• Gets up extremely early since he's in Arizona
• Has company called Forex Analytix with Nicola Duke and others
• He's Chief Currency Strategist at Wize Trade Group, hosts webinars
• Markets not like a bike, if you get off, you won't remember how to ride it
• Have to stay engaged with the markets or you'll fall out of touch
• Likes ForexFactory calendar
• Likes ForexLive website
• First question always: What is my risk? Where do you get out when you're wrong?
• Don't risk more than 1% in a single trade
• Don't paper trade, trade micro-lots instead
• Have to feel the pain of losing $5
• Save your money, you need more than the "minimum" to start trading
• Practice using the platform with tiny amounts
• Stay with big name currency brokers that are highly regulated
• Swiss National Bank surprise decision wrecked some big UK-based currency brokers
• Blake says some kind things to Aaron in parting
• www.forexanalytix.com
• Twitter: @PipCzar

Notes for Chat with Traders, Episode 44

Episode 44 ... Michelle Koenig (66:57)

• Has a finance degree from Montana State U.
• Went into pharmaceutical sales
• Got office manager job at Edward Jones
• Went into software sales
• Started trading part-time on her own 
• Trial by fire, read message boards, had no plan at first
• Started reading books on technical analysis
• When she started, had no chat rooms, no mentors available
• Longer learning curve back then, no one to bounce ideas off of
• Software company she was working for ran out of money
• Husband had full-time job, she had a backstop
• Went from trading part-time to full-time
• Started with $40K and more than doubled it to $100K within six months
• Filled with overconfidence as a result
• Got sloppy and lost all those gains and then some
• Craved independence that trading gave her, has an entrepreneurial spirit
• Need to be stubborn and resilient to make it as a trader, can't give up
• Need to treat trading like a business: need a plan, strategy, rules, working capital
• Keep losses small and move forward
• Have to be able to take losses, can't "hold and hope"
• Took three to four years before she became consistent
• Emotional roller coaster of trading: euphoria to depression
• Time in the seat helps with controlling emotions
• Technical swing trader: flags, triangles, rectangles
• Starts with daily chart, drills down to 60  minute chart, finds a level that makes sense
• Uses 50 period EMA on 60 minute chart
• Doesn't discriminate between high price low price, big float small float, etc.
• Wants the move to happen quickly, ten days max
• Swing trading is a more relaxed style, giving the trade time to work
• Overnight risk of swing trading ... gaps above or below stops
• Never holds through earnings
• Likes bull and bear flag patterns best, and triangles too
• If only had one thing to trade would be 50 EMA on 60 minute chart
• Uses Stockcharts.com, been a member for 13 years
• Loves looking at charts, like putting together a puzzle
• Puts a number of indicators on daily charts: RSI, MACD, moving averages
• On her 60 minute charts uses slow stochastic and 50 EMA
• 95% technicals, 5% fundamentals -- will look at float, short interest, institutional ownership
• Uses finviz.com to look at those fundamental statistics
• Her day trading usually news-based
• Winning day trades becomes swing trades
• Exits hardest part of the trade for her
• Uses combination of trend lines and moving averages to move stops up once profitable
• Flags and triangles give a measured move
• Give trades room and time to work, the trailing stop will take her out
• Tries to keep things simple, don't want to be paralyzed
• She's not floofy or fancy, likes things to be simple and clean
• Looks at 300-600 charts a day ... antiquated process of flipping through them
• Looks at percentage gainers for day trades at finviz.com, looks through charts manually
• Uses ThinkOrSwim, loves the charting there
• Chasing an entry is never a good idea
• Don't try to catch the bottom or the top, just catch the middle of the move
• Patience is important ... set your risk, follow your plan
• Easy to be impatient when you're staring at a screen which is blinking constantly
• New traders think that trading is easy -- they're WRONG
• New traders don't understand their personality type and how it matches a trading style
• New traders have no plan
• New traders want alerts
• New traders mix up their styles, try both day trading and swing trading at once
• New traders jump from one strategy to the next
• New traders want to trade stocks and options and futures all at once
• Market extracts a tuition cost from every new trader
• Down time very important for traders, get away from the screens
• She walks away at the market close, might come back to screens in evening
• Afternoons for riding horses, fishing, hiking, cleaning stalls [lives in Montana]
• You need balance, don't be tied to the screens 12 hours a day 7 days a week
• Taking breaks during the day also very important, go throw the dog a ball
• Trading is lonely ... you're a hobbit in your cave
• Participates in Traders For A Cause, Las Vegas event to raise charity money
• Runs swing trading service, chat room, private Twitter feed, and has DVD for sale
• www.tradeonthefly.com
• Twitter: OffshoreHunters

Notes for Chat with Traders, Episode 94

Episode 94 ... Kenny Glick (80:28)

A funny interview with a guy who must be right around my age, clearly a Gen-Xer. 

• From Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn
• Did stand-up comedy when 19 years old
• Opened up for Andrew Dice Clay, the "thrill of his life"
• Did internship at Saturday Night Live
• Hung out with Adam Sandler, had a lot of fun
• Answered phone with stupid voice, got fired
• "Who fires a slave?"
• Worked on Jon Stewart show pre-Daily Show
• Trading is hard but stand-up is harder
• 5th grade math teacher did stock market project, Kenny got interested
• Guy in suit at comedy club asked him to come sell stocks on Long Island
• Turned out to be a boiler room, Kenny had to make 300 calls a day, paid $400 a week, hated it
• Some guys from this Long Island boiler room opened another room, sponsored Kenny for Series 7
• Kenny went 30 days without smoking weed before Series 7 exam
• Kenny got 93 on Series 7, expected them to hold a parade for him, they laughed at him instead
• Boiler rooms super shady, just pure fraud
• "Don't put any of your friends or your family into this stock."
• Kenny breaks into the schpiel he used as a boiler room man [I'm falling off my chair laughing]
• Built a book of 80-100 clients, which was pretty good in 18 months
• Noticed all slot machines in Vegas made by IGT
• Recommended IGT to all his clients, one guy wanted to buy $100K worth
• Movie Boiler Room dead-on, completely accurate
• Knucklehead friend Ben made $25K a month doing boiler room sales, bought a Ferrari
• "Rebuttal Book" the key to Ben's sales, no matter what the client said, he had a comeback
• Kenny didn't like ripping people's heads off, he was just a funny guy, enjoyed schmoozing clients
• 1992-1993, this was pre-SOES, pre-day trading
• 1997-1998 Kenny started SOES trading with his Bar Mitzvah money 
• 1998 Kenny started trading stocks on his own, quit the boiler rooms
• Dawn of the Internet, mentions Netscape, Iomega, RealNetworks, Doubleclick
• Saw the internet stocks jumping 10% a day, incredible
• Adaptec, the SCSI drive, all these things started flying
• "Once I learned about options, I got in trouble"
• Developed a gambling habit with options
• Got in a bad situation, wandered the earth 
• Grew a beard, wore jeans shorts, Timberlands & Grateful Dead t-shirt [he hit rock bottom]
• 1999 -- All you had to do was buy breaks of the previous day's high
• Made $5-$10K a day, quit by 11 AM, would go to the park, smoke weed, and play hacky sack
• Buddies at trading firm taught Kenny to think in "If Then" statements 
• Trading buddy "Isaac" taught him never to rush
• "It's better to be late and right than early and wrong." [Isaac is a wise man]
• Isaac taught him about the "dash for trash" at the end of a bull market
• Isaac told him in February 2000, "the end is near" 
• Mentions CMRC, Crossroads, CMGI, SDLI ... Kenny started shorting them
• Kenny made a lot of money on the dot com crash
• But then he bought all the dot com stocks after they dropped 90% ... and then they went to zero
• Akamai (AKAM) the only survivor that he still holds from that era
• 2007 he had friends at Bear Stearns, they asked Kenny if he could find them a job
• "Why are you asking an idiot day trader for a job?"
• Shorted Bear Stearns on the basis of this
• Didn't do as well on the 2008 Crash as he did on the 2000 Crash
• Tried to pick a top in QQQ in March of 2011 or 2012?, position size 50x larger than usual
• Got crushed, dry mouth, sweaty hands ... took only half off into the close
• Gapped up the next day, ripped higher, his loss grew even larger
• This experience turned him into a megabull
• "The reason I day trade is to find swing trades"
• Kenny tries to identify "exhaustion situations"
• Trade from one consolidation range to the next consolidation range
• "Analysts are paid shills"
• Analysts only upgrade or downgrade stocks at the end of a move
• Losers take a losing day trade and turn it into a losing swing trade
• Losers take a losing swing trade and turn it into a losing investment
• Kenny likes to take winning day trades and turn them into winning swing trades
• Kenny will take off 80% of his winning day trade and hold remaining 20% as a swing trade
• If the swing trade is a winning trade, then Kenny will buy call options 
• Kenny prefers holding options instead of large stock positions
• Once you find something that works, just do it over and over again
• Trading should be boring
• "I appreciate you having me on and shooting the shit like this"
• Don't short until you see something gap up, roll over, and go red
• "Let the top pick itself" -- another Isaac-ism [Isaac is a wise man]
• You're never going to pick the top, so don't go broke trying
• If you ever say "let's see what happens," get the hell out [tears of laughter rolling down my face]
• You hear someone say they're stuck in a stock, you think, "Really? Rip the Band-aid off!"
• If you're in a losing trade and mutter "let's see what happens," get out!
• "What's the worst that can happen?" Get out!
• Kenny has a list of stocks that he has "banned," refuses to trade them
• Don't hang around all day watching the market
• Once you win the money, you leave 
• You don't need to trade constantly
• Not trading is a position
• If you're sitting at your computer between 11:30 and 12:30 or 2:30 PM, you're sick
• "Flat, my friends, is a position."
• Kenny runs a private chat
• People can come and hang out with Kenny in his trading room for a month for free
• "I'm a Jewish fellow [but] can make an amazing ravioli"
• Can pay a one-time membership fee to be friends with Kenny
• The hardest part is sticking to the concepts that you know work
• Kenny says some kind things to Aaron in parting
• www.hitthebid.com
• Twitter: @HitTheBidRadio

Notes for Chat with Traders, Episode 139

Episode 139 ... Bobby Cho (39:38)

• Worked for Restricted Stock Partners which became Second Market, eventually bought by Nasdaq
• Traded illiquid assets for these firms, trying to value esoteric stuff, on desk for six years
• Discovered Bitcoin: just another opaque, illiquid market at the end of 2013
• Worked for itBit, Bitcoin exchange domiciled in Singapore
• Bitcoin missing infrastructure back then
• Must establish exchange if you want to get institutional money into Bitcoin
• itBit got first digital currency trust company charter, New York State Department of Financial Services-regulated
• Gemini is the second company to go the trust company charter route
• Now he works for DRW / Cumberland Mining
• Lion's share of volume they do is Bitcoin and Ethereum
• Cumberland Mining desk can handle institutional-sized cryptocurrency trades that exchanges can't handle
• First thing you have to do is read the White Paper on Bitcoin
• Bitcoin is a 24-7, global market
• DRW Trading has a number of verticals: trading (HFT), real estate, venture capital, cryptocurrencies
• Curious people are attracted to cryptocurrencies
• Don Wilson is entrepreneurial and curious
• Cumberland Mining -- no investors, shareholders or clients -- just trade their own book
• Cumberland Mining was started in 2014
• Market making in Bitcoin for block transactions, exchanges can't handle that size
• Bitcoin is a push function, once you send it, it's gone ... scary to institutional investors
• Bitcoin price discovery is still fluid, 200+ separate exchanges worldwide
• Custody is the major issue with Bitcoin ... where to go for it? 
• Institutional investors get nervous about custody issues, very leery of cryptocurrencies as a result
• Top ten cryptocurrency exchanges all domiciled in different locations with different regulatory requirements
• Liquidity completely fragmented
• Every exchange has a different fee structure
• Difficult even to wire money in and out of exchanges, different fees for each exchange 
• KYC -- Know Your Customer ... all about compliance with anti-money laundering regulations
• People are trying to arbitrage Bitcoin among exchanges, but not much of an edge there
• People drawn to Bitcoin at first by the price volatilily -- pure speculation
• Core investors in Bitcoin understand the technology, the ease of use, they're believers, not speculators
• Bobby is just a Bitcoin market maker, won't speculate on its long term outlook
• Twitter: @robertjcho

TV Shows Watched -- Fauda

Watched season one awhile back and have been meaning to blog about it... this is the best TV show I've seen in a *long* time ... it's from Israel and it's about an Israeli counter-terrorism unit ... old readers know I'm not a fan of War Porn or anything that glorifies the Security State, but this is really well-done drama. 

Most important of all it shows you how absurd the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is. These are people who can't tell each other apart on sight, and they speak one another's language so perfectly that they can't even hear an accent! The root of the problem here can't be competing creation myths, it has to be about resources (land, water, capital, etc.)

Anyway, it's on Netflix and I can't recommend it highly enough. Here are my selected screenshots with comments: 

Doron taking the bride hostage

Barista pre-Boom

Great Schnoz

Bitchy Israeli counter-terrorist's wife

Bitchy Palestinian terrorist's wife

Not down with torture

Colleague with whom wife is two-timing 

Captain Slimey

New Rules

This young Albanian! lady (born 1995) has several 100,000,000+listens songs on Spotify, but this is the only one that I liked ... it helps that I've adapted the lyrics to incorporate all my stock trading rules: ♪♫♬My trading rules, I flout 'em.♪♫♬

MY DEBUT ALBUM #DL1 IS OUT NOW!!! A massive thank you to everyone buying and streaming it 🌹🌹🌹 THANK YOU MY LOVES 🚀💖 https://wbr.ec/dualipa-album Follow me online: https://wbr.ec/website_dualipa https://wbr.ec/facebook_dualipa https://wbr.ec/twitter_dualipa https://wbr.ec/instagram_dualipa