Movies Watched -- Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer (2017)

118 minute running time so at least 18 to 28 minutes too long. A weird one, I fast forwarded from 20 minutes in. Casting a gentile like Richard Gere (a Methodist who converted to Buddhism no less) to play someone named Norman Oppenheimer is nearly as mysterious as casting Steve Buscemi as a rabbi. Anyway, that aside, it is a sad story, the tragic end is not an understatement.

The Jewish macher as someone lovable ...  (macher from maker, a person who gets things done, but it does have the negative connotation of "fixer") ... he's not shady so much as he is a cipher ... a nobody desperately trying to be somebody ... these are sad ideas.  Maybe if it had been 90 minutes long, I could have watched it at normal speed and enjoyed it, but no, it's overly long.  Yellow rating.

Let me introduce you.... 

Notes for Chat with Traders, Episode 65

Episode 65 ... Brett Steenbarger (59:20)

• Read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand as sophomore in college
• Thought psychology could be used to make people do their best
• University of Kansas grad school, late 1970s, political psychology degree
• Trading his avocation, psychology his vocation -- parallel interest
• The Psychology of Trading, his first book, written in 2000
• Victor Niederhoffer, a friend and mentor, encouraged him to write a book
• Teaching at Syracuse University medical school at that time
• Chicago trading firm hired him away to work for them full time as trading coach 
• Market makers he was working with didn't use charts or fundamentals, just the book (DOM)
• Pro athletes still work with coaches even after they've made it; same is true of pro traders
• Markets change, traders need to evolve
• Identify and build upon strengths
• Now he works with several hedge funds and financial firms as a consultant
• Market volatility expands and contracts, traders need to adapt to that
• Separate logical from psychological errors -- correctly identify that first
• People are more sensitive to losing money than making money
• Become exquisitely aware of your habits -- build self-awareness
• Observe yourself, then re-channel yourself
• He has four cats
• Revenge trading comes from frustration, you want to make it back
• Be aware that you are about to revenge trade, step away from screens, calm down
• You can't change something you're not aware of
• Commonalities of successful traders:

1. Adapting to changing markets (trends, volatility, people participating all change)
2. Building on strengths (day traders are good at fast thinking skills and pattern recognition; investors are slower, deeper thinkers)
3. Cultivating creativity (seeing the world differently from others, seeing opportunities others don't see)
4. Developing best practices (and turning them into best processes)

• Best practices: how you generate ideas, manage positions, manage risk and reward, review your results
• Trading Psychology 2.0 is his second book
• You don't have to motivate yourself to eat breakfast, it's just routine
• All your best trading practices should also just be routine, no motivational sticky notes on monitor needed
• Repeat what you do every day until it becomes a routine ... all about repetition
• Make the most of your competencies
• Work around your weaknesses
• Steenbarger knows he can't make markets, cognitively and emotionally he's unable to make rapid decisions and process lots of information
• Steenbarger himself suffers from cognitive overload easily, needs to be able to reflect
• Steenbarger tried to trade full time and absolutely hated it because he wasn't working with people [I'm the opposite]
• Uses guided imagery to have traders imagine hitting their stops, losing money ... but staying calm and controlled
• Effective goal setting requires a specific plan, a day to day plan
• A goal without a plan is a wish
• Not a fan of monetary goals -- performance anxiety is real
• P&L front and center (the outcome) will mess up your processes
• Better to look at improvement ... month to month, not just P&L, but risk-adjusted P&L
• Make friends with loss and failure ... your losing trades teach you things, what changed? 
• Embrace the mistakes you make, ultimately how we become better is by learning from mistakes
• Don't think about your results in dollar terms, think in percentage terms 
• Hard to take risk and make good decisions when you think you must succeed 
• Make sure you have something in your life that's more important than trading
• Trading shouldn't be the major part of your life ... you need to be balanced
• Traders with longevity have some source of satisfaction separate from profits
• A fascination with the markets themselves could be that source of satisfaction
• Website: traderfeed.blogspot.com
• Twitter: @steenbab

Movies Watched -- 20th Century Women (2017)

118 minutes long so at least 18 to 28 minutes too long. Set in Santa Barbara in 1979. Annette Bening is a 55-year-old single mother with a 15-year-old son ... she's sort of a Bohemian Mom, doin' the best she can with a teenage boy, which isn't very good. She chain smokes which may explain why she looks older than 55 (Bening is in fact 59). She has a couple of boarders in her house, and they form a sort of weird "family." I fast forwarded from 20 minutes in.

There are some funny scenes... the "family" and some hippie friends watch Jimmy Carter's "Crisis of Confidence" speech, at the end of which someone says, "Wow, he is so screwed," which made me laugh.  At the dinner afterward, the pretty punk tenant (Greta Gerwig?) leads the group in saying "menstruation" together, which I found amusing. But there's no way I could have sat through two hours of this at normal speed. Yellow rating for Boomers and very early Gen-Xers (say, pre-1965 Gen-X). Anyone under 40, or especially under 30, would hate this nostalgia piece.

Dick Brody wasn't thrilled and got out his thesaurus: "the banalization of its meditative, nearly collage-like sense of memory." Melissa Anderson nails it in this brief review: "a trip back in time in which era-specific talismans substitute for genuine thought. Though big feels glut 20th Century Women, even emotion seems ersatz."

Period blouse

Movies Watched -- Mudbound (2017)

135 minutes with seven minutes of end credits so it's still over 30 minutes too long. Depressing and a tear-jerker. You know something horrible is going to happen the whole time (1940s Mississippi, after all), you have a sense of doom, you know, oncoming tragedy. Female star is Carey Mulligan and her funny ventriloquist dummy face. She's talented and has gotten a *lot* of work in recent years. "Mike Ehrmantraut" plays the villain ... always makes a good bad guy.

The movie wasn't badly made, it's just overly long (Rex said it should be called Stuck-in-the-Mudbound). The atrocities committed by racist white men not that long ago shouldn't be forgotten ... but it isn't entertainment. They tried to end it on an upbeat note, but it's still painful to watch. Yellow rating.

Sharing a smoke.... little nod to Michelangelo (The Creation of Adam)

Movies Watched -- Wonder Woman (2017)

141 minutes with 10 minutes of end credits which means that it's only 30 to 40 minutes too long. The trouble is the backstory takes a good 30+ minutes, the whole Princess Diana of Themyscira, Daughter of Hippolyta thing. There are so many of these comic book superhero movies now because Gen-X has taken power from the dying Baby Boomers, and these are the movies Gen-X wants. The formula is to lighten the ultra-violence with some comedy (including a big dick joke), and it largely works here.

Gal Gadot, wow, talk about the ultimate Jewish Princess. She's amazing -- tall, beautiful, great bod, sexy non-native English speaker accent. I could just watch here alone on screen for 141 minutes. Evil Germans ... who tires of German villains? Dr. Maru's face mask was well done. Matt Damon-ish guy playing the American hero (the Americans are always heroes). Hollywood movie so they throw in an Injun, a Moroccan (with fez!), and a goofy Scotsman (with kilt!) for the Sesame Street PC thing. 

It wasn't terrible, but it was just so long, and filled with CGI bullshit that I hate (looks more like a videogame at times than a movie), and the formula is tired. I can't recommend this, other than just watching it for Gal Gadot, who definitely deserves your very close attention. Yellow rating at best.

Come hither

Movies Watched -- The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)

112 minutes so at least 12 to 22 minutes too long. I hated this. Watched it on Netflix so I couldn't fast forward. Talk talk talk. Screwed-up family. Whining adult children ... Adam Sandler playing a "serious" role -- always a bad sign ... Ben Stiller, ditto ... and there's Adam Driver from Girls again, that guy gets roles non-stop even though he can't act.

What could have interested me here was an exploration of religion... were all of Dustin Hoffman's wives (incl. Emma Thompson, Candice Bergen) gentiles? Were all his kids half-Jewish? Did Judaism play any role in their upbringing? Sandler's beautiful daughter is obviously a WASP, did Sandler marry outside the faith? There was not a word about any of this. His daughter makes shocking artsy porn as a freshman at Bard -- isn't that cute?

Selfish Baby Boomer dad, now a doddering old guy, screwed-up kids, who cares? If Dustin were in the hospital for two months, who paid for it? Would his healthcare plan from Bard pay for all that? Some of it was sort of funny, but not really. I suspect I'd hate every movie that Noah Baumbach makes.

Full red, avoid this movie. 

Update: Meyerowitz lawyers contacted me to take down the screencap. This makes me hate Baumbach even more.

Token black boyfriend to boot!

Movies Watched -- The Salesman (2017)

In Persian. 125 minute running time so at least 25 minutes too long. This was depressing. It was made by the same guy who did About Elly, which was also depressing, and A Separation (which I really liked). Iranian society appears to be screwed up ... I guess it's mainly an Islamic Republic thing (the "clerics' clamp," as Tony Lane put it) ... sacred versus secular / traditional versus modern, etc. All the same themes the guy explores in all his movies (marriage, money, the State), but he's also interested in examining humiliation and revenge here.

What interested me was how poor Iran looked, it reminded me of 1990s China ... terrible construction quality, ugly fixtures, cheap everything -- just depressing. I'm not going to talk about the story at all, since it's a little complicated -- it's a sort-of thriller. The movie starred some stunning Iranian women of Instagram, same as About Elly (same lead actress). Beautiful women. Can't recommend it for a general audience, but my capital A.R.T. art readers will like it ... gets a yellow rating.

SPOILERS: (I don't think any kind of sexual assault happened ... he stroked her hair, thinking she was Ahoo, and when she turned, they both freaked out and she fell and cracked her head open. He panicked and left. There was no rape. Any real "violation" never occurred ... it's just in her husband's mind.)

You lookin' at me?

No Better To Be Safe Than Sorry

Lovely cover of the seminal A-ha song from my youth by the great Rachel Price and her band of hipsters: 

There are few songs more quintessentially '80s than Norwegian band A-ha's "Take On Me." It's a synth-heavy power ballad accompanied by a high-concept music video, checking all the boxes that defined the pop music of the decade.

Notes for Chat with Traders, Episode 158

Episode 158 ... Phil Goedeker (62:01)

• During earnings season, small caps don't run
• Wanted to make big money before his 30s, didn't want to do a lot of schooling
• Only two routes: real estate and the stock market
• Opened first brokerage account as sophomore in college with $3,000, lost it all
• Studied everything he could, but couldn't find any consistency
• Next summer's earnings of $3,000, lost it all during junior year
• Didn't have patience to buy and hold
• Finally discovered short selling as a senior in college
• CAFE ("Host America") went from $5 to $15
• He shorted as much as he could
• CAFE was halted for a month, he was scared to death
• CAFE opened at $5 from $15 and he made $15,000 [CAFE delisted in 2005]
• Started shorting overhyped stocks exclusively during senior year
• Turned $5,000 into $1,000,000 between August (2005?) and May (2006?)
• He went all-in on every position he took, no rules, would just hope for the best
• Graduated with an accounting degree, but knew he'd never be an accountant
• Lost $500,000 by August (2006?) ... was "clueless"
• Got scared, took $400,000 out, put it in the bank, kept $100,000 for his trading bankroll -- 22 years old
• "Well hell"
• Every month, whatever he made from the $100,000 trading stake, he'd put in the bank
• Went next three to four years making half a million dollars a year -- 25 to 26 years old
• Studied all the big winning stocks on a yearly, monthly, weekly basis -- till he was "blue in the face"
• Drove a Hummer H2
• He went through everything, every mistake, every high, every low
• Never had another job other than day trading since sophomore year in college -- 13 or 14 years now
• Wanted to make $30,000-$40,000 a month with his $100,000
• Had one losing year in his late twenties when he strayed from his old style
• Went back to his old style (shorting small caps) and went back to making big money
• "Well hell"
• Tried his best to eliminate his big losing trades, "cut his losses faster"
• Increased position size on his golden setups and cut losses faster -- had even better years
• Late 2017 had some golden setups: HMNY from $2 to $37; RIOT from sub-$10 to $46 -- "hype bubbles" [charts below]
• Only plays from the short side
• Momentum names are manipulated, low float (less than five million shares), press releases to pump them up
• Cryptocurrencies are the same -- low float plus hype
• Halt risk a major concern on these plays -- need to be cautious on the long side
• Timing the shorts is difficult -- shorted 100,000 shares HMNY from $8.50, got out in high $9s -- took the loss
• Starter size (5,000-10,000 shares) in positions -- goes against him, he takes the loss; goes with him, he adds
• Never starts a short and looks to add higher ... never adds to a losing position
• Day three of a parabolic move should be a winning entry, but who knows, it often isn't
• He gets extremely aggravated entering the positon -- takes a lot of small losses
• Pays a lot of attention to volume -- only looks at price, volume, and VWAP
• Big drops on heavy volume is one of the main things he looks for
• Bases his stops off the chart ... tries to find support and resistance levels on chart
• Find your niche as a trader ... find out what you're good at
• Parabolic set-ups are what he's good at ... puts all his money behind those trades
• Timing the crash of these parabolics is the difficult part
• So excited when he sees a parabolic set-up, he can't sleep at night
• 75-80% of his trading income comes from shorting the parabolic moves
• Multi-day versus multi-week versus multi-month runners
• The higher it goes, the more conviction he has, the larger his position size
• Gotten lazy because he has two kids now
• Every year, prints out charts of all the stocks that are the year's biggest low float winners, all "pockets of air"
• Every single one of them has crashed
• Adds to his winners as they collapse, "slamming that bid"
• He might hold a winner for weeks on end
• Only overnight risk he has is a Press Release
• Mentions ETRM from 2016? [now delisted]
• Mentions KBIO ... stock went from $2 to $10 or $12 then went to $40 [now OTC]
• Seen a lot of traders blow up holding low float shorts overnight
• Wait for the backside of the move, "backside" is after it has exhausted itself [no clear definition of "backside" given]
• Slams the bid over and over and over again... he definitely moves the stock by doing this
• 95% of traders fail because they lose money [Ummm] ... they don't have their niche [OK]
• Find out what you're good at and perfect it
• Take it slow, take it in stages as you increase your position size
• Has seven or eight brokers now, essential if you're short-biased
• If you're long-biased, only need one broker
• In order to short the stuff he's shorting, the broker has to have shares available [tell me about it]
• Low float stocks -- most brokers don't have shares available
• If one broker has the shares as easy to borrow, no need to look to his other brokers
• Getting the locate is everything, without multiple brokers, you won't be able to play the low float parabolic game
• Locate fees and fees for holding overnight vary from broker to broker
• Locate fees and overnight fees are extremely high -- will take at least 10-15% of your gross profits
• He was long GBTC, didn't realize it wasn't marginable, when it dropped he got a large margin call
• He has traded beside other good traders who have blown up ... 5-, 10-, 15-year veterans who made one or two mistakes and they're gone
• "You get stubborn and you're done"
• Make sure you have a backup plan ... his is buying farmland in Missouri, then rents it to farmers
• If he blew up tomorrow, he couldn't get a job because day trading is all he has ever done
• He has owned a lot of rental properties and it's a "big pain in the butt," "nightmare tenants"
• "Well hell"
• Hired property managers to deal with tenants, then he had to manage the property managers (another nightmare)
• Farmland, he can't touch the money, and it doesn't take away from his market focus
• Farmland: zero stress, zero time, zero maintenance
• "Thank you, sir."
• Twitter: @Ozarktrades

HMNY, Daily

RIOT, Daily

Notes for Chat with Traders, Episode 10

Episode 10 ... Tim Grittani (52:48)

• Finance major at Marquette

• Learned that he didn't like finance

• Was into poker and sports betting in high school

• Opened account with ShareBuilder(?)

• Started randomly buying and selling 30 cent stocks

• Lost half his account within a couple of weeks

• Joined Tim Sykes' "Silver Package"

• Blindly followed trade alerts from "gurus"

• Had emotional trouble once money was on the line

• Hiding his P&L helped him become less emotional

• Went full time after six months of struggle, $1,300 in the hole

• November 2011 (?) back to breakeven

• Made a new mistake, learned something new every day for six months

• Learned to focus on a couple main set-ups

1. OTC Pump and Dumps

2. Buying multi-week or 52-week breakouts

• Frustrated with listed stocks because too many factors affecting stocks

• OTC stocks trade in a world of their own

• Learned to understand promotions run on OTC market

• Promoters have email lists with thousands of people on them

• Understood all the connected promoter websites, subscribed to all of them

• Would try to act on emails he received as fast as possible, beat the crowd on the spike up

• Would also buy breaks of daily highs on the pumped stock

• Fine line with fraud regarding stock promotions

• Learned liquidity all important

• Began short selling promotions instead of buying them

• OTC promotions would get halted and would re-open weeks later down dramatically

• OTC market dead until marijuana stocks ran in 2014

• Began short selling listed stocks in the same way he shorted OTC promotions

• When he sees patterns forming, he knows what to do

• His edge is his experience

• Spends 15 minutes every night putting together the next day's watchlist

• Lost $290,000 on a single trade, LAKE, 9.90 entry, October 2014 (chart below)

• Refused to cut his losses when mis-timed his entries, would always look to add higher

• Before LAKE, trades would always work out for him in the end, developed a bad habit

• LAKE experience taught him to cut losses

• You need the right broker for your trading strategy

• SpeedTrader best to buy OTC promotions back then

• Only trade liquid, volatile stocks

• Identify and focus on your niche

• Traded only two OTC set-ups (new promotions, breakouts), nothing else

• Trade charts and price action only (not hype)

• Everyone knows OTC stocks are garbage, but just as many listed stocks are also garbage

• Never hold and hope

• Cut losses intelligently, not necessarily quickly

• Base stops on chart, not some preconceived dollar or percentage amount

• Figure your size from your risk level ... dollar risk is constant

• "Trade the ticker, not the company" -- a Nate Michaud saying

• Couldn't live without a market scanner -- how he finds his plays

• Top percent gainers with dollar volume requirements is his main scan

• Hasn't read any trading books, but interested in trading psychology books most

• Don't waste your time following trade alerts or mimicking trades

• Just make your own trades, win or lose, figure things out on your own

• Be mindful about volume and liquidity -- avoid thin stocks

• Blog: tradetheticker.blogspot.com

• Twitter: @KroyRunner89