Looks like Regard’s “Ride It” is going to fall off the Spotify Global Top 50 … I think it’s good enough to include among my selections … video is sort of a celebration of crystal methamphetamine, which is unfortunate, but I don’t personally know any victims so I’m OK with it:
Chairman Recommended -- Herbal Tea
I tried a bunch of different herbal teas recently, and the best one I found was Paromi’s detox with me. Pricey at 60 cents a sachet, but worth it. I need a caffeine-free tea since any amount of caffeine I have during the day screws up my sleep cycle.
If you know of a better brand, please tell me about it.
Movies Watched -- The Big Heat (1953)
89 minute running time … Columbia movie … pretty gritty and violent for its day … suicide, homicide, blackmail, car bombs, threatening a policeman’s family, prostitution, torture, burning people with cigarettes, throwing pots of coffee in their face, strangulation, corruption … it’s pretty intense. The only problem I had was that Glenn Ford doesn’t come across as that much of a tough guy. Lee Marvin is a good bad guy, Gloria Grahame is good as a gangster’s dame, the head honcho Italian gangster was good. The story wasn’t bad, the pacing wasn’t bad, Fritz Lang directed, I don’t know why I’m hesitating to make it green-go … I guess I will temporarily until I see more movies from 1953. John Farr recommended it, calling it “brutal and in-your-face,” and he’s right.
You couldn't plant enough flowers around here to kill the smell.
Everybody Finds His Own Approach
Discovered Alice Sara Ott today … half-German, half-Japanese, born in 1988. Her discography.
Stock Du Jour, Fri. May 8, 2020, PTGX
Protagonist Therapeutics (PTGX) was the stock du jour, doing 159,000 trades and $525MM in volume. It was a latecomer, meaning I didn’t notice it immediately and only added it to the Bookmap at 10AM, so the tape is shorter than usual. PTGX was easy-to-borrow, but I did play it short at IB, and was looking for a big fade from my entry at $15, but it only dropped to $13 then came back and I closed it end of day around $14.
Other in-play stocks were MRAM (really jerked me around, shorted it, got jammed out, re-shorted it, got re-jammed out, ugly. Worst part was borrow at IB was iffy so I shorted it at the bookie as well, then got fills at IB, so I lost a lot with both brookie and broker, double what I expected to lose, in a sense) … FTEK (missed my entry), VUZI (did short it but they held it up all day and I took a loss), CWH (did short it, but it too came back, took a loss).
A day of net losses for sure, no tilt though, all planned losses, it’s just bad when you call tails and flip heads five times in a row.
Movies Watched -- Detective Story (1951)
103 minute running time … written for the stage, maybe? (Yes, it was.) Started out sort of slow and cheesy, a day in the life of a detective bureau in the big city, but then the story picked up speed and drama … it got pretty interesting, some good writing for sure, Eleanor Parker was really good (ah ha, best actress nomination for this one, I believe it) … young Kirk Douglas, he’s always intense … and Cathy O’Donnell (remember Keechie?), beautiful, and young Lee Grant, also beautiful. Anyway, I was pretty moved by this one, it was good, I liked it, green-go … a possible Top 500 movie selection. Thanks to John Farr, who rightly called it “absorbing and devastating,” for the recommendation
I'd rather go to jail for 20 years than find out my wife was a tramp.
Movies Watched -- Night Train to Munich (1940)
95 minute running time … British movie, not really a thriller, more of a comedy, British humor, silliness … 1940 was pretty early days though … not terrible, but also not good enough to recommend; John Farr did.
Crooks don't generally play for the Gentlemen.
Stock Du Jour, Thu. May 7, 2020, IO
ION Geophysical (IO) was the stock du jour, doing 191,000 trades and $147MM in volume. It was hard-to-borrow and I paid the brookie 1.92 cents per share ($192 per 10,000) for the borrow. It gave me a good spot and faded all day (with one cynical stop run attempted at 11:45ish, study the Bookmap closely there). I was a very good boy and took NO partial profits (Dave Mabe’s constant badgering having a good effect),
TTPH was also in play, also hard-to-borrow ($322 per 10,000) … got a good spot but this one DID succeed in jamming me out on a cynical stop run (a redundancy), but I was wise to their ways and quickly re-shorted. I could have made quite a bit more if I had covered after hours, but it’s Thursday and I’m already pretty exhausted from sitting in front of screens all day (I’m an old man), so I said the heck with it.
Now all was not caramel popcorn and mint juleps, I also opened up IB and… you guessed it, shorted two ETB stocks that were in-play: WTRH and FSLY. As is nearly always the case, I was tricked, trapped and stopped out pretty fast in both of them. It was fine, planned loss and all that. But then… yep, right at the close, I swear ten minutes from the close, I hammered into both of them to get revenge, you know, get back those earlier losses, and I think you know what happened. Yes, more losses. Unnecessary losses. So I’m annoyed with myself.
Nevertheless the sick coin banked in the HTBs offset the stupid ETB shorts at IB, which means I wasted another day of my life (plus paying a lot of borrow fees). You have to be constantly vigilant, can’t slip up, can’t go on tilt, can’t get revenge. Gotta just let it go. Until tomorrow!
Stock Du Jour, Wed. May 6, 2020, XRF
China Rapid Finance (XRF) was the stock du jour (more specifically the HTB du jour), doing 157,000 trades and $86MM in volume … it was hard-to-borrow and I paid 2.71 cents per share to borrow it ($271 per 10,000 shares). It gave me a good spot and faded all day. I was a good boy and took no partial profits and ended up making 25% on the full position. I also traded POAI (3.29 cent borrow) and MDGS (a 9.19 cent borrow and a meaningless partial fill) with the brookie. POAI was a very good trade, but MDGS I messed up, the partial fill on borrow threw me, then I missed entry, had to chase (but didn’t really have to), then hated everything about it and scratched it later in the day.
Two ETBs were in-play today: MGNX (318,000 trades and $2BB in volume) and LPSN (45,400 trades and $345MM in volume). I noticed them late so I don’t have a full Bookmap tape to replay, otherwise I’d make MGNX the stock du jour. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t play any ETBs at IB from the short side, but these two were real parabolics and I couldn’t resist trading MacroGenics. Of course I got tricked, trapped, and top-ticked out, but of course I expected that to happen … ETB after all.
It was a good day all things considered, I was a good boy, patiently waiting for my spots, sizing right, riding the winners hard, no partial profits, banking sick coin, brah (though never stress-free) … no tilt, no revenge trading, no TWTR … only thing I’m upset about is playing an ETB at the end of the day there, but that should serve as a reminder not to do so in coming days and weeks (or minutes, if tilted). You’re always one trade away from total destruction in this biz, and don’t let anyone tell you differently.
Stock Du Jour, Tue. May 5, 2020, MVIS
Microvision (MVIS) was the stock du jour, or more specifically, the HTB (hard-to-borrow) du jour, doing 373,000 trades and $409MM in volume. It coiled beautifully all morning clearly defining half number $1.50 as the key level of “support” (esp. visible using Bookmap) … the borrow was 1.77 cents per share ($177 per 10,000) and I got a good entry. My old trading buddy Dave Mabe has been counseling about letting my winners run and I was a good boy and didn’t take a single partial profit as it collapsed 35%. Note that SSR was triggered by a penny, those clever devils! Yep, banked some sick coin, brah, though it was not, and never will be, “stress-free.”
I also traded SGBX (38,800 trades) and CLSK (242,000 trades) with the brookie, paying 19.91 (!) cents and 2.25 cents per share, respectively, for the borrow. GNPX was also in-play and I was super keen on it (it gave a lovely spot) but the brookie had no borrow (it’s a Reg SHO Threshold List stock) and I even went to a SECOND brookie for a borrow (alas, they had none either).
Now all was not sweetness and fairy dust… I traded three easy-to-borrow (ETB) stocks with IB and lost in all three of them, three swings, three misses, yep, I’m sensing a trend with these easy-to-borrow stocks, hrmm, what could it be?? Yeah, I really need to avoid shorting ETB stocks, they are major “headaches,” as the kids like to say.
Big day, good day, no tape fighting, no stop pulling, no (GOD FORBID) adding to a loser, no tilt! Just solid execution start to finish in HTB land, what a wonderful niche. There’s a reason this is the playground of superstars like Grittani and Du Xiuxian and who else, I don’t know, there must be one or two others, hell, everyone on TWTR seems to “nail” things day after day (until they suddenly disappear forever). But, seriously, you have to be a semi-pro gambler here, no training wheels allowed.
(Remember, slow down the video… pause it, rewind it, speed it up, pause, slow it, stop, study, back it up, re-watch. You get the picture?)