New this week:
2 Stuck with U (with Justin Bieber) Ariana Grande [not bad, these two are money in the bank]
4 GOOBA 6ix9ine [white rap?]
37 Say So (feat. Nicki Minaj) Doja Cat [I like Nicki Minaj, but this is an easy listening track]
45 Fame Apache 207 [German rap?]
47 PA' ROMPERLA Bad Bunny [Spanish hip hop?]
48 BYE ME FUI Bad Bunny [Spanish hip hop?]
Nano Dimension (NNDM) was the HTB (hard-to-borrow) du jour, doing 639,000 trades and $1.93BB in volume. I paid 4.14 cents per share ($414 per 10,000) for the borrow. I went a bit on tilt in this thing, alas. I shorted it pre-open and during the opening range and stopped out quickly both times. Then I got long it at 1.37, yes, you read that right, LONG it at 1.37, then I said, no, I’m uncomfortable long this, let me sell it for a four cent loss, which I did. I think that’s when things went off the rails.
I shorted it TEN more times (including once after hours). I did not revenge size anything. My bet size was consistent throughout, which was good, “planned” losses. But I kept on trying to pick a turn, and I didn’t lose every time, just three-quarters of the time (ha!), but I was clearly tilted, I knew better, I knew I was irrationally fighting it. Without tilting, I would have taken two losses on this thing, max. Be clear: I cut my losses, I don’t “add,” I don’t martingale, I simply stop out with a hard stop. But then I get back in. Bad.
I am CERTAIN that people blew up in this, just like every other runner. In fact it hit $6.13 after hours! This one murdered people, and of course they paid a hefty borrow fee for the privilege.
PIXY was also in play, doing 158,000 trades and $334MM in volume. It gave me a good spot to short and I didn’t take any partial profits and closed it end of day even though my target was $8 (no way to swing it when the brookie charges 7x overnight). The only bad part was the brookie didn’t have borrow, then they later did and I got some at a mere 16 cents per share, I’m joking about “mere,” but it really was mere compared with the 60 !!! cent borrow I found when I went back for another slug of shares. True, I was targeting $8 so it sort of made sense at $13+, but still, sticker shock!
ACB was also in play, just faded from the get-go, total no-brainer, I missed it completely. YCBD, something which did me dirty yesterday, just faded all day today, total Day Two collapse, I missed it completely.
So it was a world-class shitty day, a single day loss that I haven’t seen since last December (when I also fought something with abandon). But I’ll reflect on things, play smaller tomorrow, and just get back on the horse, that’s all we can do, assuming we have money left.
New tracks appearing on the Spotify Global Top 50 … none of them appeals to me … too ghetto and/or too profane:
22 Be Kind (with Halsey) Marshmello
23 Chicago Freestyle (feat. Giveon) Drake
46 D4L Future
49 Demons (feat. Fivio Foreign & Sosa Geek) Drake
12 Pain 1993 (with Playboi Carti) Drake
45 Play Date Melanie Martinez
13 Savage Remix (feat. Beyoncé) Megan Thee Stallion
Sorrento Therapeutics (SRNE) again was the stock du jour, doing 238,000 trades and $1.75BB in volume. Having learned my lesson last week about IB’s erratic borrow (and it was indeed erratic again today), I went straight to the brookie and borrowed shares at 4.73 cents ($473 per 10,000), I later went back for more and they were 4.57 cents. The stock tested hourly support pre-open and made a push into the RTH open which gave me a good spot to get short. I was targeting the SSR trigger level (6.08) and kept in mind Dave Mabe’s pleas never to take partial profits or “trail” a stop, and down down down it went to the SSR trigger level, whereupon it reversed (as they all do) and went into the RTH close around 6.50. I wasn’t entirely a good boy since I was greedily eyeing a larger time frame level to get out, but I did cover most of it at SSR trigger and into the close.
Big win, serious coin, sick coin, brah. Banked. Nailed it. You know how much I hate all those terms, and when I repeat them it’s tongue in cheek. Study all the key points on the bar/candlestick/Heiken Ashi/ whatever you use arbitrary time slice linear chart, then study the Bookmap during those key times. Notice anything? I’ll keep posting these until you do, don’t worry.
101 minute running time … Shmuel Vildr movie … Ray Milland plays a degenerate alcoholic … this movie won all kinds of awards and wide praise (at the time), but I wasn’t that interested in it … John Farr wrote that it’s about “a man so hysterically self-destructive that he sacrifices his dignity — and others' goodwill — to keep himself in a state of perpetual stupor,“ which is true, but it doesn’t mean it made a good movie. The typically hysterical score from Miklós Rózsa didn’t help things. Not a recommended movie, not on my Top 500 list.
Hock shop closed for Yom Kippur
Sorrento Therapeutics (SRNE) was the stock du jour, doing 1.26 MILLION trades and $3.6BB in volume … it was an erratic borrow at IB (more on this below) so I eventually paid the brookie 4.6 cents a share ($460 per 10,000) to have reliable shares available … it gave a good spot in the morning, breaking down out of a coil (I shorted 4.81 at IB) but then caught support at 4.35ish and rallied, jamming me out for a full 1R loss, which I anticipated, but didn’t tighten the stop, which is fine. It then ran to $9, ya know doubling in a little over an hour. I then went to re-short it at $8 but IB had no borrow — took the loss earlier then had no way to make it back … FML … that’s when I went to the bookie and paid up and got short $7.99.
ACB was also in play (249,000 trades) and the same things happened to me there… short at IB, jammed out, go to re-short, no borrow, go to the brookie, pay 5.4 cents a share, and short 11.50 … super frustrating. So I had large realized losses at IB and no way to “make it back” … of course I made good money with the brookie, but that’s not the point. The unreliability of the borrow making a re-short impossible in the same account is super shitty, and makes me swear off trading short with IB again (until the next time).
Lastly I played TTPH (26,300 trades), shorting 2.27 (paid 1.94 cents for the borrow) and planned to cover 1.95 … bragged about imminent cover on TWTR which caused the stock to reverse 10% and jam me out for a semi-scratch.
GNUS did 80,600 trades and jammed out the weak shorts then dropped straight to the larger time frame targets, gotta love it … I was not involved but could have been … woulda been fine because I woulda re-shorted, unless I were playing at IB, in which case there’d be no borrow when I needed it and I’d be stuck with a large, unreplace-able loss.
BLIN also in play with 112,000 trades, no spot for me and I was busy with SRNE TTPH ACB, can’t catch ‘em all. Very good week with the brookie, absolutely terrible week at IB.
101 minute running time ... Hitchcock movie ... Cary Grant, whom I always find kind of boring, pretty but dull, and Claude Rains playing George Soros, but this picture is all about Ingrid Bergman ... she was so amazing, had so much star power, the natural beauty, the European-accented English, reminds me of Audrey Hepburn in that way ... it's kind of a dumb story, but there are some interesting Hitchcockian shots (camera trickery) … of course it's a must-see just for Ingrid Bergman alone, she makes it a green-go, this is a Top 500 movie. John Farr thinks it may be Hitchcock’s greatest film.
She looked like the ragged end of nowhere.
I love this song, sort of an End of Empire anthem … I think it’s tongue-in-cheek, at least I hope it is. “Make it all back in one loop, give me the loot,“ indeed.
91 minute running time … British movie … a love story … romance in the Scottish isles … would appeal to most women, I imagine … it wasn’t bad, it was sweet and charming, in fact, but it’s not a Top 500 movie … I’m not sorry I saw it, but I can’t recommend it, though John Farr does.
People here are very poor, l suppose. No, they just haven't got money.
Co-Diagnostics (CODX) was the HTB du jour, doing 156,000 trades and $979MM in volume. Actually GNUS did more trades (245,000) but less dollar volume (255MM) so I could have chosen that one as stock du jour, but the truth is I took my wife to the flower nursery this morning and wasn’t at my desk, though I had Bookmap recording CODX since I knew it would still be in play since yesterday.
Anyway, CODX is not borrowable at my brookie and of course IB has no shares so I was out of luck as far as trading it, and of course it set up perfectly and crashed completely, even triggering SSR, which I suspected would happen (check my time-stamped TWTR feed). My entry woulda been above $28 and my exit woulda been in the $21s, but, “woulda.” C’est la vie. I’m getting a new brookie very soon.
When I got back in the afternoon I did play ALT (69,900 trades) and APDN (81,600 trades) and was pretty pleased with both of them. The borrow costs were 3.6 cents and 8.93 cents, respectively. AIM was in-play (82,700 trades) as was AKER (67,700 trades), and the latter dropped a midday offering that devastated the longs, absolutely savage (or beautiful, depending on what you think of old WAIN). So once again there was a ton of stuff in play, so you have no excuse not to be “banking sick coin, bro.”
I was a good boy and did not open up IB and therefore did not lose money there or pay $500 in commissions, which seems to happen every time I do log on … so just focusing on HTB land remains the way to go for me.
