Good morning (rubbing eyes) Just to throw something out there, I'll mention one of my larger positions is FXP, the ultrashort on China. If we can push above 11.26, that will complete a cup with handle. I also like how volume has been increasing lately.
Slope of Hope Blog Posts
Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.
What Did I Learn Today?
Well, a brief anecdote…….and then I'm going to bed, because I am tired.
Disneyland is fun for little kids, I suppose, but it encompasses the kind of "fake" that drives me right up a tree. Even the place we're staying – Grand California – which is their "nice" resort – looks like it's made of the world's largest beams of plastic wood. It's supposed to look like arts & crafts style wood, but I don't think it's fooling anyone.
Mrs. Bear signed us up for "character dining", which means that you get to sit down to an overpriced meal and be assaulted by a swarm of princesses swinging by your table to chat. Those who know me even a little bit can understand how cringe-worthy the entire experience was, but – – anything for the little girl, right?
Anyway, it's sweltering hot here in Southern California (which just adds to my already chummy mood), and at Ariel's Grotto, they seated us outside (!). The theme park is working on all kinds of huge projects slated for 2010 and 2011, and although they sound pretty spectacular for those attending years from now, at present it's kind of unpleasant. In fact, this is the view from where we sat down for our fine dining experience:
Nice, huh?
So we had four princesses swing by the table – – Belle, Ariel, Snow White, and Cinderella. It took everything in my power not not crawl under the table. I felt the worst for Snow White, because she had to affect this kind of muppet-like weird voice to sound like the original animated character.
Well. Enough of that. One comment on trading before I collapse in a prince-like heap.
I read somewhere that Dr. Brett Steenbarger suggests that, at the end of the trading day, you ask yourself something that you learned. I learned something very valuable today, and I'm going to incorporate it into a rule I'm working on which is going to replace one of my existing rules. So I'm not going to word this very well right now, but you'll get the jist of it.
Relatively early in the day, my many short positions were experiencing very good gains, and I thought to myself, "perhaps I should go long the /ES just in case things start climbing – – just as an insurance policy." I didn't, and the /ES marched from 1015 to 1030 without me.
I think if you are positioned heavily a certain way, and the market moves in that direction a meaningful amount, there is no harm in making a day trade counter to your positions in order to ameliorate the effects of a reversal. If it keeps moving your direction, fine, the loss will be modest, and you'll more than make up for it with the continued prosperty of your positions. If, however, things move against you, then you've got a valuable counter-position in place to ease the pain.
Like I said, I'm going to put this into a more formal form, but this was my big take-away for the day.
The Evil Summit
After over a year of emailing each other, reading each other's blogs, and talking to each other on the phone, I finally – for the first time – met The Evil Speculator. Here is a picture of us:
As you can imagine, we had a great time talking on a wide variety of subjects.
He and I see eye-to-eye on the markets, although he certainly has a deeper knowledge of Elliott Wave than I do, which is why I enjoy checking his blog on a daily basis. Just wanted to pop my head into Slope to let you know where I've been. I might have a chance to do a post – – which actually might have something to do with the markets! – – in a little while.
Throatwobbler Mangrove
Well, today was a total waste of time for me in the market. I had an explosive profit the eartly part of the day, and now I'm looking at a small loss. I would have been better off on the log flume. In any case, I'm going to head out for the afternoon. Here, for no reason at all, is a Python sketch.
Bleah
I feel a bit like the picture below (without the grin). This whole schtick of "huge profit that whithers away to nothing" is tolerable the first few dozen times, but c'mon, this market is made for Nietzsche.
It's interesting to me that after breaking 1020, we sailed to 1015 and……..then………. sailed right back up to 1030.
It's getting to where the whole notion of "broken support" is becoming irrelevant.
Anyway, I'm back where I was before the opening bell, which is nothing shameful, I suppose.
All the same, this is a disspiriting market.
