Death and Taxes

My state tax return .... I am owed.

missed post

I haven't missed a post on a week day in a while. If I was missed by anyone out there I do apologize, but I'm sure I didn't dampen anyone's day. Anyway, I was busy these past couple days with my little nephew being in town and he absolutely trumps all else, he's just the most awesome kid ever! So, I don't really have much to report regarding Friday's craptacular session, but hope to be back to normal on Monday (though the father-in-law will be in town this week, and the wife and I have a ton of packing to do for our move out of state, so we'll have to see).
If anyone out there is on Twitter, hit me up.

light day

gonna be light on posting today, as I went and had some fun last night and have a busy agenda this morning.

Non Sequitur

green fairy

cheers!

twit

I'm now following CobraCommander on twitter...funny stuff (if you're from that generation).

back

Back home...and have a lot of work to do. I hope whoever out there that is reading this had a happy holiday and new year!

water + laptop

Well, yesterday I knocked over my water (at least it wasn't coffee) and it spilled over my laptop keyboard. Basically, my laptop is my life and it also allows me to trade (that along with a separate 20" screen). When the water spilled onto the keyboard the screen instantly went to this black and white crosshatch looking image. I shut it down, turned it upside down and ran to get the vacuum. I vacuumed across the keyboard as thoroughly as I could, and pulled the battery out. I basically left it alone for 24-hours (which is why I didn't do any trading of market watching today). I let it sit in front of the heater (not directly in front of it, just where it could catch a steady stream of warm air) all day and night.
Long story short, it's (thankfully) back up and running like nothing ever happened. It's funny because I'm always telling my wife to keep all liquids away from my laptop, and what do I go and do? It figures! I'm amazed that these things could put up with water like this though. It's not like I took a garden hose to it, but still it was enough to short the system.
This should certainly be a lesson in the importance of redundancy for your set-up.

e-mini rollover dates

Does anyone know where I can find information regarding when the e-mini equities futures rollover to the next month? I looked through the CME, but it wasn't clear to me. I was hearing that today was a rollover day (at least for the e-mini S&P500) but according to what I was seeing on the CME website that next Friday is the rollover date.
Does anyone have information that could clear this up for me?
Thanks!

god bless america

WTF?!

technical difficulties all day...pain in the ass.

slacker

I won't be back online until Wednesday the earliest. Hope everyone that drops by here is making lots of money with this volatility. While I'm away from the markets I'll be working on my five year plan, as outlined at my hero's blog. Happy Trading!
My new mantra:
As challenges arise, always ask yourself "will this matter in five years?"

short week

Been traveling to Nebraska today...I put in some market orders for QLD & SSO last night (I also had an order for XLF that I ended up cancelling), as I thought we might have this follow-through day today. I also just now closed those positions, as 1100 points on the Dow in 2 days may lead to a down day or inside consolidation for tomorrow. I'd rather book my profits now, since I may not be able to follow the markets so closely this week.

there ya have it

asleep at the screen

An unbelievably indecisive, choppy session today. Here's what I ended up looking at throughout the day...
- A fun SuperObama game
- A new and improved condom
- The new Blackberry Storm
- What the Depression will be like
- Test drive the new 3x ETFs
- Mark Cuban charged with insider trading
- More people out of jobs
- after 8 years Japan is back in recession
- Goldman execs are such the philanthropists
- Haliburton seeks patent for suing "non-inventors"
- Congress finally getting some balls
- G20 meets this weekend and gets nothing done
- Will the gamblers come once the casino is built?

Also, check out the state our real estate market here in Ca...

We Have a Winner!

A pretty cool look at our countries election results from the nytimes.com. Pretty fascinating that it seems wherever there is a major University and/or major city votes went to the Democrats. Take Nebraska for example. They had 4 counties out of 94 that went to Obama, the rest running away with a McCain vote. It's also fascinating that California's counties that went to McCain were all in the central valley (in other words, rural and agricultural locations). Fascinating maps they have there at the nytimes.
I'm not feeling very good today, so I'm staying away from trading.

married

I'm officially married as of last night, Monday November 3.
I was honored to be married to a sweet and beautiful woman that has been the most supportive and caring influence in my life. She has helped me to grow in ways I could never have imagined and I am thankful for having her in my life all these past 6.5 years. She is the light of my life.
We were married in one of the most low profile ceremonies in the history of weddings.

lame

I wasn't able to be attentive to the computer today...go figure. The rally everyone is waiting for and expecting and all I can do is look at parabolic charts after the fact. Unbelievable. Whatever, had I been able to actually trade I could have ended up being the only shmuck losing money today. Perhaps it's a mixed blessing. So, where do we go from here? Do we sell the Fed announcement tomorrow? It's all a mess isn't it?

to keep in mind

I re-discovered this list over at another website and wanted to post it here so as to keep it for my personal reference.

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three R’s: Respect for self, Respect for others and Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

~ Dalai Lama.

creamed

I had another bad/losing day today. Next week I have to really put my focus back into cutting my position size way down and slowly dig myself out of the hole I put myself into.
I'm getting too easily distracted by these late day extreme conditions and then find myself revenge trading in order to work myself out of the hole. It's funny how you could read all these books about trading and position size, and end up ignoring everything for the sake of trying to make lost money back.
Anyway, I'm going to really have to re-tool my plan and start back next week with very small position size and a more solid focus on what my plan is. What am I doing trading this market (as a beginner) after 3:00p.m.?! I resolved a long time ago (back in the days of less volatile markets) to NOT trade the last 45minutes to an hour of the day, yet here I am trying to scalp moves in hopes of bringing myself into the green.