SOL, NYX

Sold 100 shares that I had picked up at 5 for the price of 5.51. Then picked up another 100 shares at 6.16. The commission is killing me but at least I made two moves in last two days to get a bit of cash back. And how about that nyx going north after I sold some of my the other day at 25.31! Oh well.

ODFL - Short

Shorted 50 shares of odfl at 29.82. I will see if I get any gain or I will just cover and take the losses at 30.5. I am really not good at shorting - so I am trying this out.

Unusal activity - ASFI

Up 50% with twich as much volume. I picked up 100 shares at 2.37 sold them at 2.75. Then picked up another 100 at 2.81 and holding them now. I know I dont have much profit in these moves by trying only 100 shares but I am starting slowly to get back into the groove.

Nyx Sol, Feed

Sold 80 shares of nyx today and took some hefty losses. I needed to raise some money. I wanted to sell my feed shares that I bought the other day but in spite of huge rally, feed was down. Such a loser. I thought of buying mos\nov but decided that I will trade with small money. I bought sol early at 4.95 and even it didn't go up. Market is up 889 points and I did not have any winning trade being long. Time to get away from computer for a while.

Friday Meltdown

I heard a lot of things on other blogs from "a bottom forming" to "Dow crashing below 6500". I was convinced that dow will fall at least by 500 points by reading so many sensational news early in the morning - oh well! One thing is certain - there is fear and panic and a lot of confusion


Again I am going to quote some of my favorite quotes:

From Revolver
"Don't try to make sense out of it, not now, because it doesn't make sense. " Jake Green.

From The Happening
Elliot Moore: Come on, buddy. Take an interest in science. What could be the reason bees have vanished?
Jake: [after a long pause] An act of nature, and we'll never fully understand it.
Elliot Moore: Nice answer, Jake. He's right. Science will come up with some reason to put in the books, but in the end it'll be just a theory. I mean, we will fail to acknowledge that there are forces at work beyond our understanding. To be a scientist, you must have a respectful awe for the laws of nature.

Is stock market one of the complex natural phenomena created by humans?

Poll results

So the poll is over and here is the result

What sucks more?

Breaking up with a girlfriend after an year of relationship	7 (38%)
Loosing more than one year's earnings when dow hits 8000	11 (61%)

Votes so far: 18
So for 61% of the people, money-loss sucks more than break-up. Reminds me this quote of Jake Green from Revolver :

I know nothing hurts more than humiliation and a little money loss.

Whereas for rest of the 38% of us(including me), it sucks more to miss out on those summer days!

Recession - What Recession? - Updated

Wall Street banks in $70bn staff payout
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/17/executivesalaries-banking

How can "bankers still get millions of dollars in spite of mess they have created" is beyond my comprehension?

From above article -

• Financial workers at Wall Street's top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn),substantial proportion expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses,
• Whereas Germany's Deutsche Bank said many of its leading traders would join Josef Ackermann, its chief executive, in waiving millions of euros in annual payouts.
• At one point last week the Morgan Stanley $10.7bn pay pot for the year to date was greater than the entire stock market value of the business.
• In the first nine months of the year Citigroup, which employs thousands of staff in the UK, accrued $25.9bn for salaries and bonuses, an increase on the previous year of 4%.
• At Goldman Sachs the figure was $11.4bn, Morgan Stanley $10.73bn, JP Morgan $6.53bn and Merrill Lynch $11.7bn.
• Days before it collapsed into bankruptcy protection a month ago Lehman Brothers revealed $6.12bn of staff pay plans

In other news,
Bank CEO slams salaries:
http://www.montereyherald.com/business/ci_10792837?nclick_check=1

Feed,wfmi, vlo

Sold few shares of wfmi yesterday and took some hefty loss.
I decided to start trading slowly. I thought of buying 100 shares of feed. I placed an order. Then cancelled the order as I wanted to buy 110 shares. Then, bought 110 shares and checked my account. I saw 210 shares of feed in my account as somehow fidelity didn't cancel my earlier order although it gave me the confirmation. I just called it a day as I still need to get balance back. I should have checked my account after cancellation - I am still not as cautious as I should be! Cost basis for feed shares is 4.86.

Update - I also bought vlo 2010 Jan 30 call. I tried to buy solar call without any luck as bid price never quite matched my ask price. I decided not to catch the price and wait.

No trading from Wed-Fri

Just watched from sidelines and didn't trade in last week from Wed-Fri. Hopefully I will start trading again from today.

NYX, EXM

I closed two calls yesteray
1) Nyx -This is strange - I had bought "NYX jan 55 call" when NYX was on 37 - I sold that call yesterday when NYX was 28. I made profit of 80$. Talk about volatility!
2) EXM - I closed out one call of EXM for 20$ profit. I still hold three more calls. I decided to wait until today for rest of them. I had lost 70% of those calls on last Friday. Yesterday, i had recovered most of them.
BlueDog - if you are around, I hope you made $$$$$$$ on this pick. And I hope you make more on exm today.

That's all for yesterday. Looks like its going to be a green tuesday.

Its Poll Time

For the few internet-addicted-humans who visit my blogs, please vote on the poll that's on the right side. Thanks a l0t!!!

Volatile Friday

I totally missed it. I was loosing it before friday and I just decided to stay away and get myself together before I trade again. I did not look at the stock screen whole friday. In a way, I am sad for missing out a historical day. But, in a way, I am really glad to miss it out because I was not in right frame of mind. I realized I was thinking more about gamble to take my revenge on this bear market and I was going to gamble instead of trade\invest. I just stayed away and hopefully, I will stay in this game now longer.
I would like to thank for some nice posts on the blog-world.
http://dinosaurtrader.blogspot.com/2008/10/everyone-take-big-breath.html
http://tradinggoddess.blogspot.com/2008/10/despair-hopelessness-failure.html

And that awesome movie I watched-

Nyx

Today price of ndaq crossed nyx. Nyx is such a sad story. Currently ndaq price is 26.83 and nyx is trading at 26.29. Such a loser!

That last half hour in today's market was like

the timeless art of seduction!

Sold 50 shares of ntri

NTRI is the only stock that's holding steady amongst all this carnage but I am really loaded up with it due to revenge trades. I am just going to start taking losses and unload some of my securities. Just sold 50 shares of ntri for 16.60

Note - I am going to hold as much as i can as I think stocks are really low right now. But, I am selling some of my positions as I really need the money.

Bizarro Bull Market

“He’s reliable. He’s considerate. He’s like your exact opposite.”
“So he’s Bizarro Jerry.”
“Bizarro Jerry?”
“Yeah, like Bizarro Superman, Superman’s exact opposite, who lives in the backwards Bizarro world. Up is down, down is up, he says hello when he leaves, goodbye when he arrives.”
“Shouldn’t he say badbye? Isn’t that the opposite of goodbye?”
“No, it’s still goodbye.”
“Does he live underwater?”
“No.”
“Is he black?”
“Look, just forget the whole thing.”

I was watching an episode of Seinfeld today. It made me think of
Bear market = Bizarro Bull market.
OverSold = Bizarro OverBought.
Ridiculously low P\E = Bizarro ridiculously high P\E.

A youtube clip for you from the bizzarro world -

For those who love Heroes

you might want to check out this TV mini-series called as "The Lost Room". I am sure you won't regret it.

No trades last two days

I have just sat and watched. I have been completely long in this shorter's market and made a fool of myself. I can't even sell as these are ridiculous prices compared to what I bought. Then again, prices looked ridiculous 15,30,45 days back. I need to come up with some strategy to salvage the remnants of my portfolio. I am just not going to trade anything today and come back tomorrow hopefully, with some strategy.

WTF

This is fu*kin ridiculous. Asfi closed on 6.28 on previous trading day. I had placed an order to sell 50 asfi shares at 8.9. I wanted to sell 100 more shares and almost placed the order before market opened but decided that I will wait before I sell. When market opened, my 50 share were sold at 10.08. Almost 60% more than previous close! I wish I had placed that order for 100 more shares. Asfi is back below 7 instantly.

The best thing about vista is

you get above song if you buy a laptop with vista from hp. I really love the song!

Update today

Currently, my portfolio is down 7.5% from yesterday's close. That's what I get for
- holding handful shares of nyx
- buying options for falling knives
- not keeping tight stop loss order
- not taking profit right away

Monday is another day. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

NTRI, NYX

I am a bag-holder of these positions but definitely not proud. Nyx seems to find new lows no matter what the direction of market is. And, ntri does not seem to follow any pattern lately. Sometimes ntri follows the market for a while - then it works as an inverse indicator of market for a while. Really strange!

Stocks flucuate amid worries after House OKs plan

Stocks flucuate amid worries after House OKs plan

That's the top line on yahoo finance right now. And here I thought there will be volatility before the approval and stocks will move into one direction after the approval. This is really insane market.

Sold ndaq

Sold calls for ndaq that I had bought earlier. I still like the company and it seems to be making upwards move. But, I just need to lock in the profit as almost rest of my portfolio is in red.
Sold two calls for ndaq - profit $130.

Indo-nucelar deal - Investing into nuclear power

1) Senate debates US-India nuclear deal-
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hjHnPz7XX0WpdjPiswhHLvaXj0pAD93HPTU83

2) Lots of developing asian countries are in need of energy. India is going to need massive amount of energy in next few years. Currently power outage is common in India except for major cities.
From,
India has power shortage of 73,050 million units
India, Asia's third largest economy, faced a power deficit of 73,050 million units between April 2007 and March 2008, an internal official audit says.

3) I strongly believe US senate will pass this historical bill - amid all the frenzy of financial bailout, understandably, this "controversial" deal is not getting the press it deserves.

4) This is going to be multi-billion dollar business.
From France Embraces Nuclear Cooperation With India
French energy firm Areva said Monday it hopes to profit from the nuclear pact by supplying the Asian giant with two of the latest design of reactors.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ARVCF.PK
http://moneycentral.msn.com/detail/stock_quote?Symbol=US%3AARVCF

5) I haven't found other companies that will profit from this but I will update when I find more information.

UNG

Sold one of the call I had bought for UNG for $50 profit. I wanted to hold on but I need some cash and I am locking in any profit I can get as my losses in other positions are too big to take. I already have two more ung calls.