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What to do with this space?

I met an interesting person at a wedding just a week ago. He told me that one of the exercises he undertook for some creative/personal development was writing an essay a week. An essay! I don’t know the length of said essays nor the content but the idea of committing to writing an essay a week seems difficult so I applaud him for that discipline.

Then I was suddenly confronted with the next payment I make for this space. It’s not expensive at $25 USD/quarter so it’s not the money that concerns me. It’s the apathy.
When I first started this space I wanted to use to to express myself in ways that might be more difficult in person or to share things that might not be expected from a live audience.

Being a technical person I thought that finding ways of utilizing this space to showcase things I was working on or code that was developed for some of our clients when I was at Applied Research. I’ve never really found the time simply due to the amount of work that we were completing. I never felt a need to share. I think that might have been a mistake. Though we were under NDA, it would be easy enough to abstract the items we were building and provide general information here. I just didn’t find the time nor put this web log near the top of my priorities list.

So the question is where should I take this. Or maybe a better question, should I take this anywhere at all? What does it benefit. I’ve never really shared anything terribly interesting here other than some of my travels with The Wife and the occasional gaming tidbit. If I was to commit to writing something once a week (like the person who was the inspiration for this post) what would it be? How would I start? What would be intellectually honest and allow me to share parts of my life that I want to share? What if… this was the first of a weekly post here that allowed me to be myself and share my ideas with the world? What if…..

The answer to the title of this post is “Something, I’m just not sure what” and I think that’s ok. What I will commit to is one post a week (maybe more) that expresses my ideas or feelings on things that are happening in my world and how I integrate the results of thinking about those things into my personality. We’re always growing, right? We always have an opportunity to be better, right? Right?

I will write one post each week to improve my writing skills, or else I will close this space, give up my domain name, and delete my server.

I won’t commit to writing anything particularly mind blowing but I want to make a substantive effort to writing things that matter. To me at least. If I can do that for a few months I think it might change my mind about some things. And change is a good thing for anyone. 

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BBQ Action in Texas

Been here a few days now. Spent some time in Houston to get acclimatized. Some Tex-Mex food at Papasito’s which was such a treat. Sly and I love mexican food at the best of times and this was so fresh and delicious that we’ve vowed to hit them up on the last night we’re in the states in 3 weeks or so.

On Saturday we decided to head to Galveston to see what the Gulf of Mexico looks like in real life. Of course, I thought that only having a swim shirt on would keep me protected, I did get a fairly good burn, like I wasn’t wearing any protection. I’m still feeling the results of that. But the real interesting part of the visit was the realization that we we’re walking in ‘tar balls’ that come out of the ocean. Getting this stuff off your feet was hard until you remember the commercials with the Exxon Valdez and how Dawn was being used to clean oil off the ducklings. If it works for ducklings, I’m sure it would work for my feet. And it did.

Sunday was a travel day for us to head off to Dallas for a few days. It’s about a 4 hour drive but we split it up with a visit to Buc’ees, a truck stop very much in line with the Truck King Stop in Calgary if you’ve ever heard of it. It was huge and busy and the people walking in that area had no fucks to give. It took about 5 minutes of me walking among the great unwashed before I, too, relinquished my last fuck. But they had some fine beef jerky and some BBQ sandwiches that we enjoyed in the car while waiting for a fuel pump.

After spending $100 USD on assorted goods, we finally made our way back on to the highway before spending another hour on the road to Dallas.

Adding some pictures here from these couple of days. Want a way to document this time other than relying on Google Photos.

I’m finishing this post on our last night in Memphis so I’ve got some catching up to do.

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Off to the States

We haven’t been doing the same amount of travel as we had previously. The Pandemic period of our life caused more havoc with our travel than this but even now we’re feeling the pinch.

That mostly has to do with me being unemployed more than anything. Sly has really become my sugar mama and I appreciate her for it. This trip will mostly be bankrolled by her but I am contributing a bit to cover my side.

Starting in Houston, going clockwise around the southern states

This will be a road trip through some of the southern States: Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, a wee bit of Florida and Louisiana. Though there’s a few places on that list that I’ve been to before ( I’m looking at you Dallas and Memphis) I haven’t been to the others. I’m really excited for the chance.

I’m turning 50 this year ( midlife crisis … activate!) and will spend that day with my wife in New Orleans. We’ve booked passage on a paddleboat and will enjoy the evening heading up the mighty Mississippi river while listening to some jazz music and enjoying some creole cuisine. Really something to look forward to.

Perhaps the best way to end this is on a positive note: I haven’t felt this good about my life and myself in quite some time. The feeling of despair and hopeless has dissipated though not totally disappeared. Let’s see how I feel after the trip has completed with both Sly and myself not dead to the other’s hand.

In the mean-time, I’m going to use some of the ‘behind the wheel’ time to think about what I want from the future. It’s time to get back to work doing something that interests me and will provide some additional revenues into the household budget. Wish me luck.

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Will Trent: An Interesting Character

Sly and I watched the first season of Will Trent on a weekly basis; not something that we do very often with network TV. I wanted to share with you the reason I wanted to watch so here is the introduction to our protagonist, Special Agent Will Trent.

Jazz Hands!

And I was hooked. Just that one moment where he asks about the ‘no kill shelter’ policy, the pause, the march back to the desk and that look on his face. I knew who this character was, I understood him. And I wanted to know more.

That’s how you introduce a character.

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MRNA News Catalyst

Wow what a morning. $MRNA popped up on a news catalyst that informed us great unwashed that they would be partnering with Merck to develop a cancer vaccine. Yeah, pretty good news.

The stock gapped up in the premarket to $135 from $118. Helluva gap I would say. I would also say that keeping that kind of level would be hard so I decided to go short 100 shares. At the open, it popped up to $141 before slowing dropping back down into the low $130’s. I had to wait 45 minutes for it to come back down after selling 35 more shares as it went up making my average price 134.33. I got out at 132.30 for a two dollar profit on 135 shares ($270).

I KNEW it would come back down as that size of gap isn’t something that can usually be maintained all day. Folks want to take profits and more selling than buying will cause a stock price to go down. I include a screen shot below of the trade.

5M Opening Range chart for MNRA

It should be noted that I, again, didn’t stick with my stop loss. I should have been out around $135.33 with a $100 loss but my convictions kept me from covering my short. It should also be noted that I used ALL my margin so couldn’t short any further on the way up.

Now, my largest criticism in myself is not that I ignored my stop, it’s that I ignored my stop AND missed out on an almost 6$ move up from the open. Had I read the chart correctly and inferred group psychology, I should have KNOWN that people would want to get in on this action at the open and drive the price up.

That first candle at 0930 opened at $135.56, closed at 135.58 and would have been a good candidate for an IMMEDIATE entry at 0935 when the second candle opened. It went up and up and up and I missed it. That would have been the safer trade as well with the 5M Opening Range Breakup setup being one I’ve been using since September.

I need to start reading the opening range better and trying to hold off trading until 5 minutes after the open. This is a discipline problem and I have to make a decision about how important it is. I HAVE been burned in the past by deciding to hold a short longer than I perhaps should have when a stock was in a serious uptrend and I took a loss of $400.

Trading is easy. /sarcasm

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Markets Fall, Money to Be Made

Decent Short action this morning

I’ve attached an image of my trade this morning above. Yes, I only took one and then decided I should not get greedy. There will come a time for that but now is not the time.

$OXY (the stock in the chart above) has been popping at the open then dropping nicely in the first hour before consolidating and then choosing a direction it’s going to move for the rest of the day. Friday October 7, 2022 is a good example of that happening. So I just expected it to do the same thing it has been and shorted the stock.

Shorting a stock can be dangerous and it’s not something to be taken lightly. Here’s a link to Investopedia that has some information on what short selling is if you’d like to read it. You need to be sure about your decision or be ready to take a small loss and cover your position if it goes the other way especially if you’re using a leveraged margin account. Some of my biggest losses since March have been from shorts so I’m very particular about my short setups.

I’m happy with this trade and came out with about $150 USD net after commissions. Slight change of topic….

Last month I mentioned perhaps posting my final results for September and I reversed my decision on that. It was a good month and I’ll just assume you believe me when I say that overall I pulled $2200 USD out of the markets and decided I should pull a little of that out into my bank account. I decided on $1000 CDN ($740 USD on the 4th when I transferred the money or 1/3 of my gains) would be a good start.

  1. It would be a reminder that I want to do this for a living and in order to live, you have to generate income. Moving money from my brokerage account just felt good and reinforced the idea, for me, that I could do this for a living.
  2. It would allow me to keep 2/3 of my gains in the account. I’d like to grow the account to the point I’m above $20k USD for additional leverage possibilities. An account of that size would allow for up to $60k of stock purchase with margin included. At this point, it will probably take a year.
  3. It would allow me to show my wonderful wife that this is a possibility that shouldn’t be taken lightly.

That last one is, far and away, the most important part of the withdrawal process. Sitting her down and talking about wanting to pursue this rather than continue the job search was important.

She is the most important person in my life and will always have a say into my career and what I do with my life. I think she’s already a bit peeved that I’m at home most of the day and really only ‘work’ for a couple of hours in the morning before heading out for my walk later in the day.

She doesn’t see the rest of it, of course. The reading, the study, the videos, the simulator work. It does keep me quite busy. I can’t just sit at home and play video games if I plan on getting better at this. It’s a lot of work and my performance in the markets each morning really depends on my knowledge and ability to think on my feet while the markets are open.

I’m going to keep doing this for a least the next 5 months with the expectation that my daily average will increase (currently at $77.88 USD per day but ever climbing) and that I’ll be hitting my long term goal of $350 USD average per day. That would effectively replace the salary I left in March and allow for additional trading opportunities.

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Trading Is Easy

No it fucking isn’t.

This trade is a clusterfuck of emotions and bad decisions. See that big assed red candle on the left? After a crazy day yesterday with Cassava Sciences Inc increasing 20$ over the day, this morning there was a crazy drop BEFORE the markets even opened from a high of $48 down to $39 over the course of a 5 minute period. Here’s where the fuckery comes in.

I quickly analyzed the situation and decided that when the market opened we’d get a bounce back up, probably half way around $45. So I bought shares in a market when it might have been smarter to sell into the weakness. No, not your superhero buddy Zaal! No he BUYS into a selling market on a hunch.

Well this idiot was right. When the market opens (that first big green candle) it did start crawling back towards my target. I actually had a limit order in at $44.37 so that was going to be our OUT! Other than the little red Doji candle at 0935, it continued up as expected with steady volume. As it neared the top of the 0950 candle, it seemed the momentum was slowing. I started to get a bit nervous and thought how stupid it would be if I didn’t even try to take some profit now that I was in the green. I took two partials and sold 50 shares @ $43.16 and $43.21 with my average cost of $41.31.

“What does that mean for you, idiot?”. It means that I made some money. How much? On the first 50 shares, I made $92.50. Second 50 shares, $95. But I held the last 50 in the hopes it might get higher and it did with me finally selling my last 50 shares @ $44.37 for a final profit of $153. All of these numbers are documented on the image above if you want to click on it.

So I got triple my daily target by:

  1. Using my limited trading knowledge
  2. Knowing what happened in the market on the previous day
  3. Willing to risk some money to get more money.

If I’d not known any of those three things checked off above, I wouldn’t have taken the trade.

Straight talk here: when the stock was at it’s lowest, if I’d decided to close my position at max loss, I would have been out $600 but I didn’t because of the three items listed above.

So… intraday trading. Yeah, super easy. 😒

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Powell is My New Best Friend

Words to remind yourself how stupid you are sometimes:

You are a fucking retard. Did you know that? Are you aware that you are so stupid that I risk being labelled intolerant in order to address you as FUCKING RETARDED? There will come a time where you are punished for your hubris. YOU GOT LUCKY TODAY PUNK. I honestly believe that. Yes, the news from Powell saved your ass. Imagine being a dollar behind on a SHORTED stock and then having a safety line sent to you from an American economist. You should send that fucker a fruit basket. 
Put in stop loss orders and adhere to them, idiot.

That is all.