Stock market blues
While the grains continue to puke, the stock market is sure looking ugly. I find this market action fascinating. Days like today call for only one course of action…..buy safety. The dollar is safe, as are Treasury bonds, bills and notes…..for now.
My pattern in the euro has been continuing to work, and the cycle shows no signs of waning. I traded the euro all day until it was time to go surf.
I went out for a good two hours, and had fun in the cold. The weather here has been unseasonably cold recently, and the waves have been a nice respite. I brought along my waterproof i-Pod, and listened to Brahms Clarinet Sonatas, followed by Liszt’s Sonata in B-Minor. I ended up listening to an assortment of Vivaldi at the end of my surf session. The waves were nice, and I find my last few outings making me stronger, and I have a little more endurance. I ran into a couple of buddies who are old geezer surfers like me, and we shared waves in quiet solitude, with no crowds at all. We were all pretty silent, in our own worlds, doing our own thing. Surfing is so much like trading, the parallels are all over the place.
I came home, and answered a few pressing e-mails. When Asia opened, I managed to sell into the weakness, and I have a couple ticks profit as I write. I only hope I don’t end up staying up all night if the action gets hairy, and it could. I’ve been waiting for some signs of capitulation here, and don’t think we’ve reached it yet. December is going to be a long month, unless we see some kind of rally.
I wrote an article over at Daily Speculations yesterday, and can’t get my WordPress to link, so here’s the address.
http://www.dailyspeculations.com/wordpress/?p=3332
You’ll have to do the usual copy and paste thing to see it.
Jeff
I brought along my waterproof i-Pod, and listened to Brahms Clarinet Sonatas, followed by Liszt’s Sonata in B-Minor. I ended up listening to an assortment of Vivaldi at the end of my surf session.
I thought Wagner was surfing’s official classical music.
I wrote an article over at Daily Speculations yesterday, and can’t get my WordPress to link, so here’s the address…
Jeff, I’ve been able to link using basic HTML code. (Now watch this not work!)
We Are...Penn State email list
November 20, 2008 at 6:21 am
I love the smell of napalm in the morning….it smells like……victory.
Col Kilgore.
masteroftheuniverse
November 20, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Yeah, today was a real napalm day. It’s like you say Jeff: most people invest, and they lose.
PS Thanks for steering me towards Woot – I’ve been checking it every morning. It is a great retail concept, and the prices are terrific.
David
November 20, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Jeff – I read through your past blog entries and had found several that stated something to the effect that you were working on some mental training exercises to get your focus back after your wife’s passing so you could continue on trading. Was this anything structured that you used (books, meditation etc.)?
I am currently in a similar situation now with an extended family member that is 33 yrs old & in the final days of her year long fight with cancer. At this point there isn’t anything further the doctors can do other than keep her comfortable until she passes on. After a lot of thought I identified this as a main cause for my lack of focus & drive recently. I understand that the grieving process is far from structured and is different for everyone, but I was looking for some guidance on some steps to take to mentally prepare myself to return to trading in a meaningful way.
Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Eric
Eric
November 21, 2008 at 1:30 am
Eric,
I read a lot of different stuff on mental exercises, meditation, and all of that and ended up discarding all of that. In the end, my mental training exercises consisted of doing the NYT crossword puzzles, in ink, and going back to some college math books and solving some really hard differential equations. Surfing helped a lot, and my surf buddies were the best. I did some other stuff, but I’d best not describe it here, but will be glad to send you a PM. I tried focusing on different things, and really concentrating, but made it my mindset to get back to trading quickly. I was able to get back into the trading saddle pretty quickly after she died, but most of that could be attributed to reflex. I made it a point to start very small when I resumed trading, small as in one contract small. I worked up my groove from there. It was tough even returning to trade a single contract, not from fear, but from some other undefinable dark force. I’ve gotten my edge back, for awhile, but have noticed a small decrease in my profitability around $3.20 per contract per trade average. That is significant and can be either the wild market conditions, or lingering grief, or a combination of all the above.
Jeff
masteroftheuniverse
November 21, 2008 at 11:58 am