Today provided interesting action.  Half of my grain spreads won, half lost.  I made a ton of money from the options on the grains that I sold last week.  I lost money in the gold market, made money in oil, and on the S&P.  I lost money scalping GOOG, finally capitulating after six losses in a row.  Although I haven’t added up my P&L as of yet, I estimate that I made about $600 today, which, as far as I’m concerned is flat.  At least there is no red ink.

Tonight is going to be spent riding a few waves, which mysteriously decided to pop up late this afternoon from nowhere.  The waves aren’t big, about thigh high, but should be good for a longboard.

Jeff

I wrote a piece over at Daily Speculations about a piece of art in my collection that was recently found out to be a fake, despite the fact I had good provenance.  The discovery was made while my collection was undergoing an annual review by my insurance company.  They brought in experts, and I had two independent evaluations made of the work, all of which were in agreement.  They did give the rest of my collection a clean bill of health, but still raised my premium by quite a bit.  I accept the raise in premium, as I’ve been on a buying binge the past couple of years.  The major gallery I bought it from went out of business some years ago, so I’m shit out of luck.  Sometimes, one can get screwed.

Maurice Utrillo was the painter, and here’s a picture of the forgery.

Despite the setback in the art market, I was pleased with the markets in other areas.  I’ve been pretty dialed in as of late, and my spreads have been going in my favor. 

Jeff

I booked a couple of rooms at the Wakulla Suites, over in Cocoa Beach for a few weeks in August.  The place is very clean and mellow, with the most absolute beautiful pool garden I’ve seen in awhile.  Being pretty deluxe, despite it’s tacky exterior, hides a gem consisting of beautiful 2 bedroom fully furnished apartments….right next to the beach.  We go over there pretty often, and the place is always fully booked, but being good customers has that magical way of making a deluxe room appear before our eyes.  The Wakulla is spotlessly clean, a bit older, yet thoroughly modern.  The Wakulla is very surfer friendly, which is the main reason I like it.  It also offers a Waffle House right next door for early morning grinds,

This is shaping up to be our last vacation, as John is going back to college, and will probably want to outgrow surfing as surfing is frowned down by the Dons,(or any physical  activity that is frowned upon by the School of Clssical studies).  For that, I’m going to make him surf from dawn to  dusk.  One last shot of father and son surfing, youth recaptured….should be nice.

Jeff

If you’re ever in Cocoa Beach, stay at the Wakulla.  It’s not the Hilton,,,,,but it’s sure a whole lot more fun.

  http://www.wakullasuites.com/  Check out the site, take the virtual tour, and you will see why it’s easy to fall into the routine.  Plus, the rooms also have very fast internet connections for those who need to bang  out a trade.

http://www.metrotravelguide.com/hotelinfo/cocoa_beach/fl/usa/43211/#trafficLogID=525818164&visited=true

Here’s another link with more pictures.

We’ve always made Cocoa Beach or New Smyrna Beach our favorite dash to the other coast, and try to get as many runs in as possible whenever there’s a swell.  Swell or not, we’ll enjoy grinding at DakineDiegos, dining at the Pit, and eating at the restaurant of the pier….that is if we have free time.  Most time is spent in the water,  Cocoa Beach Surf Company even has a Starbucks on premisis.

I alwaus sleep a sound, restful sleep after a day of surfing. All of my problems in life seen to go away, and i’m living for the moment.  This one will be good and John has buy in.

I’ve been surfing youtube, and found a nice opening song to a Telenovella that Denie always watched in the early 89’s.  The show was Topacio, and we watched it on the ole SIN Network,and we loved the the theme  song.  The theme song always was catchy,and I;ve always liked it.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FiFB1lHK_Qs

 There was amother song by Jose,Jose called Lagrimas, that was one of our faves.  Jose, jose, is also on youtube, and tears are running down my eyes watching these videos.  25 yeasr\ ago,my lovely wife and I made a pact to only speak spanish for a year to each other.  All of our movies, television, and popular cultural had to be in spanish.  We learned many a lesson that year, and got to grow up together

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bUBMMTWyAds

These songs bring back a lot…..maybe too much.

I miss those nights when we’d sit up all night talking and watching those telenovellas.  One positive aspect is that I speak pretty decent spanish.

Jeff

My lovely wife was always a jittle jealous of my like ot this performer, Lucia Mendez.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6zdY9sU0aXY&feature=related

I just scored this old poster off e-Bay for $9.99 plus S&H.

Although I wasn’t a fan of those 60’s beach movies, an impulse made me buy this poster.

Late this afternoon, I got my art collection back out of storage, had the alarm technician wire the frames back up, and now my house is getting back to the way it was. I ended up having to pay overtime to the tech, but at least I’ll sleep well tonight. 

The markets were off to an interesting start this week, and things went pretty much as predicted.  I moved some spreads around, took some money off the table, and sold some options, which I ended up covering right away as soon as I found out I was wrong.  Tonight is going to be spent writing, reading a little, and chilling to some music.

I might break out a bottle of Cognac, and have a couple of sips.

Jeff

John finally woke up after sleeping in ever since he got home on Friday night.  He was really tired, jet lagged, and slightly hung over.  He had a great time on the whole trip, and said that he enjoyed Paris the best.  Of course, his Pamplona run was a highlight. 

He’s bugging me about going skydiving.  They offer jump courses in Lakeland, and I know guys who regularly jump on a weekly basis.  It’s worth considering.  Skydiving would be a great alternative when the waves are flat.  Skydiving does meld well with my personal sense of recklessness that I’ve always had.

I’m getting my art out of storage tomorrow, and restoring our house to it’s former beauty.  My sister is planning on hanging around for awhile, so we might as well put the art up.  I went over to Pelican Alley last night and had prime rib for dinner.  It sounds strange to have prime rib at a seafood place, but for some reason, they have better prime rib than most beef places.  I sat at “our table” and was pretty nostalgic, but a little sad.  John didn’t come, as he was sound asleep.  The cook was nice enough to include a doggie bag for John, for later.

I worked some more on my book today, did some chores around the house, and did some fiberglass work on a surfboard.  The side of my neck is swollen from the bee sting, and the swelling seems to be migrating outside the area a little.  I guess I’m having a little allergic reaction after all. 

I’m looking forward to all of the trading opportunities that this week is going to bring.  I can offer good odds that this will be a week of great trading opportunities for the nimble trader.  I think that balls the size of lampshades will be a prerequisite for this week, but….we’ll see.

I’ve noticed that the bond market has really yawned over Fannie and Freddie paper, with the spread moving only a few basis points vs treasuries.  The government will probably bail out both concerns, and that will present excellent opportunities. 

For all of this gloom and doom being disseminated through the media, somehow, I feel we’ll muddle through.  I’m still really bullish on America.

Jeff

This morning was a perfect example of Murphy’s Law.  Since I was out of coffee, I left the house at 5:30AM and drove over to 7/11, hoping to get a coffee and a couple of donuts.  All was well, and I got my coffee and donuts.  I got back into the car and turned the key.  I got the ZZZZZZZ sound, with no starting, indicating either the battery or alternator, or both was bad.  I opened the hood, and checked the terminals which seemed OK.  A guy parked next to me offered me a jump, which I accepted.  While I was affixing the cable to my battery terminal, I felt a sharp sting in my neck.  Holy crap, it sure hurt, and I muttered, “Shit, that hurts,” and brushed off the area.  A bee had stung me, fell to the ground.  The guy helping me  with the jump told me that the stinger was still in my neck, and he pulled it out.  We finally jumped the car, got it started, but it died when I turned on the headlights.  I got on my cellphone to call AAA, and my cell died.  I went back into 7/11 and got a couple of dollars in quarters so I could use their pay phone.  I tried the phone, and it didn’t work….was out of order.  The clerk at 7/11 graciously offered me their phone, and I called AAA to tow the car over to the dealer where I could get a new battery.  I had to wait an hour for the truck to show up, but they finally showed up.  We got to the dealer when their shop was opening up, and I was able to get the battery installed, pronto.  The rest of the car checked out OK, so no worries there.

My neck still hurts from that damn bee sting.  I thought bees slept after dark.  I guess they don’t at 7/11, where there’s plenty of light, and plenty of sweet garbage for them to forage through.

I was saddened by the news of the death of Tony Snow.  I really liked the guy, and he had style.

Jeff

Here’s an interesting anti-speculation website.  These guys don’t have a clue.

http://www.stopoilspeculationnow.com/

I bet they don’t mind when speculators run up stock prices, thus enriching their 401-K’s.

Jeff

I spent the bulk of today scalping AAPL. I was in and out of that stock over 24 times today, and made a little money.  My grain spreads have been making money, the AAPL options that I sold have done well.  I stayed out of the copper market, and kick myself in hindsight.  

I find it interesting that the DJIA didn’t close on it’s ass, especially after it even went positive for a brief moment.  The market action today has provided me with many clues.

The oil market fascinates me with it’s broad strength.  One wonders what the margin increases will do over at the NYMEX.  FNM and FRE had some really good action, but I didn’t have the balls to trade either.  I’ve wanted to short those stocks along with LEH, for weeks, and just didn’t have the balls to do it.  Who knows, I probably would end up losing money on a slam dunk short.  Today turned out nicely, and was like shooting fish in a barrel. 

Time to get ready to drive up to get John at the airport.

Jeff

All of the markets are offering unparallelled trading opportunities.  It feels like I’m playing baseball, the ball is coming at me at 100 mph, but is the size of a soccer ball.  I’ve never, ever seen easier, better trading opportunities and set-ups in my entire career.  The market is just broadcasting it’s future moves in real time.  There is a chance, though, that I might just be in the zone and trading well.

I might be taking on an apprentice.  A neighborhood kid recently graduated from the University of Central Florida, and has expressed an interest in the markets and trading.  A few weeks ago, he knocked on my door wanting to see my trading set up. I showed him my screens, and gave him a high level overview of what I was doing, and why I was doing it.  We talked for awhile, mainly about philosophy.  He told me that he was a C student, majored in math, with a minor in statistics and partying. He expresses an interest in markets, and admits that he doesn’t have a clue. I look at him like he’s a blank slate.

  His parents are nouveau riche millionaires, who own one of the most ostentatious McMansions on our key.  I happen to loathe his parents, who consider me to be some sort of pariah, because I live in an 80 year old shack at the beach, and don’t fit the normal social conventions of our neighborhood.  He told me that the folks are basically broke, being buried under debt, and living way beyond their means. He was quite frank and open about his personal limitations, fears, tolerance of risk, and lack of money.  Despite being a C student, he seems quite bright.  Yesterday, he came over, and I invited him to a game of chess, in which he almost beat me.  

The kid has no cash, no real prospects for a job, no chance of getting accepted to a good grad or law school.  If he shows some persistence, I might take him aboard and show him a few things. 

John is coming home at 7:30 tonight.  He got the “running with the bulls” thing out of his system, and bought me a red scarf as a present.  I’ll have to pick him up at SRQ, and see what he wants to do, but I bet that he will probably want to crash.   As for me, I’m up for dinner at the Columbia Restaurant, which I’ve described before in this blog.

There are no waves, and no possibilities for any swell for the next few weeks. There’s no trace of a wind, very high humidity, and 90 degree temps every day.  This summer flatness always drives me slightly mad, kind of like a reverse Mistral. 

Jeff