No trading today. I took a relative to the airport early this morning. Do you do this with your family? Always giving them rides to and from the airport? Or do you just say "have a safe trip" and let them fend for themselves? Somehow I've become the airport taxi service for the family. It's because I'm the one who stays at home all day and doesn't have a "real job." At least if it's my Grandpa, he always slips me a twenty. But it wasn't Grandpa today.

After I returned home, my wife said, "So you're not going to trade today, right?" You know in that tone that challenges every cell of your manhood (not the penis). It was already noon NY time. I was hungry. Of course, the charts weren't looking too interesting. Who was I kidding? Of course, I had already made up my mind the night before I was going to sit it out today. This was a trap, but what the hell, I'm a risk taker, so I replied, "Nah, why? You want to do something today?"

That's how I got stuck babysitting alone for going on 8 hours now. Something's wrong with this baby. I think he's teething his molars. Very bitchy today. Doesn't want solids. Doesn't want formula on his regular schedule. Drinks half of his normal amount. So I give him half at his next feeding and he cries for more. He's feverish again, sluggish and tired, but he's only napping half as long as usual. He wants to be constantly held. PITA. I didn't mean that. I love my baby. Love him.

I'm taking Robin Dayne's advice to drink a ton of water to keep my brain hydrated and to ward off "trader's fog." Thank god, I installed the toilet in my office here. Drink a gallon, pee a gallon. My fog has lifted and now I can see clearly see that trading the YM sucks eggs today. I'm escaping early with 1 trade for 5 ticks. Had small, nominal losing days the past couple days, but slightly green on the week. Horrible trade management has plagued me, letting some winners turn red. Gonna go to the mall now, let the baby crawl around the plastic vegetables playground, and spend all my winnings on the family in the food court. Life is good.

I happened to catch a presentation by trading shrink, Robin Dayne, in Woodie's HC room this afternoon. I'm not going to link to her site, since she got a ton of free advertising already. Google her if interested. Actually, I don't believe she's an actual shrink, but rather a Tony Robbins guru that fell into mentoring daytraders with their mental problems. She mentioned a lot of Tony Robbins neuro-linguistic and "scrambling" stuff to undo faulty neuroconnections.

It was sorta interesting. Honestly, Gio gives better seminars on trading psychology. Dayne was obviously just selling her services. She took questions from the peanut gallery, and there were a ton of them, but her standard answer was basically "call me" or more precisely "if you ain't payin', i'm not sayin'." Her little powerpoint slideshow ended and her price list was displayed: $350/hr (Jesus Christmas!), plus some discounted half-hour blocks sold as a "5 pack" and "10 pack." Wow, she's Robin somebody. That's highway Robin.

YM 2 min - 3 trades/+14 ticks

Nothing like stumbling out of the gate on a Monday morning. I just couldn't wake up for the opening bell. We're still playing flu tag here, and now the wife's got it. The baby woke up bawling at midnight and was inconsolable. I told the wife to go back to sleep and I'd take care of baby. An hour later, after bottle feeding and handing him 100 cherios one-by-one, he still wasn't going back to sleep. I had to hold him (man, he's getting heavy) for 20 minutes, rocking, walking, walking, rocking, singing before he nodded off again. I was pooped. Alarm went off at the usual 5:30am, and I was zonked out. That's the bad thing about West Coast trading. Hideous starting time.

I started the charts a couple hours late and stuck to the 2 min YM, since that would catch up faster and maybe get some more patterns showing up to make up for lost time. I was zombiefied anyway. Very slow to recognize and had the reactions of a frozen caveman. Finally saw I missed a ghost, so took the next ZLR short at 1. Would've been good for 10 ticks with no heat, but I zoned out and settled for a b/e + 1. Trade 2 was a mini-bline sling short. Ugly ZLR with green LSMA, but turbo collapsed hard and price kicked perfectly off the mid-CCIFib. I entered a half-bar too late, but still got 10 ticks. Missed an inverted ghost after that. Then missed a ghost, but at least managed to draw a TL on it after the fact. Finally took a ZLR short for trade 3 as we neared the regular market's close. Nothing special about it. Just felt like a weak close, and I felt unsatisfied by the day, so I took a final fling to pad my tiny pile with a scalp. Glad it worked out. Those half-hearted flings are a pretty good way to backstab yourself and leave your day with a sour taste. Got up to 8 ticks my way before I bailed with 3. Pfffft.

I just chilled the rest of the day. Papertraded 3 more winners in the afternoon and had some regrets that they weren't real trades, but what the hell. It was a nice relaxed day overall, came out ahead, and when it comes down to it, you gotta wish all days resulted like that.

For the 2nd time this week, we're having a birthday party for my grandpa. I guess when you're 85, you should get as many parties as possible. This time I'm healthy enough to actually eat the food and enjoy myself. I should go out and get a gift since I was too sick over the weekend to get one. Maybe he wants a used, broken keyboard? He doesn't have a computer to plug it into so maybe he won't notice it's busted.

WHAT I'M DOWNLOADING: Badfinger-Behind The Music. This is a 3 gb DVD of an old VH1 documentary about the old, cursed rock group, Badfinger. I'm one of their 397 fans, and I never caught this the few times it aired before being forever shelved, so I've been slowly grabbing it in my spare time. Hopefully it's done before the weekend. It's an achingly slow bit torrent download with a handful of seeds. Tracker: http://b2.easytree.org/announce.php/e24b68ce5e06ceccaea9a9a311d3b438/

WHAT I'M WATCHING: Coincidentally or not, VH1. They've got this troika of hideous reality tv shows right now, and they replay the shit everytime I flip by the channel. Of course, I have to stop and watch, even if I saw that particular episode last night or two weeks ago. First show is Strange Love which follows the love affair in Italy between Brigitte Nielsen and Flavor Flav. Seriously. Next is The Surreal Life 4, which used to be on FOX or UPN or something like that. That's actually where Brigitte and Flav first hooked up. Anyway, season 4 has guys like mini-me, Peter Brady, that wrestling Chyna she-male chick, and one of the Go-Go's all in one house being wacky. God it sucks. God I can't stop watching. Finally is Celebrity Fit Club which is a Biggest Loser knockoff with celebs who are less famous than on The Surreal Life. These shows SUCK SUCK SUCK, and I hope they get new episodes soon.

WHAT I'M READING: a year's worth of back copies of WIRED magazine. Got a year for $10 and just let them pile up, so after reading "WARNING: This is your last copy!" on my final issue, I took that as a sign that I wouldn't be getting anymore and that something should be done with this pile. Biggest regret is one issue had two coupons for a Buy 1, Get 1 Free box of Krispy Kremes that expired 12/31/04. Damn me.

WHAT I THREW OUT: In my continuing rage to clean up the clutter around here, I took a big step and dumped my entire collection of trading magazine articles and old, yellow clippings from IBD. 99% of it remained unread, but out they went. That felt good. Unlike with WIRED, I actually do check out my new copies of Active Trader and SFO and all that stuff. I don't read it, but I skim, rip out "must read later" articles, then add it to the pile. The pile originally stayed on top of the toilet tank as "quality reading time" material, but the top of the tank got all crowded with more important stuff like the Glade spray cans I kept getting for 3/$1 on sale at Ralph's (they double coupons). The pile moved to under my desk and eventually formed a covering over those unsightly computer wires and powerstrips.

LAST MOVIES I SAW: Hable con Ella and The Princess & The Warrior. This was an at home foreign movie double feature after Christmas. Both were pretty entertaining stories, not special effect driven stuff. One Spanish, the other German. They were similar in showing off what I call an "itchy eyeball" feeling of slight discomfort. Go watch them yourselves if you're interested in that or finding out what that is.

YM 2 min - 2 trades/+28 ticks

Didn't get much sleep again last night. Baby woke up at midnight and 5am for overnight feedings. I thought we were through with that crap at the 6 month mark when he started sleeping through the night. Maybe it's a growth spurt. He's been starting to stretch out now while his weight is holding steady, which is quite a relief for us. He was starting to be quite the porker, staying in the 90th percentile for weight and in the 30s for height. He's only gained 1 pound in the past 3 months, though, and is now around the 70th percentile for both. Parents care a lot about that stuff. One day we'll fret about grades and IQ scores and SAT scores, but for now, it's lbs and inches.

I'm pooped out after trading for 2 hours, so I'm calling it quits. Stuck to the 2 min chart today and took two nice ghost (H&S) shorts. Second trade was one of them "hands up" ghosts that are supposedly very rare, but I see them more than occasionally. That was a hairy one since IB crapped out a minute into it. I definitely had a deer in the headlights reaction to that. Just lucky it worked out okay. IB came back up and my price was right at the entry. Would've been prudent to just exit, especially since Sierra Charts never catchup with missing data, so they weren't a reliable roadmap to follow at the moment. I stuck with it though and took some quick points, not waiting for any logical exit.

It's a good time to quit... at least for the morning. Let's see if IB holds steady for awhile.

Ah jeez, Mr. Shithead is fucking around with his charts again.

Health update: I think the baby is 100% again! His last problem has been a slight fever the past couple days, but the baby tylenol finally kicked in last night while we were watching the absolute last The Biggest Loser show (man, have they stretched that out) and suddenly the little guy was back to his usual happy self. He's also back to milk-based formula and solids, and the poop is looking fine. I'm around 80-90% recovered. I've got my regular appetite back. The poop ain't fine, but it's getting there. It's getting better everyday.

Weather update: gorgeous!

Trading update: I'll update this tonite. Got some errands to run and some serious sunshine to catch.

Okay, I'm back. Great news! I went out to Staples and finally got a new cheapass keyboard to replace my old broken cheapass one. I wised up this time and splurged for the $12.99 one, though they're still selling the $9.99 one. Never again. You get what you pay for. This new one has all these fancy buttons on top, including a big one that I just learned actually shuts down the computer. Anyway, if you see typos now, those are actually mine, and not the old busted keyboard.

I was also a good citizen and brought 9 months of Diet Coke cans and Beechnut baby food bottles to the recycling center. You'd be shocked to know how much space that stuff takes. You'll also be shocked to learn I got a whopping $2.85 for it. Gotta admit it was a good feeling getting paid. In cash, to boot. More than I've made all week so far.

Last thing I did was get a haircut. That was 10 months of hair I accumulated. My hair was nearly as old as my baby. I went from Meet The Beatles to Abbey Road hairwise so I got it all clipped off.

All righty, enough of all that. I fugged up with my Sierra Chart upgrade again. This new version 59 looked too good to pass up. WTF, who am I kidding? I do upgrades as soon as I find out about them. None of that pansy "let's wait awhile and let the other suckers discover all the bugs" shit for me. I WANT TO EXPERIENCE THE BUGS FIRSTHAND. So this new version comes with its own playback feature, and moveable trendlines. I haven't done playback since before Christmas. My excuse is that for some reason, Sierra PB with BT uses 100% resources on my computer. It's true. But it's not like I'm afraid my motherboard is going to get fried or anything. I just got to the point where I got sick of playbacks. This v59 playback thing doesn't look too bad though. I'm not sure if I can sync it to do a few charts simultaneously, and I'm pretty sure BT won't work with it, but I'm determined to give it a good whirl.

Anyway, in my spirit of "getting a lot of shit done" that sick people are determined to do once they start feeling better, I also decided to clean up my hard drive of useless files. I had a bunch of useless stuff in my Sierra folder with all the indicators and old data I collected over the past few months. So I just started deleting stuff except for my current stuff. Unfortunately, I trashed my current chart study, so I'm back to the Buffy b-line charts. Actually, I liked that chart. I spent the day playing with them, adding those CCIFibs and kiwi's barplus thing and the Fisher Transform.

I went back to paper yesterday, because I still felt like crap and only had 4 hours of sleep going into the open. My sleep schedule got all screwy over the weekend because we had two birthday parties to attend, one at night on Friday and one early afternoon on Monday and I just slept in between. Anyway, I just wasn't into yesterday and it was a paper nightmare. I think I lost 10 or 11 in a row. I couldn't spot a winning pattern for my life, and it honestly felt like I back to square one. That feeling crept into today, though physically I was much better. So I stayed on paper and things fell more back into place with 8 wins/2 losses on the YM. That was encouraging knowing the majority of the day was tightly wound around the pivot and pretty tough, and I was doing a great job fucking around with the charts and not paying attention.

My concentration (or severe lack of it) is a real problem. I've got a program called eyeQ that I've been meaning to try out to increase my screen reading speed, focus, memory, concentration and all that. Hell, Pam Dawber is the spokesperson for it, so you know it's gotta be good. Unfortunately, I've had the program for a month and never installed it. I need to buy a program to first motivate me to install the eyeQ program. If Valerie Bertinelli did an infomercial for that, I'd buy that also, and all my problems would be solved.

I figured out a way to stay glued to the screen while finishing off this intestinal bug.

I got boomeranged by the flu. Started Tuesday night. Just had the chills that wouldn't go away with an electric blanket on high, triple layered socks, a hat with flaps over my ears, and even gloves. Bodyaches and extreme fatigue followed as I slept in all of Wednesday into mid-Thursday. Now I've got the runs 5 minutes after I eat/drink anything, and I can't get back to sleep.

Good news is I've lost all the holiday weight I gained (at least until my plumbing works properly again). Also, the baby seems to be feeling better. Mommy switched him to soy formula a couple days ago and that's helping.

Woodie's created a shitload of new HC rooms for some reason. I decided to try out the "beginners" room, and I like it. It's a lot cozier, and there's no moderator. Gio was doing a lecture at pre-open, Woodie's been in and out and had his charts up most of the morning, and NickTrader's been in all day calling out some stuff and putting up a few charts. Other than thata, it's just been folks calling out patterns/trades/questions without the cliquish prattle of the in-crowd and the annoying time-filler rap of the latest moderator of the month (seems the entire roster of moderators has rotated anew recently). This seems like a good enough place to hang for now.

5 min YM - 2 trades/+20 ticks




Baby update: Little guy was holding his own, drinking a reduced amount of diluted formula yesterday. Wife told me he threw up again a little at 1 am (I've been sleeping on the sofa again). However, he seems nearly normal today. Back to his cheery self, crawling all about. Still on reduced formula. No solids yet. He did have a little diarrhea this morning (with corn). I knew I shouldn't have given him creamed corn a couple nights back.

Weather update: Man, we've been having some crazy ass rain. I half-expected to see Noah's Ark go by on the streeet. Did you see that side of the mountain lop off and slide into a dozen houses? God, how horrific. That was a soil tsunami. We finally have a break in the rain today. I think we're supposed to be dry for a few days at least. I'm definitely taking the family out somewhere for fresh air today after writing this. We've been stir crazy in here and each taken turns getting sick. Gimme that sun!

Market update: Not terribly exciting again. After everyone talking about what a terrific opening week it was to trade and maybe, maybe, maybe happy days are here again for awhile, it's been rather crappy lately. Actually, it got crappy when I finally crawled out of my sickbed. Coincidence? Or is it my fault?

Taking signals on the 5 min YM (keeping it simple to start the year, one contract, 10 tick targets and 10 tick stops), I took two trades today. Both winners. First feasible move was a VT long at 10:10, but not enuf rounding in my estimation. That would've been a winner. What followed was a 1 1/2 hour flat zone. A couple possible ZLR longs developed but we were slimjimming and the 34 ema was sloping red. As long as that was the case, I was waiting for a short.

12:05 - ghost/shamu short. Candle was kissing off the 34 and it was a good risk/reward to try a short. I believe they call this a "Famir Shamu" or just plain "Famir" now. Anyway, it eventually went down 30 points. I got my 10.

12:45 - ZLR short. I was out of the previous trade. Dunno where I was, but I wasn't watching the chart at that moment and only saw this after the fact. Nice winner. Could've been considered a continuation of the Famir.

13:20 - VT long. CT move on a vegas pattern that stretched a long time. Plenty of rounding and plenty of time to anticipate it, especially if you were sitting on your hands and missing the biggest chunk of the downmove. LSMA was green so I bought at the break of the mid-FibCCI line (which should coincide with CCI crossing the ZL). Only problem was it was under the down sloping 34 ema. Barely missed my target as it banged off the 34. Then I took a little heat, and had to wait nearly 30 mins before my target finally hit. Only thing keeping me in was the green 34 ema on the 1 min was never broken (though it was bending a lot). That was a little hairy. I keep remembering what Woodie says: "the CCI is a momentum indicator, so I expect the trade to go my way fairly fast." I don't do anything it, but I keep remembering it. Certainly does seem, hanging around and overstaying your welcome when your initial move doesn't materialize is a recipe for disaster.

My wife used the hair dryer that triggered the circuit breaker. My computer went down. That's the 3rd time in a week the circuit breaker's flipped in my office. I don't know what's causing it. Other two times, I had a portable heater next to me, so I unplugged that. Maybe this shit weather is overloading everythinga. Ah daaaaaaaaaaamn, now something is wrong with my A key. Hate this keyboard.

5 min YM - no trades




Baby update: The baby continued vomiting everything up yesterday. We had to spoonfeed apple juice flavored pedialyte to try and keep him hydrated. He seemed better this morning. Just a bit pooped out, but he took everything we gave him (2 oz pedialyte, 2 oz water, 2 oz diluted formula) one hour apart and kept it down. His diaper was dry overnight and his soft spot was a bit sunken (signs of dehydration) so we took him to the doctor's office as soon as he opened up. Doctor's diagnosis was the flu, and he prescribed something. I went to the pharmacist and they tell me it's just an OTC saline nasal gel for babies. WTF? His nose isn't even runny or blocked. I thought this medicine would at least be some kind of baby nyquil.

Anyway, I'm starting to highly doubt this guy's a real doctor. But I'm always that way with doctors. He gave a real cursory exam to decide it was a flu needing a nasal gel. I think it's just a 24 hour stomach bug. He's keeping everything down now, and his diaper is wet again. The doctor said to keep him on pedialyte today, but the baby's sick of it already so we're sticking with diluted formula. Also, screw that nasal gel. I don't even know why I bought it.


Market update: needless to say, I didn't get much quality screentime in. I'm keeping Woodie's secret blue FibCCI up for awhile. Changed the chart background from purple haze to gray to see those FibCCI better. Actually, everything is more clear. That should help.

Watching the 5 min YM today, I saw nothing in the first hour. There was no reason to catch that long white bar up. The mid-FibCCI was seemingly containing the sticks, and though the green LSMA would keep you out of an enticing ZLR short, there was no reason to be long. That bar shot up in the first min of the 5 min bar, so only chasers would get it.

Only thing I was around for was the initial move down at the hod around 14:00. Maybe it could be seen as a ghost. I was thinking about it at the time, but that right shoulder is shaky.

A new blog template for the new year!

I did it out of boredom. After being sick so long, I'm longing to run up a sunny mountain top and sing The Sound of Music ala Julie Andrews. Instead, I've got cabin fever as we've got this "Pineapple Express" storm just blasting us now. The rain's been insane this winter. Maybe I should move back to the East Coast. These rain soaked El Nino winters are supposed to happen once every 10 years or so. This is the 3rd one since 1998. Take away the predictable sunny weather from Southern California and you're left with shit.

Like everyone else here, we've been miserably stuck indoors for far too long. My wife and I are very edgy and snapping at each other. The baby has been inexplicably vomiting this morning, too. We're keeping an eye on that. No fever, no visible signs of pain or distress. I gave him a lot of egg noodles and creamed sweet corn yesterday. Maybe that wasn't a good idea.

Here's my approximation of Woodie's FibCCI. Just the 14 sma (which is the CCI part) and 14 sma envelope bands set at 38.2% (that's the fib part). That's pretty much it. Other stuff on the prices is just what I had on already: gb's 34 ema with colored slope and the Fisher Transform I keep fiddling with.

First day Woodie is showing off his new "Fibonnacci CCI" as a moderator. At least it's the first time I'm seeing it (and my attendance record in chat has been rather spotty the past few weeks). This is pure price action stuff, obviously. Nobody's mentioned the conflict with Woodie's basic "we don't need no stinkin' prices" motto. However, Woodie's taken great umbrage at folks daring to compare this FibCCI to keltner or bollinger bands. However they're calculated, they're used the same way for support and resistance and setting exit targets and all that.

Just like with the sidewinder (which still isn't available for us poor Sierra Chart users), Woodie has promised this toy will be available for all as soon as he's done personally testing it.

Happy New Year! Remember as a kid in school, you'd still be accidentally writing the previous year all the time? Time went slow then. Now we know each year goes by faster than the last and it doesn't stop until we drop. Time's flying by so fucking fast now it's not funny. True story. I was getting a prescription filled for my baby last month and the guy kept saying my kid's insurance info wasn't in the system. I verified the name, insurance number and birth date 3 or 4 times with the pharmacist and was still coming up empty. He finally asked how old my child was and I replied "10 months." He asked, "Not 10 years?" I had been wrongly repeating the birth year was 1994. Shit, off by a decade. I could've really sworn it was just 1994. Wasn't it?

Anyway, another year, another round of resolutions. 2004 sucked badly for me. I lost my trading mojo, even worse than 2003 when the cluelessness first started seeping in. Sucking really sucks, so let's end it now. I'm halfway through a terrible bout of the flu. This is what happens when I don't get a flu shot. One horrible flu during Xmas and New Year's and one horrible summer flu. I had been flu-less for about 5 or 6 years once I started getting an annual flu shot, but that string just ended. When I get it, I really get the works: runny nose, stuffy head, headaches, body pains, nausea. My mom is the same way. Just a complete body breakdown and it takes a week of in bed sweating it out with nyquil and hot toddies, followed by a week of gradually getting well. I'm in that second week now.

In the meantime, for sheer entertainment, it would be hard to top the Big Cheese "and Whine" Blog. It chronicles the Big Cheese, aka Tampa, and his adventures/misadventures in the Woodie room. The guy's first rate hilarious, and his madness has skewered up a notch since being banned from chat a couple weeks back for offending Gio. I know it's not the way he intended it to be, but the blog's suddenly become a lonely hearts hangout for all the "anonymouses" to bash Woodie and his inner circle.