The Bear

I was shorting oil & gas on Friday, and I'm banking on more shorting in the near-term. Next week i'll be ready to catch the falling knife. Some refineries are down for maintenance next week so we'll see if that could give it a nudge.

It is the perfect operation for an exploiter.

True. This bull still has more juice. Todays action was pretty bullish in my opinion. It won't surprise me if we get a big pull back...but then march higher.

Nice - it's available on ICE.

Got a question for you FOREX guys. I trade almost all US securities and futures...and my accounts are in US dollars. I'm concerned about the falling US dollar...and what about higher oil prices...could it exacerbate the problem. I used to be able to get 1.33 Canadian for 1 US dollar...now it's almost break even. Long term it looks very bearish...could it actually fall BELOW the Canadian $? Is there any strategy I can do to hedge against this without going to the FOREX markets directly?

I don't doubt that we will get a pull back eventually, since it likes to rest after awhile....but i'm guessing too. Nobody 'knows' what oil will do. If these attempts to depress oil prices fail over the next month, that in itself is very bullish in my opinion. Sparrow, just a comment - I wouldn't dump QM. QM is very useful and it tracks CL almost perfectly...even in fast markets. The spread is at times 1 tick wider than CL, but it usually doesn't last long...only a few seconds. Giver tommorow - she'll reward you. Good trading tommorow dudes - it should be a hot day in the oil ring...turning in for some sleep now gotta wake up early 9:00am:crap:

James I'm not sure about your style of trading but that recent chart looks like a 5-min right? Maybe consider experimenting on a smaller time frame like 2-min also.

For swings - sure I see your point too...but for intra-day i'm still taking all sorts of longs....at least up until today. Tommorow will be another world though - so watch closely.

I think your potential target is realistic. This bull market isn't over yet in my opinion. Use QM and take the plunge.

They have options that are pit traded. By now they may be electronic - maybe check it out and post back here. Symbol LO I think.

I personally wouldn't short CL at these levels. There's no indication that the oil bull market is over, and while you may get some down days, or even a pull back to 70, it really would be a gamble in my opinion, for a swing trade. Some oil guy on CNBC said today that the long term picture for oil is down, because of OPEC's announcement today. If anything these were to be bearish implications, but the bears couldn't keep it down. We still had a higher close....on and on they said it was bearish bigtime, news from the pit. Tommorows an important day.

Sure do - I trade both. I mainly trade CL but many times QM too. For instance, sometimes I don't have as much confidence in the market conditions so I use QM in those situations. Liquidity isn't an issue for me - i can get in & out fast with QM and almost never get slippage on stops. QM is great for my use.

Brown....i'm curious about this situation in the states right now. Are home values actually going down? Or is this mainly a problem with the mortage companies. I wonder if this problem would spill over into the Canadian real estate market.

I was so happy when I heard this rule has finally been abolished. In my opinion the rule gave the bulls an un-fair advantage. Now stocks can plummet into a hole at normal speed (just as stocks are allowed to fly up at normal speed) - giving more balance to the market. Bring on the bear raids, i'll be right there rolling the ball. Bear raids are healthy for the market.

True that GCB, that happened to me before. I tried to enter the stop before my entry, but the stop got hit somehow, then I got in panic mode when i'm stuck in an unexpected position. I've been in un-wanted positions maybe 3-5 times, and lost only $490.00 (oil) at the most...it could have been way worse, I sent a limit order by accident. The worst thing to do is to panic, even though it's probably humanly possible to not. I immediately needed to find out if it was long or short. Once I had the info, I didn't even look at my charts and I hit the market order....I didn't care if I could get price improvement or not...I just wanted out. It was very nerve racking. Another time same scenario I made a $160.00 gain by fluke from just hitting that market order button again to immediately get out, not even looking at the charts. The thing I hate is this feeling I get in my stomach and my heart races. It's a horrible situation. I couldn't imagine trading without hard stops.

i'm gonna try and rent this DVD. Cool.

Hey reaver i've been doing some investigating on the types of companies that are involved in the sub prime mess. Can you possibly give me a list or tell me where I can find in more detail, NYSE listed companies that are stuck in this mess? Besides the companies themselves are there supporting companies that get slaughtered too? I find alot of the subprime companies are small and listed OTC. That cramer thing is insane. I remember I had the TV on and I heard this distorted screaming coming out of the speaker. The guy looked like he was going to pop a blood vessel. Hillarious.

Hey Reaver - maybe you want to consider swing trading in the beginning too? This way you could use share sizing (to trade stocks), pay low commissions, and just get your feet wet to get the feeling of the buying and selling action...just executing trades. At the end of the day, it is our ability to make money that counts, so considering different time frames maybe good to see if it fits your personality. I'm not saying avoid intra-day futures at first....but when I started I did swing trading at first, and used very small risk on each trade. Most of my trades are intra-day now, but I still keep swing trading and even longer term monthly positions too. The swing trading helped me alot to get around the emotional stress of holding onto a position overnight that was out of the money. Hope that helps and answers the question on where to start first....this is just how I started. As for your other question, was I independently wealthy before going full time? No - I was flat broke. In fact I had debt...credit card debt. I went many periods with as little as $10.00 in my bank account. The last year in high school I knew I wanted to attempt to be a speculator, but I didn't know how to do it. I was a C average student so I couldn't get into the true commerce program at University, so I ended up going into Business Management (Arts). It had nothing to do with the capital markets so I stopped going to class and dropped out of university. Then I got into high alititude mountaineering...even attempted to climb Mount McKinley (19)...failed....climbed numerous other smaller mountains. Then through some speculative activities later on, I was able to build enough capital to pursue my original goal...that was left unfulfilled, but the stock market books were always under my bed for years left un-read getting dusty.

You guys are hilarious. Lately i've been feeling pretty f-in good - i've been dabbling in Crystal Meth - pretty good stuff :no: Next.................special k.

Here's something strange, but I can't say that it's for sure related to the weed smoking. This month i'm in a net profit position and I feel very alert in the morning (most days). I stopped smoking 1 week prior to the end of June, and i'm able to trade in the mornings. Last month the dealer would only sell me 4g. and not 1g. like I wanted (I don't smoke heavily obviously) so I was FORCED to smoke it all (because I don't like wasting any) and it took me a good part of the month. Last month I was in a net loss position. Because of the repeated smoking at night, I would have trouble getting up in the morning to stare at my monitors, and I would literally start falling asleep and I would go back to bed for a bit and wake up again around noon, to watch the lunchtime doldrums and start trading again. I don't know what depression is like because I don't think i've ever had it, but I will tell you that during these smoking binges, I feel very groggy and have a general nasty feeling in my head during the day when I haven't smoked. It quickly goes away once I re-inject the weed. The bullet to the temple was back in the winter when those ass wipes at the NYMEX started opening the oil & gas trading at 9am instead of 10am. This pissed me off because I liked the extra sleep. I like staying up late. I think it comes from my youth when I was a DJ, clubber, and raver. My trading this year is doing pretty good...not amazing..but decent. I don't know what equity curve means. I'll read that article paul. Cooter, people in Toronto smoke in the public all the time. I'm pretty certain that if cops catch you, they usually just seize the substance and let you go with no ticket (it's happened to people I know), as long as you don't have pounds or ounces on you. I wouldn't doubt that they go and smoke it themselves..and eat tim hortons donuts after. It probably depends on the cop and what mood he's in....if he want's to exercise his power and control...I honestly think they are after the sellers not the people with small personal amounts. (DELETED SECTION JUST CAUSE IT'S NOT POLITE FOR A LADY TO READ ) -MrPaul

Hey doc, do you think weed smoking outside of market hours is no good for my speculation activities? I take long breaks (weeks at a time) and I never do it during open hours :p

I say you start with YM - one of the other benefits is the data feed is still free. If you start paying data fees, that's just more money you are going to have to make just to break even.

Anyone know the date that the uptick rule is actually being removed?

Yo dudes - From what I recall Quest Trade didn't last year. There's another one in Canada called TRADEFREEDOM, Scotiabank bought them I think recently. They have futures too.

In my opinion casino/card gamblers are not speculators...but most speculators are gamblers.