Monday, March 17, 2008

A Frustrating Day

I should keep some sort of journal on the market action with respect to expected, unexpected or a WTF? I don't think that there is either a word or an emoticon that would describe my feelings on the market today. I will say that since starting this blog, I've never once been tempted to change its name--so perhaps that is saying plenty about what I thought about today. I guess that most days, I'm still perplexed. Sigh!

I closed out of my DUG this morning given the initial strength in OIH. Here's a coulda, woulda, shoulda for you: I think that I should have waited until about 10:15 a.m. I don't know if this is true or not, but that point appears to me to be the point where shorts have covered and if there are no "long" buyers, then the early strength might be seemingly anomalous. Though profitable, I did not optimize my exit, and I left $4 per share on the table--$1200 in gain that I could have managed better. On my $20K spec account, that is material. It is currently all cash. I'm waiting like a praying mantis to strike at something.

I also closed out my BNI APR 80 puts out for the lowest price of the day. BNI was strong like bull given CSX's good report today. I should note that my rail thesis seems to be wrong. CNI, which I closed on Friday, opened poorly. Together, I made a few bucks, but I could have done better. I'm not whining. So money left on and under the table all the way around. Oh well. I've avoided the bulk of the market's demise, so I shouldn't complain.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

follow-up for Bruce - re: Donald Coxe.

Here's a link to the most recent webcast done at the end of February, next one is slated for March 20.
http://tinyurl.com/2htvq3

As Leisa mentions, it now seems a bit more of a challenge to track down a live-in-progress-link unless you have Bank of Montreal access.

Prieur du Plessis' "Investment Postcards From Capetown" blog often references Coxe's materials.
http://www.investmentpostcards.com/

Leisa - not sure if you caught it today but 2nd_ave complimented your previous work from a year ago re: 'hedge funds and systemic risk' this morning on cara's blog.

It's an echo but thanks for your posts!

rsaunders

Leisa♠ said...

R, thanks for your comment. That was nice of 2nd. HE was one of the brave souls that followed me through that difficult piece. I have to say of all of my posts, that 3-part piece is the work that I'm most proud of--AND, it was the most difficult for me to get through as a layperson.