I’ve been using Netflix streaming for about a month and watched my fair share of older movies. See Netflix streaming sucks if you want to see the latest movies. Its more of movie library of movies from a few years ago. They have some 2011 and some 2010 releases, but overall the selection is weak. However, they do have a good amount of National Geographic shows, PBS, and Documentaries which thankfully I love.

I got to watch “The Pit” today which focuses on the traders of NYBOT shortly before it was taken over by ICE and the traders shift, or lackof, from open outcry trading to electronic.

Floored, another documentary, this one focuses on the CBOE, in Chicago.

My Favorite movies about stock trading are the obvious. Wall Street is a classic. Trading Places as well. However, Wall Street 2, sucks balls. They try to smush 3 or 4 different buzz themes between CDS, Madoff, Carryover Trade, Hedge Fund takeover, that really doesn’t make sense. Some people loved Wall Street 2, but I hated it and I’ve still watched a few times to try and like it. Nope.

Boiler Room – also a classic. So reminds of those late 90s, early 2000 boom boom days.

The Wall Street Warriors series on Mojo that featured different traders including some at SMB Capital, and Timothy Sykes. This series was actually pretty awesome. When I saw this the market was doing its bull run from 2007 – right off the July 2006 bottom.

Also awesome, the Documentary about John Paul Tudor Jones. Check it out on Youtube.

I know I’m leaving out a few that I can’t remember at this point. If you think of a few leave em in the comments.

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Without posting proof of such a claim, I don’t feel like posting a screenshot, but the COMPX is overbought here. More than not, alot more, we will see a pullback in the market over the next 5 days. It tends to come quickly when it does. I’m short via 2x NDX and RUT funds, bought QQQ puts at close. Sold all open positions mentioned yesterday – today. I rebought the short trade > QQQ puts because of the signals I’m seeing on the COMPX. It is a systematic trade and I need to hold out for 5 days or less. If the pullback is mild we should explode to the upside when its over. If the pullback is significant, there is a solid chance this early January movement is nothing but a bear rally.

Again, without posting a chart here to show my thesis, I’m sure it seems hogwashy. Maybe I’ll post it tomorrow.

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So I’ve been working on my startup, iCalledit.com, for roughly 10 months. We bootstrapped and hired different programmers at different times. One got poached from us and moved to California for Y-Combinator and got funded. Very cool.

Trying to convince and find a programmer to join your startup is extremely difficult. In south Florida, its even more difficult as the available/programmer pool here is pretty thin. Its a programmer’s market right now. Everyone is looking, and many jobs are paying well right now.

I just got back from New York, I wanted to attend the Skillshare, “How to get into TechStars,” class and I’m glad I made the trip. David Tisch is a unique speaker and definitely speaks my language so it resonated well with me. We (my co-founder and I) wanted to see what Techstars looks for in startups before we submitted our application. We had it filled out ready to go, but wanted to see if we could derive a few tidbits that might give us an edge. Putting a name to a face is always a good thing to do as well. While in NYC we met with our advisor who runs a successful startup himself, and got a little taste of the startup scene at Dogpatch Labs. We met with some Ruby programmers as well. The scene in New York is downright awesome compared to what’s down here. In fact just surviving in a startup in South Florida is a win. Although costs are cheaper in SoFla which allows startups to live longer, you also have limited access to everything that startups have at their fingertips in NYC. It probably evens out; startup survival time in SoFla vs Startup speed in NYC or San Francisco. However, speed kills and being in the game fast allows you to be in the right place to get lucky first.

From my first internet business when I used to visit Manhattan regularly for trade shows I always said, “I love visiting, but I’d never want to live here.” I think this trip changed that for me. The city feels different.

So we finally found a technical co founder, but we are still looking for more programmers. If you program in Ruby, or do Mobile apps, or are awesome at other languages contact me. We are considering rebuilding from the ground up and I’d love to talk to you. What you see there is our minimum viable product. stockrake at gmail.com

Now for my stock trades.
I closed my GOOG trade for 5.5%, that thing dropped like a stone over the last few days.

I also took a loss on my first GLD position, own a Feb put in GLD now I think the 156.

I bought AAPL put today FEB 1 strike OTM. AAPL is overbought pretty severely, but this should be a one day trade barring a huge negative news release such as Italy’s government commandeering all the olive groves. In the past AAPL can run through overbought. However, with 5 minutes to the close it had a super rare overbought signal – that faded away though, which tells me it should still be decent. I also bought SPY and IWM puts FEB 1 strike OTM.

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Long GOOG and short via QQQ puts. Both are small positions and I’m waiting for some sign of either direction. The market continues to straddle precarious versions of a breakout and breakdown, although it leans more towards breakout on shorter term, while the bearish case continues to look ok on the longer term chart.

Recently we got some golden crosses on the Dow, but I don’t put much credence into that.

My signals, after 3 weeks of a potential up signal in the weekly, its going to be official on Friday if this market holds up ALBEIT below the 50 week that is now curling down. So fuckery abound.

The daily has its two gaps out of 4-5 month wedge. I never like gaps, but really strong moves start with gaps so this could be the beginning of a strong move. The weekly should confirm it and I’m not seeing that yet at all. Nothing major happens without the weekly telling the story. Still in a tough place to figure out imo.

One chart that looks great on the daily and is known for snapbacks so be careful is WFM. Leigh Drogen recently did a great post about WFM. Its ALL about their prepared foods/deli area imo. The regular shopping is ok. Its the experience and its the prepared foods. I’ve seen it at the Boca Raton store, the Fort Lauderdale store, the Coral Gables/South Miami store and more recently in NYC where I am visiting right now. I agree with some of the comments that its overpriced and people will find their groceries cheaper elsewhere. That will happen, but its not about that. The prepared food is probably a higher margin business and although it probably doesn’t get the volume the reg shopping gets, it just might in the future. If they are able to add a drive thru to their stores you can forget about it (see what Panera is doing). The prepared foods is a gold mine and that trend is big. The next Starbucks? Difficult. The footprint is the obvious issue. However, they could always have some scaled down Starbucks sized locations (think Panera) and create satellite prepared foods stores. In many locations where people price compare their groceries more it could kill. In South Florida, both Panera and WFM do well. Panera probably more so. Its always bat shit busy throughout the day and people live there on their computers. People live at Starbucks as well, but imo, I like living at Panera because I like to eat once in awhile and Starbucks food choices are not as attractive as Panera’s. WFM could easily compete head on with Panera imo. Either way you slice it there is tremendous growth.

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What’s In Store For the Market For 2012?

I’m not sure, but I always remember something my dad once told me. Son, never bet against scantily clad villagers who stare endlessly at the night sky.

The COMPX and RUT are still trading below, a now arcing lower, 50w moving average. Still not a bullish trend despite Santa coming to town. Where the fook were you 2 weeks ago Santa? Could’ve used you then, just saying. Have a latke.

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, and may you be victorious during the feats of strength portion of the holidays. See ya in 2012, and next week too.

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So I was long up until yesterday’s close. I rode through the hellacious moods of the market until yesterday where I basically said screw it and sold. Today the market ripped a horse’s ass to the upside. Great. Perfect.

Only saving grace was not going short yesterday. Bought some TNA around 3:15pm because the fact that I got shaken out at the exact wrong time tells me I was right originally to be where I was. It blows, but I’m back long much much smaller in size. Now the market is free to rip garnering me a pittance.

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Seeing the futures start to slip early last night, and being up till 3am I saw they were really off a little more. Then this morning they were off close to 100.

I cut my funds and took the loss. I also sold my AAPL call for loss as well. I kept everything else.

I bought TNA, TQQQ, went 100% long the funds, and bought CWTR during the bounce into the close. Also bought a little SBUX and still own the stocks mentioned over the weekend.

What I like is the 21 dema on nearly everything was saved today and I did not see a breakdown in the MACD’s on any stock chart I checked. That normally is a bullish setup that I look for. Continuous green in indicators with a red candle. Often times it leads to a previous high above yesterday’s high. In this case it would be above 2646 on the COMPX. Look above at that chart.

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Yesterday I won being short and that was erased today. I pressed it yesterday by keeping 90% of my shorts on and only sold FAZ. Those trades went from winners to losers. I woke up late and with the slice through the 21dema yesterday and the absence of any major oversold indications (not even on intraday charts), I was looking for a down morning. We didn’t get that so I sold all my ETFs, TZA, EDZ and at that time it was beyond my trade window at Rydex. I flipped all short funds to 50% long 50% cash at the close though.

I also bought CJES, TC, AAPL calls Jan 400, and something else I can’t remember at this moment (might have been RAD). The move on pretty much every daily chart looks very bullish. The break above the 21dema, then the pullback, then today’s explosion basically forms a horizontal line across recent highs. With my weekly signals flipping to long on nearly everything (many equities flipped last week) + seasonality, I can’t stand in front of all the green on my screens. Everything is long at the moment and I’m being dumb at this juncture.

I don’t have to say it, but this month and last have been very difficult for overnight trades (using my signals), I’m sure everyone else is doing exceptional though.

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Mark Minervinni posted something about the market is possibly in lockout mode. This is where the market remains overbought and gives very little pullback for bulls to buy. Essentially locking buyers out and missing the stampede.

The way the futures are acting on a nightly basis plus the fact that the COMPX has gotten overbought twice spaced out underneath the 200dma and didn’t sell off is impressive. Also interesting is when the market gets OB over the course of say 6 days and has a few days in between the two overbought conditions that is a high odds trade for a pullback particularly when trading into or underneath important moving averages.

The futures are up another 10 pts tonight and that along with the way the price action has been definitely speaks loudly that the character may have changed for the intermediate term. Watch now that I’m capitulating we gap down 500.

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The RUT triggered on the last bar of the day. Its an early sell warning type signal. This signal went long Monday morning on that big FU gap up. Now its turning down. BIG HOWEVER, is that its probably a pull back short. Also seeing the MACD turn up as of yesterday on monster price action, that can actually be a sell signal. I talk about that a lot. What’s a buy is a sell and vice versa. The RUT candle is so large that a pull back to the 21dema from the top side would not be out of bounds at all. As the 200dma continues to trend down on the daily RUT.

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