Bill Cara's Blog for Feb 20, 2012

Accumulation Zone: Monthly 3, Weekly 1, Daily 1
Distribution Zone: Monthly 11, Weekly 32, Daily 34

Great interview aired during game of underdog Jeremy Lin

Submitted by NYUGrad (4448 comments) on Sun, 02/19/2012 - 16:16 #105324

Mark Zuckerberg was also sitting right behind the Knicks bench. The Knicks beat the defending champion Dallas Mavericks on national tv today.
J. Lin 28 Pts, 4 Reb, 14 Ast, 5 Stl, 1 Blk
But was a great overall team effort. Especially on defense.

http://es.pn/z2MnVE

I take great inspiration as being a successful trader long term is prob harder than becoming a professional athlete.
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Wow, what a game. Jeremy's high school coach was there. Spike Lee wore Jeremy's Harvard jersey. Mr. Lin is the real catalyst to spur a successful financial year for both the Knickerbockers & Madison Square Gardens. Any point guard in the league would be proud of his stats.

Something I haven't seen in a long time. Before the game began, players were greeting each other with big smiles, expressing genuine happiness to be together, sharing something special. That's what "In pursuit of happiness" means.

Great effort by both teams & either could have won in the last seconds. To me, this game was more about a wildcard, chemistry & luck. It wasn't just Mr. Lin, although he was great. The Knicks inserted a player that was playing in China only days before. He hadn't even practiced with the team. That player, J.R. Smith, came in and began by knocking down 3 pointers. The team could run no plays, as the new guy didn't know them. Basically, an unrehearsed, take what the defense gives you and help each other be successful. Kind of what I think this blog is about.

Thanks for the help & sharing everyone.

when measured per gallons of gasoline (attached).

No doubt it will go up. The question is whether SP500 will go up or gasoline down?

http://tradinglog.realitytrader.com/2012/02/week-o...

Athan - "The solution to Greece's financial problems could lay at the bottom of the sea"

So since the Germans are not coughing up the cash the way they used to, now it is offshore oil & gas that will be the next proposed Deux Ex Machina that will pull the Greeks out of their predicament, without anyone having to make any sacrifices or change how they do business.

Its a pity it actually takes 5-7 years to bring one of those wells online, once a discovery is made. But perhaps the electorate won't notice this and they'll vote for the clever Mr Samaras.

Its a Greek version of "Drill Baby Drill" - in this case, out of debt.

And the NQ, while i dont have a position now, has crept back to the 2586 price level i mentioned Friday. its where sellers and buyers have most agreed on price for the near term.

but things can change quick with this Greek thing

close my euro short at gain. not sticking around for this mess

A deal has supposedly been reached.

I'm going to hazard a guess that the Troika report will be used as justification to torpedo the deal as we get closer to the date when the cash will need to appear.

Perhaps that's the motivation behind the Troika report in the first place. Before, they had orders to report positive news. Now that the eurozone banks are ready to handle a default (and the northern europeans really don't want to give any more money to Greek bondholders), they have orders to report negative news. Surprise surprise, things don't look so good anymore. Who would have guessed that severe cutbacks in government spending would have negative economic consequences?

It has always been about the bondholders. Now the time has come to cut them off the gravy train. Even though a "deal has been done", we have 30 days from now until the money needs to appear. Just about anything could derail the train. "More democracy" in Germany. Or Finland. Or wherever.

Endeavor to perservere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csEzTwKemwY

Starts at 3:03 into the clip. Great scene from a great movie.

Spent a weekend with Robert Nadeau and I see the AAPL debate continuing yesterday, so I'll tie the two together.

Shihan sensei was very much for the present, the here and now and he made much distinction between the mind or intellectual "I" against the body as a system. An easily understandable example would be the intellectual engagement required as a teenager learning to drive a car - call him/her a level 1 driver - whereas most of us have a unified mind/body system that can drive us from A to B almost without thinking - maybe level 2 or 3 (and no, it is not a coincidence that I paraphrase Vad's MPP for this example). Think of a NASCAR driver as a level 4 or 5 driver. The following vid provides an example of 'endless possibilities' that we face almost daily in our driving, without really thinking about it, as it applies to Aikido.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfJm2Ff04b4

It's not like most of us encounter that sort of "Oh my god!" experience daily on the road anymore, we just do it. That sort of endless possibility is what I seek to acquire in both Aikido and trading.

On AAPL, first thing I was reminded of in returning to that same chart was that long-term charts should ideally be logarithmic. In the arithmetic setting used for that chart, we've the impression that the stock is parabolic, whereas the long-term logarithmic or percentage-wise moves illustrate a more realistic appraisal of where AAPL is right now. In returning to the AAPL chart and not seeing the same thing as the first time, I realised my error. See attached.

It wasn't my intention to say "the market is rolling over here" in noting the fib resistance, it was just an observation that this magical mathematics formula was likely to provide resistance here. Having a look at daily as we head into the new trading week, I note the presence of here and now that seasoned traders like Geoff clearly displayed on the day. A gap up break of daily bollinger bands is clear energy that a seasoned trader can sell into, before the reversal candle on heavy volume establishes itself. This is Aiki that I can admire.

The here and now is clearly illustrated on the attached daily chart; the trader who anticipates and sells into that spike of buying energy is clearly rewarded for their presence. But I wasn't suggesting the market was going to die here. I require an understanding of possibilities for short-term intraday trading direction and as Bill remarked "It’s hard to beat the market when AAPL is such a big part of it, but careful trading can help." The attached daily chart illustrates that possibility quite clearly. With printy, printy, spend, spend taxpayers money being the order of the day in Europe, I certainly would not think of shorting AAPL here, except intraday (if it was my strategy to do so, which is not the case).

Speaking of short-term direction, I like the XLE bearish divergence in the 60 min chart as potential intraday shorting opportunity, having noted Bill's potential for topping action in the WIR. This little pop at resistance in crude futures is something to follow up in equities today. I'll keep an eye on the usuals RIG, SLB etc.

TCK was my best setup Friday. I note the potential for support to be kicking in for some of these commodity players. TCK seems a two way possibility at this moment. Lose that 50 MA support and it could elicit stronger selling. Something I'll watch, along with XLB.

ALOHA!!

This is an interesting inside look at how Macquarie Group Limited(MQG:ASX)takes the shares of Silver Lake Res(SLR:ASX) and lends them out. To be fair part of it discloses open market buys and sells. You have to scroll a lot to find the "lending section"(starts pg 20) that is buried in the docu-drama! Form 604 disclosure is a total of 183 pages long full of all the contractual legalese! The file is in two parts it is so huge. Consider there are three major banking entities involved as we have JP Morgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley.

Right off the bat I have issue with Macquarie's declaration that somehow 66,000+ shares equals 1% of SLR voting power as shown on the first page, especially since the shares are registered FPO.

Note the many unsuspecting US share holders who were affected, but probably did not even know it either through pension funds, mutuals or their brokerage. I mean the list is truly global! It does look like some of the shorts got caught short on the "D-R" prices.

I defer to section 5.1 which states the "fee" cost and its calculation, however the actual fee amount is never disclosed. Naturally the true legal shareholder never received a fee, as they only purchased the shares with their hard earned labor wages! Hey, all in a "nano-seconds" work for HB&B! MAUS KLIX-R-US!

This link is for part one which is 140 pages long ...
LINK: http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20120221/pdf/424hjwzb...

rats. my stop was hit for a small gain. could have made some nice cheese. resetting my eyes