Category Archives: General Ramblings

Dear Market News Services, WTF Are You Trying To Pull?

Posted by Brian Lund in General Ramblings and tagged with , ,

Today’s guest post is by Tom Morton.  Tom started his career at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 1996, working in the Eurodollar futures pit, then moving to the Nasdaq 100 pit in 1998. In 1999, Tom left the floor and began building a successful career trading individual equities.  He is the co-founder of The Equities Room.

Dear market news services….

Before I start, I’d like to say that generally, I find your products to be useful.  Getting corporate news and earnings and economic data in a timely fashion helps me navigate the stock universe for trading opportunities, and I have come to rely on it.

I used to actually be able to trade-off some of this news, digesting the information quickly, and occasionally be “first” into a move.  That has proven to be difficult lately, so I’ve left that for the news reading algorithms (more on them later).  Still, just being aware of real news in a stock and the market in general helps me make sound  trading decisions.

This brings me to the point of this letter.  I’m begging you to stick to real news. Lately, the “chatter” and “rumor” stuff has gotten out of control.  It happens so often now…everyday, every hour ”XYZ takeover chatter” pops up constantly, causing XYZ shares to flip around wildly (thanks to the news reading algorithms mentioned earlier) and disrupting trading flow.

I know, you probably will say something like “we are just reporting what we hear” and “we’re trying to explain why stocks are moving”, but I’m here to tell you that nobody is buying that anymore.  Instead, we’re pretty sure you’re getting played… that someone at some hedge fund or HFT firm is looking to spark a move in a stock by reporting these “rumors”.

Am I being too cynical?  Possibly, but why does it always seem to be the same type of underperforming stocks that get attached to these rumors?  Why is it,  that once you have reported this “chatter” those market making algo’s continually seem to aggressively take the other side of the trade, backing it away from its psuedo-elevated prices, grinding the stock back down to where it was before you reported this “rumor”?  And, why is it that more often than not,  there is never any color as to who is behind the “rumor”?

Here is the thing.   If you want to report takeover chatter and rumors, that is fine with me…there are occasionally some legit ones I’m sure, and we don’t want to ignore those.  But, if you’re going to report them, let’s make sure that either it’s based on an actual article or research report that can linked to.

Not only will this allow traders and investors a chance to get a sense of background on the “rumor”, but it will allow us to know for sure that the chatter is based on an actual thought from a firm or individual, and not being used as a vehicle to stir up volatility.  See, our market structure has already eroded enough with HFT and quote stuffing algos that were built to confuse human traders…we don’t need you making it worse.

Sincerely,

Tom

Follow Tom and The Equities Room On StockTwits.

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(Note: If you are new to my blog, I post about all sorts of things.  Sometimes it involves something extremely personal, like creating a 30K baby or my Monster Trades.  Other times it deals with hot ex-porn stars who trade stocks.  And sometimes it’s about how to avoid “suicide”.  But a good place to start is The Best of bclund.  If you like what you read, please tell a friend.  If you don’t, please tell two friends.)

Ten Years Ago Today I Was Wearing A Dress!

Posted by Brian Lund in General Ramblings, Just for fun and tagged with , ,

Life doesn’t tell you when you wake up in the morning that this is going to be the day that your life changes forever.  There is no email alert, no desktop pop-up, and certainly nothing on your Facebook page to give you a clue as to what lies ahead; so when it does happen, it hits you without warning.

That day for me occurred in the summer of 1993.

I went to work like normal, dealt with employee issues like normal, and got annoyed by clients like normal.  However, when the lunch hour came, I did do something a bit out of character.  To me that hour was sacrosanct, and I was dogmatic about making sure that every one of those 60 minutes was spent NOT thinking about my business.  It was the oasis in the middle of the day that I needed to keep from losing my mind.

But in this lunch hour, I decided that on my way to get something to eat I would stop by a vendor of ours that was just around the corner, in order to drop off a check to initiate a new order.  I knew everyone there at the company and was on friendly terms with Lilia who ran the front office.  I walked inside, greeted the staff, and started to go into my patented wacky banter routine.  I was droning on, fascinated by the sound of my own voice, and then in a split second my world was turned upside down.

From out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure enter the room.  I turned my head to greet who I thought would be one of the standard company worker bees, but when she came into view my tongue stopped working.  I am convinced as well, that for perhaps a millisecond there was a synapses misfire in my brain, causing my spine to momentarily go limp before a “re-boot” kicked in and snapped me smartly back to attention.

Who was this girl?  This girl with the beautiful black hair, dark brown eyes, and a nimbus trailing her every movement?

I am highly skeptical of love at first sight.  Hell, I love my kids like I have never loved anything else in my life, but even the first time I saw them I went “Ugh” (in my mind of course). And back then I would have fought you tooth and nail against this phenomenon actually existing.

But there I was….stunned…..taken aback…..speechless……..and as close to experiencing love at first site as I had ever been.

But she was quick, and as I was trying to regain my composure she ducked out of the room just as suddenly as she had come into it.  I had to know more about her so I decided to “stall” and began to talk to Lilia about anything I could think of, just trying to buy some time until she came back into the room.

If must have stayed there for 10 minutes, talking about everything from the ramifications of the recent Latin trade agreement talks, to my assertion that our newly sworn in President Clinton was of high moral character; but she never returned.

In the next few weeks I suddenly found every excuse under the sun to visit or call over to that company.  I slowly but surely charmed my way into my future wife’s heart, and although it wasn’t exactly a straight line from that first “meeting” to the night when we wed 10 years ago today, that day ranks up there with the birth of my children as one of the most important of my life.

(I later found out that in fact, as I was “stalling” and waiting for her to come back into the room, she was actually “stalling” and avoiding going back into the room until I left. Sometimes ignorance IS bliss).

Looking back on ten years of marriage, I have to say it is still hard for me to believe how far I have come.

Remember, as I have written about before, I was the guy who was NEVER going to get married.  I was such an asshole back then.  I can only be thankful that my wife was altuistically naive enough to look past my bullshit, past the insecure and insensitive exterior, and have faith that there was someone better buried deep inside me.

I give myself a B- as a husband, but that’s much better than the D+ I started out as.  In fact the running joke is that not unlike software upgrades, I continue to improve with each version.  I think I am up to “Brian 7.0″ right now, but it’s an ongoing growth process.

Today marks the anniversary of start of that growth process, and I wanted to take a few self-indulgent moments to acknowledge that, and to let my wife know (when she gets around to reading this six months from now), that I love her with all my heart.

And as for that “dress” that I wore ten years ago today?  Well actually it is not really a dress, but a traditional Vietnamese outfit called an “áo dài” (pronounced “ow zai” in the North and “ow yai” in the South), which is worn at festive occasions.

And If you subscribe to bclund.com Via E-mail, I will send you an exclusive photo of me wearing that “áo dài” along with am amusing short story about how it was made for me.

And if you don’t want to subscribe, well just trust me, I looked “hot.”

(Note: If you are new to my blog, I post about all sorts of things.  Sometimes it involves something extremely personal, like creating a 30K baby or my Monster Trades.  Other times it deals with hot ex-porn stars who trade stocks.  And sometimes it’s about how to avoid “suicide”.  But a good place to start is The Best of bclund.  If you like what you read, please tell a friend.  If you don’t, please tell two friends.)

R.I.P. Occupy Wall Street – What You Didn’t Learn From The Vietnam War.

Posted by Brian Lund in Current Events, General Ramblings, Politics and tagged with , , ,

Last week my family got a wonderful and unexpected surprise when my sister-in-law and her one-year old son flew in from Houston to see us.  The fact that they were both sitting there in the living room was on some level a miracle, because 37 years ago, when she wasn’t even as old as her son is now, she was almost left for dead and thrown into the Pacific Ocean.

But more on that in a minute.

The recent news that some of the Occupy Wall Street groups may have to declare bankruptcy comes as no surprise to those of us who have been skeptical of their legitimacy from inception.  They have always been a “broken clock” movement, meaning that though their issue may be valid, (if the issue is reforming Wall Street), almost everything else about them is wrong.

The depth of retardation in this movement is illustrated by the fact that in these media driven times, with all the coverage they got, and the international platform they occupied for months on end, their lasting legacy will be that of leftover jars of urine and adding to the red ink of already cash strapped municipalities who have to pay for their damages.

Out here in California, the damage and clean-up costs to the City of Oakland are pegged at $5 million, while Occupy Los Angeles added $2.3 million to a city budget that already has a $70 million deficit.  And after all is said done, what did this merry band of misfits accomplish?

Occupy Los Angeles campsite.  I am sure they will all be back to clean up any minute.

I mean their quixotic quest couldn’t even garner the support of the most liberal of our elected politicians, California’s senior Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein.  She had this to say about Occupy Wall Street;

 “There are all kinds of different agendas going on so it is hard to figure out what people want.” 

“….I  don’t think people, for example, can sleep in a square for weeks on end. You have to have some order to it.”

Really?  You think?

Every week I talk to people of who have great ideas.  Earth shattering ideas.  Innovative and world-changing ideas.  And they think that this is all you need in order to make things happen.

Well to be fair, that’s not all they think they need.  They think that they need to repeat their ideas to everyone they meet ad nauseum.  When nothing happens, they then think they need to yell their ideas, because louder is better.  And when that fails to get them the result they feel they deserve, they then become angry that “people are too stupid” to get their idea.

Oh, these people have ideas for days, but what they don’t have is any plan on how to execute their ideas.  They don’t understand that a good idea with great execution is better than a great idea with no execution.

The other thing that made OWS even more annoying was their oft referenced kinship to the protests of the Vietnam War.  That reference shows that not only did they have no understanding of history, (as the end of the war in Vietnam was incidental to the protests, not because of them), but they learned the wrong things from them.

Simplistic, ineffective, basal things like;

  • Let’s be loud and obnoxious.
  • Let’s take over something like it’s our right.
  • Let’s say inflammatory and hyperbolic statements about America.
  • Let’s burn more bridges than we build.
  • Let’s say that everybody that disagrees with us is racist, prejudiced, stupid, evil, greedy, ignorant, or a tool of Big Business.
  • Let’s look to the government to solve our issues.

No matter how “right” your issue may be, none of this constitutes a plan.

A more nuanced, intelligent, thinking, and productive lesson could have been learned not from the protesters of the Vietnam War, but the survivors of it.

April 30th, 1975, three hours after the city of Saigon fell, my in-laws and their five children boarded an aging freighter, with only what they could carry, and headed out to sea, destination unknown.

Just taking my two kids to Target for an hour drives me crazy, so the idea of taking five children, the oldest of which was six, on a ship with no supplies, little food or water, and jammed with refugees just boggles my mind.

After a few day at sea, the engines failed. With all the food and water gone and the sun beating down on the people crowded on deck, the ship began to aimlessly drift.  Two days later the old and the young began to die. As there was no refrigeration nor space to hold the dead, the bodies had to be thrown over the side in order to avoid decomposition and disease.

In the only time I have ever heard my mother-in-law mention this, she describes looking down at her daughter (my future sister-in-law), wrapped in a tattered blanket, and seeing her “begin to wilt like a flower.”  As horrific as it sounds, she was then faced with the reality that within a short amount of time, her infant child would die in her arms, and she would have to cast her into the sea.

And then a miracle happened….

Their ship was spotted by a cruiser, which gave them food and water, and was able to tow them to a port in Hong Kong.

Many refugees from the Vietnam War had similar experiences, some better, some much worse, but once they reached the shores of the US, the vast majority of them began to execute a plan, of which the following were major components;

1.  Organize for strength - When the first wave of Vietnamese kids hit the public schools, they were looked upon as “different” and “odd.”  That is a bad combination as a kid, and occasionally some bully type would decide he was going to push one of them around.  But as soon as he did, ten of these “refugee kids,” most of whom didn’t even know each other, would swarm the bully and beat him back.

Suffice to say, very quickly everybody learned that you could not bully the new kids.

A bunch of wacky, loud mouthed individuals giving lip service to the same cause may make for good soundbites, as the Occupy Protestors found, but without a unified and organized focus, it doesn’t accomplish much.

2.  Don’t waste your time with anger – But as quickly as they jumped in to each others defense, if that bully provocateur apologized and sincerely extended his hand in friendship, those same “new kids” would gladly and warmly engage with him. Carrying a chip on their shoulder and stoking their own anger was of no use to them.

The overwhelming vibe the Occupy Wall Street protesters gave off was one of “anger and rage.”  Even if their macro anger was valid, the micro expression of it didn’t ring true and served only to alienate the movement from those they needed to convert to the cause in order to be effective.

3.  Don’t depend on the government to help you - Not only were there no Vietnamese American politicians to help new refugees, there wasn’t even a Vietnamese American Congressman until 2009 (and he only lasted three years).  But they didn’t have time to waste trying to get the government to help, and instead they helped themselves.

No banks would lend to them, so they formed their own community banks.  Housing was prohibitively expensive, so they put two or three families in a house until they could afford to get their own places.  If the supermarkets and shops didn’t carry the food and items they wanted, they formed their own businesses and imported them themselves.

They instinctively knew that the government was often corrupt and self-serving and didn’t complain about it, they just worked around it.

4.  Achieve incremental progress towards the larger goal – “What do we want? Change!  When do we want it?  Now!  And if it doesn’t happen right away?  We’ll piss and moan, lose focus, and go back to watching Jersey Shore.”

The Vietnamese refugees got up early every morning, put in 12 hour days, and went home to bed early.  They did this six days a week and slowly but steadily bettered their and their families lives.  In less than one generation, they transformed a sleepy town with orange groves into one of the most dynamic communities in the country.  Even during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis, it was rare to see a “for lease” sign in the Little Saigon section of Southern California.

And that first generation that came from a mostly agrarian society, has put a higher percentage of its children through college than any other ethnic group in America.  The ranks of doctors, lawyers, and engineers are swollen with Vietnamese American who are living a standard of life their parents would never have dreamed of as children.

Unlike the Occupy protesters, they understood that any serious societal change doesn’t happen in between commercials, but over an extended period of time, and that you have to execute consistently over that time in order to reach your goal.

5.  Practice gratitude towards America – If there was ever a group who have the right to be resentful of America and thought it “owed” them something, it was the Vietnamese refugees.  After inserting ourselves into their civil war, and promising to back them, we unceremoniously yanked the rug out from under them, scattering those who could escape across the globe, and dooming those left behind to an even worse fate.

But along with Cuban exiles, there may not be a more patriotic and pro-American group. They don’t call their friends on their smart phones, while wirelessly surfing the web on their Ipads, inside a protected protest area, and then list their grievances with the USA. Instead they are grateful for everything this country has to offer them, and they appreciate it because they understand what it means to live under a truly “evil” rule.

If the Occupy crowd had gone with a “Let’s fix it cause America is great,” opposed to a “Let’s fix it cause America sucks” attitude, they probably would have garnered more support.

Oakland occupiers demonstrating they don’t know what “public perception” means.

The most fascinating thing to me about the post-mortem on the Occupy saga is in contrasting them to their arch rival, the Tea Party.

Whether you believe in the Tea Party or not, (I mostly don’t), I find it laughable how the Occupy side and their supporters ridicule them at every turn.  The last time I looked, the Tea Party has been eating Occupy Wall Street’s lunch.  The have been executing on a plan that involves aspects of organizing, not depending on the government, and practicing gratitude toward America.

They have been putting politicians in office and have had arguably four candidates in the GOP field.  They don’t care if their opponents think their slate is “crazy” or whatever other demeaning term is used.  Instead they will just keep plugging along, executing their plan, until one day their opponents wake up to find their “crazy” candidates are running the country.

Meanwhile out of all those months of protests, the Occupiers could not produce any sort of effective governing body or even a single charismatic and articulate national spokesperson to drive the cause.  Instead they produced a corpse of a movement that died with a smug and pointless grim on it’s face.

Hey, why not “occupy” a subscription to bclund.com Via E-mail or Via RSS?  If you don’t, I’ll camp out on your porch and urinate on your lawn.

(Note: If you are new to my blog, I post about all sorts of things.  Sometimes it involves something extremely personal, like creating a 30K baby or my Monster Trades.  Other times it deals with hot ex-porn stars who trade stocks.  And sometimes it’s about how to avoid “suicide”.  But a good place to start is The Best of bclund.  If you like what you read, please tell a friend.  If you don’t, please tell two friends.)

20 Books Every Trader Should Know About.

Posted by Brian Lund in General Ramblings, Trading and tagged with , , ,

Before I get into this list, I have a warning for those looking for a book on trading, how to trade, or how to become a better trader.  Learning about trading via books is a holdover from before this thing called “the internet,” which allowed things like trading blogs, trading services, and trading communities to exist.

Books are good for a general overview of the markets and trading concepts, trader biographies and anecdotal stories, and trading psychology, but by the very nature of their format, they are too limited and not dynamic enough to be relevant for very long.

Use them for a foundation, for ideas, but mostly for enjoyment.  I think you will find that your trading will drastically improve that day you decided to stop looking for the latest trading book, and “write your own book” on trading.

As with every list, there will be disagreements.  ”Why is that book on the list?”  ”Why isn’t that book on the list?”  I picked 20 books that stood out for me as a trader, that were a #valueadd (or a #valueloss) for one reason or another.  That doesn’t even have to mean that they are about trading.  For example, the “General Interest” section is made up of books that I think appeal to a trader’s mindset.

With that in mind, feel free to add your picks to the “comments” section, along with a sentence or two as to why you liked (or hated) them.

By the way, I was too lazy to link all the books, but you can find them all at Amazon.

Old School:  

The Market Wizards Series – Jack Schwager:  Chances are you will find these books on the shelf of any serious trader.  They are without a doubt the most comprehensive collection of interviews with superstar traders ever published.  However, their dirty little secret is that although they capture perfectly a moment in time, they are extremely dated and will give you almost no insight into today’s markets or how to trade them. Their value now is in showing how even the greatest traders initially struggled and often blew up (repeatedly) before becoming successful.

Stan Weinstein’s Secrets For Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets – Stan Weinstein: This book was the first to quantify one of the most important concepts in trading; the four stages in which stocks move, which are the basing, advancing, topping, and declining stages.  Despite the fact that the cover of this book has not been updated since it was published in 1988, stage analysis is still relevant today.

How to Make Money In Stocks – O’Neil:  As an unnamed trader friend of mine recently said, all you need to do is review the charts in the first 150 pages of this book and you will be good to go.    These charts along with O’Neil’s annotations, give you a great foundation to understand the patterns stocks form before they go on massive runs.

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator – Edwin Lefevre:  Tough call on this book, only because I don’t think it is the Rosetta Stone of trading books like it is often described as.  The language is dated and colloquial, which though strange, is actually part of its charm. There are definitely some foundational lessons for trading in this book, but you as the reader have to do the historical conversion in your head from venue’s like “bucket shops,” to today’s market.

How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market – Nicolas Darvas:  This book should really be called, “How I Made$18,000,000 (Adjusted for Inflation) in the Stock Market,” because that is how much it would be in today’s dollars.  That would be phenomenal for anybody, but for someone who did it while traveling the globe, in a pre-internet, computer, iPad, Smart phone world……while working as a professional dancer?  Well that is just epic.  His “Darvas Box” system, though crude and in need of adjustment to factor in today’s HFT, is still a foundation of a solid trading style/discipline.

Trading Education:

The Stock Twits Edge – Howard Lindzon:  Okay, before you accuse me of trying to kiss the ass of my blog overlords at StockTwits, let me just tell you that I was recommending this book publicly, way before I ever resurrected this blog, let alone was asked to join the network.  This is the book I wish was written when I started trading 25 years ago.  The irony though is that it could not really have been written until just recently.  It is the “Market Wizards” for the retail trader, and more importantly, each chapter is written by someone who currently has an active presence on social media.  Plus it’s the only place you will ever see @The_Real_Fly write two whole pages without saying “fuck!”

The Trading Book – Anne-Marie Baiynd:  I like Anne-Marie, but if she had asked me if it was a wise choice to add another trading book to the world, I would have advised against it.  I would have been wrong.  I was amazed at the scope of material that this book was able to cover, and do so in a meaningful way. Anne-Marie’s economical (and often humorous) style, takes you right to the core of each concept, doing away with irrelevant and superfluous information.  I don’t think it is hyperbole to say it is an instant classic for the beginning/intermediate trader.

Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques – Steve Nisson:  There are a lot of books out these on candlestick charting, but almost all of them are derivative of Nisson’s tome.  It goes through and explains the basis concepts, as well as the most relevant patterns, related to candlestick charting.  Unless you really need to know about the “three-drunk-salarymen-rolled-by-the-hooker-in-the-Shinjuku-train-station” pattern, this book is all you will ever need for candlesticks.

Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom – Van Tharp:  Yes the title is cheesy and sounds like something from a late-night infomercial, but this book has one of the best overviews of the different types of methodologies you can use to make money in the markets.  But more importantly, it shows you how to go about formulating a methodology for trading in the markets.  The information on risk and position sizing alone makes the book worthwhile.

Psychology:

The Disciplined Trader  & Trading In The Zone – Mark Douglas:  These are the definitive books on trading psychology.  I know traders who went from perpetual losers to consistent winners after reading these books.  The way Douglas climbs into the psyche of a trader is scary, and there is a good chance you will wonder aloud how he managed to plant the hidden camera and microphones that he used to take notes on your trading deficiencies.

Real World Trading:

Pit Bull – Buzz “Buzzy” Schwartz: Extremely dated, but still the only full auto-biography (I believe) of a “Market Wizard.”  It is a look into the mind and process of an extremely disciplined trader who is still putting up crushing numbers to this day.  And despite the fact that he shares James Altucher’s somewhat dubious scatological advice regarding “cleaning out the plumbing” before starting the day, it’s a good read.  I don’t even know how this is legal, but you can read the whole book online for free here.

One Good Trade – Mike Bellafiore:  If you want to know what it’s like trading in the real world of a prop firm, this is the book.  But even more so, this book shows you how to focus on process instead profits to become a successful trader.  There are a number of great trading lessons in this book, all wrapped around relatable stories (kinda like a blog I know).  The writing is a bit rough, but then again it’s not meant to be Shakespeare.

General Interest:

The 50 Best (and Worst) Business Deals of All Time – Michael Craig:  This book is like eating a piece of candy; you will enjoy it so much but before you know it, it will be done.  Clocking in at under 200 pages, it gives concise, informative, and fascinating insights into some well-known, and some not so well-know business successes and failures.  The chapter about the ABA’s settlement with the “Spirits of St. Louis” alone is worth the price of admission.

Backstage Wall Street: An Insider’s Guide to Knowing Who to Trust, Who to Run From, and How to Maximize Your Investments – Joshua Brown:  I am cheating here a bit, because as I write this, I am only half-way through the book; but that half alone is strong enough to put it on my list.  Sure, once again you can accuse me of “kissing ass” to one of the heavyweights of financial blogging, but really….if you have read Josh’s blog for any amount of time, you know he’s the real deal.  This book pulls no punches, and will probably be looked back upon years from now as the clarion call against the entrenched Wall Street establishment (though I still think most of the Occupy Wall Street crowd are a bunch of douches).

Mean Business – Al Dunlap:  Dunlap made his name as a “turn-around” specialist for near-death companies, and this book chronicles some of his most famous successes. I get that Dunlap’s career ended in shareholder actions, SEC investigations, and his banning from ever running a public company again.  But just because Michael Jackson’s final few albums sucked doesn’t mean that “Off the Wall” and “Thriller” weren’t masterpieces.  Dunlap was an asshole to be sure, but often times an asshole is what is needed, and his excesses in restructuring were merely a response to the bloated corporate excesses of the times.  It’s hard to fool guys like Kerry Packer, Sir James Goldsmith, and the principles at KKR, so “Chainsaw” Al must have been doing something right at some point.

The New Financial Capitalists: KKR and the Creation of Corporate Value – George P. Baker:  Love them or hate them, KKR changed the way M&A was done, and left an imprint on corporate financing that is still felt today.  It is hard to forget in the wake of the recent credit crisis, that KKR was always responsible, and almost always successful in using debt and leverage to save failing companies and create or unlock value for shareholders and their investors.  This is an authorized biography of the company, but done in a truly objective fashion, and highlights how the key to a KKR deal did not so much have to do with the money (debt) that they brought to the table, but the wealth of managerial talent they brought to their target companies.

Avoids:

Trading For A Living – Alexander Elder:  This is the “gateway” book that every new trader seems to come through on the road to trading, but  I have to say, I have never been a fan of Dr. Elder.  It stems for my suspicion that he makes (and has always made) more money from writing about trading and putting on overpriced seminars on trading, than he has from actually trading.  In this book he espouses a multiple time frame method  that is rudimentary at best and his nod to trading psychology is done better and in more depth by Douglas.  The only interesting aspect of this book is his explanation of how trading is NOT a zero sum game, but that is really only worthy of a blog post at most.

The Education of a Speculator – Victor Neiderhoffer:  I have a blog friend, who not only is a 100x better trader than I could ever hope to be, but is a connoisseur of art and literature, and even surfs.  He is also a friend of Niederhoffer’s and thinks highly of him.  That is why it pains me to say that “Education…” is probably one of the top 5 worst written books I have ever read.  It would be better titled, “Let Me Tell You What A Great Squash Player I Am.”  And even though I am sure there was meant to be some subtext in his narcissistic stories that relate to trading, it is written in such a purposefully exclusionary way that you can’t find it.  Since I am part of the “chattering classes” it is probably that Neiderhoffer, a true intellect, is just writing above my level, but unless you are picking this book up on the way to your Nobel Prize luncheon, it’s probably best to just skip it.

Hey, screw books!  Why not subscribe to bclund.com Via E-mail or Via RSS?  It’s free and is environmentally responsible.

(Note: If you are new to my blog, I post about all sorts of things.  Sometimes it involves something extremely personal, like creating a 30K baby or my Monster Trades.  Other times it deals with hot ex-porn stars who trade stocks.  And sometimes it’s about how to avoid “suicide”.  But a good place to start is The Best of bclund.  If you like what you read, please tell a friend.  If you don’t, please tell two friends.)

7 American Hand Gestures That Can Get You In Trouble Abroad.

Posted by Brian Lund in General Ramblings, Just for fun

Strangely enough, most American men will recognize #7 as one that will get them in HUGE trouble with their spouses/girlfriends.

Hand Jive: Gestures That Can Get You In Trouble Abroad (via Cool Infographics)

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(Note: If you are new to my blog, I post about all sorts of things.  Sometimes it involves something extremely personal, like creating a 30K baby or my Monster Trades.  Other times it deals with hot ex-porn stars who trade stocks.  And sometimes it’s about how to avoid “suicide”.  But a good place to start is The Best of bclund.  If you like what you read, please tell a friend.  If you don’t, please tell two friends.)

So This Is What It’s Come To: Scraping By On 350K A Year.

Posted by Brian Lund in General Ramblings and tagged with , ,

Most of the time I am an easygoing and happy guy as you can see from the handsome full-color avatar to your right.  But lately something has been annoying me, so allow me to emote for a bit.

In the years since 9-11, there has been a lot of discussion and theories as to what is the greatest threat to the American way of life. These theories run the gamut from reasonable to conspiratorial, and include (but are not limited to) such villans as big government, corporate greed, international terrorism, rogue states, and political cabals.

However, I tend to view the answer to this question in the context of what the noted British historian Arnold Toynbee was once quoted as saying…

“Great civilizations are not murdered.  They commit suicide.”

Right now I believe that this country is slowly committing suicide as a significant segment of our population are turning into “ass-hats.”

Now you might know the term “ass-hat” as describing a sprawling type of tattoo, (for some reason often composed of thorny roses), that is located right in the small of a woman’s back.  That woman is usually very toned and often works in an establishment with a number of floor to ceiling poles.  I have no issue with that type of ass-hat.

No, the type of ass-hats I am talking about are ones that were interviewed for the recent Bloomberg article, “Wall Street Bonus Withdrawal Means Trading Aspen for Coupons.”

The gist of this article was that because of the smaller bonus checks that Wall Street workers were receiving this year, many of them were having to make dramatic and “devastating” changes to their lifestyles.

You can see the pain that going from a high mid-six figure salary to a low mid-six figure salary can cause just from the following except…

Wall Street headhunter Daniel Arbeeny said his “income has gone down tremendously.” On a recent Sunday, he drove to Fairway Market in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn to buy discounted salmon for $5.99 a pound.

“They have a circular that they leave in front of the buildings in our neighborhood,” said Arbeeny, 49, who lives in nearby Cobble Hill, namesake for a line of pebbled-leather Kate Spadehandbags. “We sit there, and I look through all of them to find out where it’s worth going.”

Executive-search veterans who work with hedge funds and banks make about $500,000 in good years, said Arbeeny, managing principal at New York-based CMF Partners LLC, declining to discuss specifics about his own income. He said he no longer goes on annual ski trips toWhistler (WB), Tahoe or Aspen.

He reads other supermarket circulars to find good prices for his favorite cereal, Wheat Chex.

In the words of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz….. “The horror … the horror.”

But the patron saint of ass-hats in this article is Andrew Schiff:

Schiff, 46, is facing another kind of jam this year: Paid a lower bonus, he said the $350,000 he earns, enough to put him in the country’s top 1 percent by income, doesn’t cover his family’s private-school tuition, a Kent, Connecticut, summer rental and the upgrade they would like from their 1,200-square- foot Brooklyn duplex.

“I feel stuck,” Schiff said. “The New York that I wanted to have is still just beyond my reach.”

…..“I can’t imagine what I’m going to do,” Schiff said. “I’m crammed into 1,200 square feet. I don’t have a dishwasher. We do all our dishes by hand.”

….The family rents a three-bedroom summer house in Connecticut and will go there again this year for one month instead of four. Schiff said he brings home less than $200,000 after taxes, health-insurance and 401(k) contributions. The closing costs, renovation and down payment on one of the $1.5 million 17-foot-wide row houses nearby, what he called “the low rung on the brownstone ladder,” would consume “every dime” of the family’s savings, he said.

See my problem with the people in this article is not that they make more than 99% of the population; hey this is a capitalist society and as far as I am concerned you are free to make whatever the market will bear.

Nor am I upset by the fact that they don’t seem appreciative of the fact that they make more than 99% of the population. No, what upsets me is that they have their heads stuck so far up their own asses, that they don’t even understand how out of touch they are with the rest of the country.

Even if they were more like an ostrich, just burying their heads in the sand, oblivious to the plight of other less fortunate people, I could handle it.  But their total lack of self-awareness, evidenced by the fact that they would even allow themselves to be interviewed for this article (and in Schiff’s case, allow his photo to be published), is the true essence of an ass-hat.

And you can only get that way by feeling that you are entitled to something, as Schiff obliviously explains.

“I wouldn’t want to whine,” Schiff said. “All I want is the stuff that I always thought, growing up, that successful parents had.”

Perhaps I am getting cranky as I get older, but it just seems than more and more people I run into these days have that same attitude.

Not that they will prosper and surpass what their parents had by busting their ass, but that they will prosper and surpass what their parents had because they’re entitled to it.

A great example of this how this attitude manifests itself came up in a conversation I had with one of one of my co-workers recently.  He is a big fan of the show Antiques Roadshow, where people bring in their items and find out from a professional appraiser if they are worth anything.

He was going on about this recent episode where a lady bought a painting at a church flea market for twenty dollars and it turned out to be worth over a hundred thousand dollars.

“That lady got so friggin’ lucky.  Why couldn’t that be me?  Why couldn’t I have found a 100K painting?  That’s just bullshit!”

So I turned to him to him and said, “Well how would that work exactly?  Would somebody just knock on the door and offer to sell you the painting for twenty bucks?  Because last I remember, you weren’t getting up before dawn on the weekends and driving from garage sales, to flea markets, to estate sales in order to be the first one to see the available merchandise.”

“I don’t think I have seen you spending hours studying catalogs and reference guides to educate yourself on the value of items.”

“I can’t recall you risking thousands of dollars of your own money over the years, buying items that didn’t turn out to be valuable.”

“So unless you have decided to start doing those things, why don’t your just shut the fuck up, because you are not entitled to find a 100K painting by just complaining about it?”

Ok, maybe I didn’t exactly say that.  I mean I’m not a sociopath, but believe me, that’s what I wanted to say.

We have a lot of first-world problems in this county these days.  It’s a sign that we have accomplished so much as a civilization, but is also a sign that we have gotten soft.  It’s also why sophomore albums from most bands and movie sequels suck.

Often when you achieve a certain level of success and comfort, even if you had to work hard to get there, the temptation is to rest on your laurels and just go on auto-pilot.  You are no longer that scrappy, hungry underdog who was first looking to survive, and then prosper. You forget what got you to where you are and you become so self-obsessed that you complain in mass media outlets about struggling on 350K a year.

Having an entitlement attitude is an equal opportunity threat to this country.  It doesn’t belong to just one side of the political spectrum.  It can go across all cultural and socio-economic groups.  I am as equally disgusted with the person who made 30K a year, got a 95% LTV adjustable ARM to buy a million dollar house, and now expects the government to bail them out, as I am with the Wall Street crowd referenced above.

It may be half-time in America, but we better decide to pull our heads out of our asses, get off the couch, and get back in the game.

We want to be the U2 or Springsteen of countries; consistently re-inventing and pushing ourselves to new heights.  We need our second half to be better than our first like The Godfather Part II, not a piece of crap like The Hangover 2. Because if we can’t do that, we are destined to go down the same path as other great, but ultimately failed civilizations.

Wall Street Bonus Withdrawal Means Trading Aspen for Coupons (Bloomberg)

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(Note: If you are new to my blog, I post about all sorts of things.  Sometimes it involves something extremely personal, like creating a 30K baby or my Monster Trades.  Other times it deals with hot ex-porn stars who trade stocks.  And sometimes it’s about how to avoid “suicide”.  But a good place to start is The Best of bclund.  If you like what you read, please tell a friend.  If you don’t, please tell two friends.)

You Had Me At “Space”…And At “Playboy”…And At “Gentleman’s Club.”

Posted by Brian Lund in General Ramblings, Just for fun and tagged with , ,

One of the coolest things for me as a kid was going to Disneyland and visiting Tomorrowland.  It was a fascinating place that stylistically made me simultaneously think of both the future and the past.  Like, the rocket ships were going to go Mars, but the cabins in the ships looked like 50′s style “modern” lounges, the type you would see illustrated in the pages of your father’s old Playboys.

Imagine my (theoretical) thrill then when I read that Playboy is entertaining the thought of a gentleman’s club in space; dovetailing off of Virgin Galactic’s plans to launch their own space tourism flights this summer.  A Playboy representative elaborates….

As Virgin Galactic gets closer to becoming the world’s first commercial space line, Playboy is eagerly pondering the creation of the ultimate intergalactic entertainment destination. This heaven-in-the-heavens will exceed starry-eyed travelers’ wildest dreams, and guests will truly experience a party that’s out of this world.

Alas my days of going to gentleman’s clubs are long gone as far as you know, but even if Playboy’s plans are more “theoretical” than realistic, the idea of getting a lap dance in zero gravity does cause the mind to wander.  Perhaps I can convince my wife to let me go just so I can check out the futuristic architecture and design styling……

Below are some artist’s renditions of this “stellar space strip-club” (hey…not bad, huh)?

The Exterior:

The Restaurant:

The Club:

The Hotel Suite:

The Game Room:

Playboy Ponders The First Gentleman’s Club In Space (Via i09)

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(Note: If you are new to my blog, I post about all sorts of things.  Sometimes it involves something extremely personal, like creating a 30K baby or my Monster Trades.  Other times it deals with hot ex-porn stars who trade stocks.  And sometimes it’s about how to avoid “suicide”.  But a good place to start is The Best of bclund.  If you like what you read, please tell a friend.  If you don’t, please tell two friends.)

There Are Dorks Among Us – And They Are Fascinating.

Posted by Brian Lund in General Ramblings, Just for fun and tagged with , ,

Back in 1980 I was one of those kids that was addicted to arcade games.  The minute that school was over you could find me and about thirty other kids jammed around the Asteroids game near the front of the corner liquor store.  All I wanted to do was eat, drink, and sleep arcade games.  But as I got older, my life evolved in a normal manner and I moved on, as I figured everybody else did.

That is why I was so shocked to find out that there are still full-grown adults who compete in arcade gaming.  Let me be clear here, not computer gaming, but old school arcade gaming.  Think Defender, not Call of Duty.

I learned this when I stumbled across the documentary “King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters”.  This documentary is ostensibly about the competition to achieve a new world record in Donkey Kong, but is really about intense competition, intrigue, fascinating characters, back stabbing, mind games, Machiavellian manipulation, failure, and ultimately, redemption.  It is simply fascinating.

Give it two minutes and I guarantee you will be hooked.

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(Note: If you are new to my blog, I post about all sorts of things.  Sometimes it involves something extremely personal, like creating a 30K baby or my Monster Trades.  Other times it deals with hot ex-porn stars who trade stocks.  And sometimes it’s about how to avoid “suicide”.  But a good place to start is The Best of bclund.  If you like what you read, please tell a friend.  If you don’t, please tell two friends.)

Hey New Yorkers, Do Yourself A Favor….

Posted by Brian Lund in General Ramblings and tagged with , ,

As I have mentioned in the past, I am not a fan of Los Angeles.  I have to be there during the week for work, but it almost takes an Act of Congress to get me up there on the weekend. However last Saturday I made the trek from “The OC” up to LA in order to attend Joe Fahmy’s Trading Big Winners seminar, and I have to say, it was well worth the trip.

Those of you who have played sports may be familiar with the phrase “leave it all out on the field.”  It means that when you are done playing, you have nothing left to give because you gave your all; and that is what Joe did, he gave us everything he had in that seminar.

For over 9.5 hours Joe explained in detail his methodology for finding and trading these winners, including going through tons of charts, step-by-step, and answering all questions.

It was a great day.  I got to meet a number of traders including StockTwits own @ivanhoff (who reviewed the day in his “7 Things I Learned from Joe Fahmy’s Trading Big Winners Seminar”),  and I can highly recommend it to anybody that is thinking about attending his New York City seminar on March 3rd.

Do yourself a favor and check it out!

Joe Fahmy’s Trading Big Winners Seminar In New York City.

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(Note: If you are new to my blog, I post about all sorts of things.  Sometimes it involves something extremely personal, like creating a 30K baby or my Monster Trades.  Other times it deals with hot ex-porn stars who trade stocks.  And sometimes it’s about how to avoid “suicide”.  But a good place to start is The Best of bclund.  If you like what you read, please tell a friend.  If you don’t, please tell two friends.)

The Market Is Not Closed For President’s Day.

Posted by Brian Lund in General Ramblings, Just for fun and tagged with , ,

The stock market has been closed for a number of reasons since its inception, some that you may feel are valid and some that you may feel are not.  They include:

  • The centennial celebration of Washington’s inauguration
  • The death of Queen Victoria, King Edward VII, and King George V.
  • The death of J.P. Morgan.
  • Draft Registration Day.
  • No heat on the trading floor.
  • The return of General Pershing.
  • Parades for both Charles Lindbergh and General Eisenhower.
  • National Day of Mourning for Martin Luther King.
  • The “Paperwork Crisis” of 1968.
  • Heavy snow.
  • National Day of Participation for the lunar exploration.
  • Hurricane Gloria.
  • 9-11 (multiple days).

The markets have also been closed for a National Day of Mourning for the funeral of every president up to Gerald Ford’s in 2007.

Today some people think that the markets are closed for a holiday called “President’s Day,” but that is not the case.  In fact, according to the NYSE’s own site, it is closed for Washington’s birthday:

Washington’s Birthday was first declared a federal holiday by an 1879 act of Congress. The Monday Holiday Law, enacted in 1968, shifted the date of the commemoration of Washington’s Birthday from February 22 to the third Monday in February, but neither that law nor any subsequent law changed the name of the holiday from Washington’s Birthday to President’s Day. Although the third Monday in February has become popularly known as President’s Day, the NYSE’s designation of Washington’s Birthday as an Exchange holiday (Rule 51) follows the form of the federal holiday outlined above (section 6103(a) of title 5 of the United States Code).

When I was in was in school we had Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthday’s off as separate holidays.  Then somewhere along the line Lincoln’s got dropped and Washington’s mutated into this amorphous, beige-paint type holiday called President’s Day.

When Abe and George’s birthday’s were both still around there were TV specials, memorials, and school plays where you could actually learn something about the life and times of the two greatest presidents in American history.  There was some meaning to those two holidays and some significance past just being a three-day weekend and an excuse for department stores to have a sale.

I mean what sort of bullshit holiday is President’s Day anyway?  Who are we honoring, both Lincoln and Washington?  Are we honoring all the presidents?  If that is the case then I am sure there are a lot of people whose heads will explode when you tell them they are honoring George W. Bush or Jimmy Carter today.

And I for one will tell you that there is no way in the world that I will honor in any way, shape, or form that bastard Franklin Pierce.

Some will try to indulge in revisionist history and say that we are honoring the “Office of the President” today, but don’t even try that crap on me because it doesn’t even make sense.  I once broke up with a girlfriend who tried to pedal that BS to me, and she was a stripper.

The whole concept of a generic President’s Day just seems so politically correct to me, like when they do away with first place awards in children’s sports and just give everybody “participation” trophies.  I don’t want my Hoover’s, Nixon’s, and Clinton’s mixed in with my Roosevelt’s, Truman’s, and Reagan’s.  One of the keys to the American ideal is identifying exceptionalism, and that should apply most when honoring the leaders of our country.

So tomorrow, after you have bought a new pair of shoes in honor of William Howard Taft or grilled some steaks while thinking of Rutherford B. Hayes, take a few minutes out of your day and email you representative and tell them you want them to get rid of this communist based President’s Day holiday.  Tell them you want a return to presidential holidays that mean something, and while they are at it, tell them to bring back Columbus Day as well.

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(Note: If you are new to my blog, I post about all sorts of things.  Sometimes it involves something extremely personal, like creating a 30K baby or my Monster Trades.  Other times it deals with hot ex-porn stars who trade stocks.  And sometimes it’s about how to avoid “suicide”.  But a good place to start is The Best of bclund.  If you like what you read, please tell a friend.  If you don’t, please tell two friends.)