Euro 'Crisis' Or Alarmist Dialogue Amongst The Talking Heads And Where Are U.S. Assets Headed? [View article]
This might be agreeable except we have hard statistical information from the unification of Germany that quantifies the massive blow the economy took due to reunification.
It's not about "cheap labor", it's "unskilled labor" that causes the pain. Cheap labor fits into low skilled positions, but West Germany had nothing to offer and thus went through an actual, not theoretical recession that lasted almost an entire decade.
Thus, the inference to Korea's "theoretical unification" was based on historical facts. There are a finite number of positions for short-order cooks, janitors, McDonald's cashiers and car wash hands. Moreover, what the reunification of Germany taught economic historians is an influx of labor from a former communist economy creates a significant spike in overall unemployment and a surge in entitlement spending. It's like busting a huge labor union and laying off millions of workers. These people will not easily accept positions which in California, tend to be filled with migratory labor.
Either way, Keynesian economics dictate deflationary measures. The experiment with "money supply manipulation" ended with Volcker and Carter after a poorly conceived idea to jump on Milton Friedman's bandwagon and adjust the "M's" eventually failed and Volcker's bluff was called by bond traders as they reacted opposite to what was intended; they pushed bond rates higher and forced the Fed to revert to Keynesian dogma and raise rates as high as 23% before breaking the back of runaway inflation.
The events in Germany were enormously deflationary, not inflationary, and astute or not, the Bundesbank flooded the economy with liquidity, and it still took 10 years to recover from the blow.
Euro 'Crisis' Or Alarmist Dialogue Amongst The Talking Heads And Where Are U.S. Assets Headed? [View article]
That is a truly humbling compliment. For anyone to say "this is the best article they have read on SA" is a tremendous compliment in light of all the talented writers that contribute to SA. Which is why I am humbled by it.
Ivanhoe Energy: Rapid Fire M&A and Q4 Drilling Could Deliver Breakout News [View article]
Thank God we didn't touch it until it was near $0.80. Thank you for the compliments by the way. My trades are actively posted at http://bit.ly/RdGJHv and the IVAN trade is from almost 2 years ago. I think the only person that needs to get over anything is you. I've already manned up and admitted it wasn't traded correctly, instead calling in my cert's, which was a mistake. Aside from that, as a professional, we don't ride coattails, but we have pretty big ones for others to ride if they so please.
Ivanhoe Energy: Rapid Fire M&A and Q4 Drilling Could Deliver Breakout News [View article]
There's so much money to be made in so many stocks, including IVAN, this is a trader's market. When I wrote about GIIZF as a $.069/share CDS trading as a stock with a dividend of 33% and upside potential, the stock has paid it's dividend like clockwork every single month. For a measly $69k, I was able to accumulate a block of 100k shares. Every month, I've received a dividend of roughly $1500 after foreign tax withholding deductions. Every month. Concurrently, the stock is now trading at almost $0.90 cents. It's not a company, as I explained at Investment Capitalist but a structured CDO which is correlated to a recovery in the housing market in the form of inverse repo. It got crushed on the way down and with a housing recovery underway, this stock will continue to move a little higher each month as it keeps kicking out the dividend. Today is ex-div and although the quote might not show it, if you throw a bid for $.76/share, there's a good chance you'll get a fill.
Netflix - Stock Manipulation & Naked Shorting - Where Is the SEC & NASDAQ?? [View instapost]
did u consider corporate treasury selling to knock the shares down, raise capital and then neutralize recently exercised stock options in huge numbers by mopping up the extra stock at much lower prices? Only the corporation can "manifest" stock out of thin air, the days of illicit naked short selling ended in 2009. Any hedge fund manager will attest to the same. We all have to locate the stock or have prior commitments from our clearing firm and/or prime broker that they have the stock inventory in sufficient quantities. I'm not suggesting day traders don't engage in sometimes unscrupulous naked selling because their intention is to close the position out the same day, but the impetus is now on the clearing firms and prime brokers to police this activity because the SEC rules now hit them with fines, and they hate paying any cost they don't have to, especially if it's a clients fault. Just something to consider. Not dogma.
Euro 'Crisis' Or Alarmist Dialogue Amongst The Talking Heads And Where Are U.S. Assets Headed? [View article]
Not sure who you're referring to, but I suggest you give the article a 2nd read. The only way to monetize Euro nation or Euro sovereign debt is if another Euro nation buys it up. The ECB is not a Central Bank in the sense of the Federal Reserve. The ECB is actually a non-private entity that is mandated only with setting interest rates and conducting mop up operations after conducting debt sales on behalf of member states, but those mop up operations are offset by sovereign accounts. This is the entire point of the article, only Germany has the money to begin loading up on Greek debt, and they would rather see the return of Deutsche Mark than by Greek Debt. That's an opinion, not a fact. Don't confuse the ECB with the FED. The Fed is a "for profit, private entity not mandated by any branch of government representing the interest of the 12 District Banks, each of which represents the private banking sector". The ECB has no such mandate. So although I appreciate your inclination to check the facts, I must insist you do the same
Euro 'Crisis' Or Alarmist Dialogue Amongst The Talking Heads And Where Are U.S. Assets Headed? [View article]
ERM is the predecessor of the EURO. If the EURO collapses, via a single country leaving, the EMU as you refer to it will revert to the ERM, as stated in the bylaws of the EMU. The EMU is a body of politics. The ERM is a financial austerity measure. It did not in fact collapse but rather the British Pound left it in 92-93. However, it stayed intact until the actual distribution of the EURO, and in fact, the debate is now focused, in Greece's case, on the Drachma being tied to some sort of European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM for short)
Euro 'Crisis' Or Alarmist Dialogue Amongst The Talking Heads And Where Are U.S. Assets Headed? [View article]
Again, I say the same to you. Cheap labor and "unskilled labor" are quite opposites. Unskilled labor migrating from post communist economies into capitalist economies would be considered extremely expensive because of expectations and work habits. A quick Google Search or even a visit to your library to understand the economic trends of West Germany for 10 years might help you speak some truth before you put yourself out there.
Euro 'Crisis' Or Alarmist Dialogue Amongst The Talking Heads And Where Are U.S. Assets Headed? [View article]
The reference was not "cheap labor" it was "low skilled labor". Big economic difference. Furthermore, laborers from a communist bloc economy are not accustomed to capitalist ideals. They will work a certain number of hours and have been conditioned to believe the state will take care of them. Cheap labor is good. A massive influx of unskilled labor is not. An economy can only support so many dishwashers, landscapers, bus boys, etc... Even more important however is that former communist workers are not "cheap labor" by any stretch of the imagination, the point of the communist ideal was to create a society in which less labor resulted in the same sustenance and standard of living as the "rotten capitalist pigs" who work hard and struggle to give their children a better life than they had. In former communist blocs, after I spent about 3 1/2 years on the ground researching their local economies and talking to locals and understanding their expectations, they want to work less, get paid the same, and have far fewer employable skills. In capitalistic or industrial terms, this is HIGHLY EXPENSIVE labor. Let's try not to confuse the two. I'm not sure how to rationalize a deflationary spiral with an opportunity to inflate the money supply. Volcker and even Greenspan taught us that inflationary cycles, according to the monetarist Milton Friedman, require an expansion of the money supply. Deflationary spirals, by way of reducing the amount of currency in circulation and thereby increasing the price of goods (less currency means more is required for the same good) is the correct dogma. Furthermore, a study of PayPal's founding principals, especially those of Peter Thiel, will show that the historic norm has been to borrow with inflated currency, then debase the currency to pay back the loans with worthless paper, this at the peril of the countries citizens because it's their savings that takes the full hit, thus drastically reducing the standard of living. PayPal was invented with the ideal of allowing citizens of countries like Argentina, notorious for debt based devaluations, to move their capital without the constraints of the state. Recall Russia pre LTCM. They borrowed and borrowed and borrowed, then gave the West the finger by devaluing the Ruble and making their debt payments worthless to the Paris Club of Bankers. I appreciate your attempt at making the points you were aiming for, but in this particular instance, you were pretty far off the mark, but by no means am I suggesting you stop sharing your views. It's only through trial and error that one can learn the realities of western based capitalism, especially if they run into someone willing to share it with them.
'Enormous Consolidation' Expected In Gold Mining In 2012 [View article]
Well, at $970, I was screaming buy because of the sharp spike in settlements via delivery rather than rolling the futures contract forward.
That type of activity is an indication of actual gold being removed from the market, and the investors are willing to absorb the massive expenses of taking delivery, storing the gold, and keeping it secure. At $900 an ounce, it would easily add $100 per ounce to the price. It's been a straight shot and as we consolidate around $1700, $2000 is an obvious target, but do we test $1500 first? I recall in 1996 Gold was $280 and I was just graduating from high school and I told my future in-laws to mortgage their house and buy gold. To my shock and utter horror, they actually did, but not overly aggressive, I think it was around 50%, and as their home kept rising in value, they kept buying more gold because it wouldn't get over $300. The trade netted them, thus far, over $2mm and their home was worth $400k when they started borrowing against it. Now the loan is paid off, the mortgage is free and clear and their life has changed completely. There are smart risks and there are bad risks. Stupid risks are day trader monkeys who hot key all day long. Smart risks are the "Arnold Rothsteins" of the world from Boardwalk Empire on HBO. "Sometimes I have 20 bets on, sometimes I go for weeks, months even without a single bet. Waiting patiently, garnering my resources, and when the perfect bet comes along, I bet it all". I loved that line last week. It's quite appropriate for global macro trading. A position in Gold that's 16 years old, which includes about 30 racks of pure gold coins, 5 bullion bars, and European style options is what Macro trading is all about.
Those that get hung up on 1 stock and keep beating a dead horse are the ones we take money from all day long like candy from a baby. If you're stupid enough to buy 1 stock because it's a penny stock, and bet $10k on it thinking you'll double your money, and end up losing 50%, you're an idiot. It's very simple, You're best bet is Vegas, because the longer you stay in the market, the more of your money will end up in our hands. I love it when idiots wave their colors and scream "I'm the greatest fool" by criticizing anyone but themselves for taking any trade. Regardless of the circumstances, the source, the price or the stock, you will always be the Greater Fool. And when you whine, you make us laugh during times of inactivity in the market, when we feel like a break from writing algorithms is necessary. We just check the boards for the perpetual morons that constantly whine and remind ourselves, there's a lot of money out there to be taken from the greatest fools of all. God Bless Capitalism
Ivanhoe Energy Looks Set for an Interesting 2011 [View article]
I don't care about Friedland's pump and dump and have no proof of such. However, you are keen in your pre-analysis and since you feel compelled there may be a problem, guess what, there are over 6000 other stocks to choose from. So dispute your comments? Why? I'd rather go make $10k in the first hour of trading while you sweep the floor for your mom before running off to school where you belong. You see, the market is full of unscrupulous scumbags that short a stock and then run all over the bulletin boards and chat rooms to slander and dump on a stock without presenting any compelling scientific evidence except this meaningless reference to a P&D by Friedland. None of those comments have a single thing to do with the company. If you made money because you bought at 90 cents, awesome! Good for you. pat yourself on the back. Your lunch money just turned into dinner money.
When you can afford about 250,000 shares of a stock, or 50,000 shares of GS, then come back and shoot me an email. I'll put you in a seat in my hedge fund and give you a 8 figure line and see if you can pull a nickel out of the market. But here's the catch. If you lose $15k, you're going to post a video of yourself with the word "moron" written on your forehead. So what'll it be? Do you have the wits to take an oppty when it's presented to you, an oppty which can make u a millionaire in exchange for the possibility of writing MORON on your forehead in red lipstick and having it go viral? Or are you just going to sit there and tell me about the 90 cents you spent on a stock?
Pathetic penny stock players. How about this: I'll give you a seat on my hedge fund, but, I'll take the other side of every single one of your trades. I'll let you trade for free, and I'll give you a $5mm line. I've said here publicly as everyone is my witness. But the deal is I take the other side of every single one of your trades in any size you want. And there's no limit as to what I can do after you put on your trade in the stock. You buy 1000, I'll sell you 1000, but if I go and hit the market with another 100,000 shares, you're also welcome to buy the other side. Otherwise, you see the pinch you're in? Stick to school or your day job. It's obvious there's very little you know about trading. You talk about a pump and dump, then brag about buying it at 90 cents and making a profit. I believe the first half, but you're unwilling to let the world know you're a moron, so the part about buying it for 90 cents is a crock and you and I and everyone else knows it my dear dear friend. On Oct. 4, 2011, the stock traded a few hundred shares at 85 cents with a high of 94, and a 1 day reversal from there to $1.50 back to $1 where it is now. Are we supposed to assume you cherry picked the bottom? I'll pay you $1000 cash if you can produce the authentic, source documents that prove you made the trade. Again, a public declaration that I can't re-neg on.
Move on, trade other stocks. You're probably getting hammered right now because you don't know which country in the Euro zone is in trouble, and which country is next in line.
What's going on in Israel off the Republic of Cyprus, why is the Israeli Navy and Air Force doing flyovers over Nobel drilling sites in a threatening manner? Why is the US sending a task force to protect Nobel Drilling? Why is Turkey getting involved? What's the big deal? Is there a problem of some sort? Can you tell me what IVAN does? Which direction is price of gas is going and why?
How about the fact that you even have time to troll these boards. I'm a Hedge Fund Trader and the only time I have is 4 am PDT on Friday night. You're the type we used to fire. They would come in at 8 am and create a game plan based solely on their charts. God knows I wanted to throw them out the window but they were tempered double layer glass so they would bounce off. I tried once. It was funny.
If you're a technician and nothing else, then you're nothing more than a bus driver with a C class license allowing you to drive a bus. Put you in a Ferrari and you die. It's simple. Why? Because you're clueless. I'm sorry to say but tough love is the best love there is. I care about you, really. Like I care about the kids with Down Syndrome when I do my weekly rounds at C.H.O.C. They need special treatment because their dopamine levels are out of whack. Yours seem to be too.
We are trained to take money from morons. Morons are easy to spot in the market in any stock. The difference between a moron and an algo is easy to spot. If you don't know what that difference is, pay Online Trading Academy a few thousand to teach you how to lose more money to us. We love those companies: Pristine, OTA, T3. For without them, and without people like you, those days when the market's are event less, we wouldn't have anywhere to turn to take money from a baby. So God Bless you and your mother for giving birth to you. You allow me to put very expensive food on the table and drink 80 year old Bordeaux for fun.
Keep it up. And don't forget how much you're loved. Keep doing what you're doing. And if you need any advice, ask your neighbor for a drill. It's better than the hole you screw without the help of a drill for the benefit of the pro. If you're buying and hung up on a $1 stock, HA. May God have mercy on your soul. Oh yah, God's not a Capitalist. I forgot. Sorry. You're hopeless apparently. But keep working hard at it. You'll get there, eventually. Even Neiderhoffer got there, although he blew up a few billion dollars on the same stupid trade twice after he preached "statistically superior trading" until his statistics cost him his life, and now he writes freelance articles for Money magazine. A guy that used to run $20 Billion writes for money and refuses to trade because he admits his faults. You should to. I do all the time. I think you should write to him. You both seem to like making contradicting remarks and claim you cherry picked a stock on the single day at a price where it traded at for a moment, and probably bought 500 shares, for what $450? That was the fee I paid on a parking ticket yesterday so I could make it to my office in time to make 10 times that on an event driven trade. Keep trying. You'll make it. By the time you're 80, you'll have made it, and made me and made many other hedgies rich from your obvious stupidity of disclosing your prices. You bought at 90 cents? Let me know the next time you buy the stock. I have as large enough line to not only sit on the board, but to drive your stock higher so you can get out for a small profit (wink). I love it when daytraders show themselves. You see the few thousand people in the streets on Wall Street defecating in public, most of them were daytraders. Now we stand on the roof and with our binoculars, laugh when we recognize former traders that like you, played in the pennies and dwelt on it. A few water balloons is always fun too before returning to our desks, which span the globe and never stop because the sun goes down in NY.
What is trading to you? Looking for a stranger to tell you what to buy and buying it to blame them for a loss and take credit for a gain? You know how many psychology books have been written for people with your sickness? It's a disease which you should really consider getting help for.
I told you, I have certificates locked away in a safe. One day, I'll either wipe my tush with those cert's or I'll give them to my kids to give to my grand kids. But sell a share? Never. Buy more around $1, I would if I would sell it at $3.50 but you know I hate short term cap gains? 35% in the hole when you buy the stock as it is. So if I make 50 cents on a $1 stock, I give back 35 cents and pocket 15. What for? I can trade from Spain and the Isle of Man and use my profits to buy land in Montenegro with a deflated Euro. How about you? Do you make your bus fare with your profits from your 90 cent trade?
Ivanhoe Energy: Rapid Fire M&A and Q4 Drilling Could Deliver Breakout News [View article]
My Dear Mr. Good Knight;
Although I rarely engage in commentary on others banter that goes on around anyone's articles, I feel compelled to intercede at this juncture because there is a point where one "crosses the line and does so willfully and intentionally". When referring to a person's profession, and their intent, slandering them in a public forum is probably the least intelligent (eg. dumbest) thing you or anyone can do. Now, I'm assuming you're not a day older than 23 or 24 and hence your naivety compelled you to make such a retarded miscalculation of extreme proportions. I remember I was that age once, although I was the CEO of my own company, but that aside, one thing I learned early in life, was that to slander in a public forum against someone and their profession, especially on an internet site, which records everything we write for the rest of time, has the potential of costing more than the worst trade one could possibly make. Catch my drift? Terribly disingenuous on your part, don't you think? Now, I do admit, I'm guilty of trading this particular stock completely against how I've been trained, actually, I haven't traded this at all, which is why it's a terrible mistake on my part.
Regardless of the $1 to $3 to $1 to $3, etc.... pattern of the stock, there's no reason for me to have called in my certificates only to lock them inside a vault because I'm being overly stubborn with this position. Moreover, although I do believe that one day we'll see this stock enter into an established trend because I am a believer in their technology, we just haven't hit the point where we need to be sucking oil out of shale anytime soon. Instead, we're making discoveries of magnificent proportions all over the world. Especially at this time, with the pesky US Dollar continually being devalued, and the pain that's inflicting on US companies engaged in oil as oil too is priced in dollars, although paid for in local currency, so when the repatriation takes place, the CFO must deal with nasty haircut. Nonetheless, off the coast of Brazil, in the Gulf of Mexico, all around the world, we're making discoveries so large that they're making the largest producing wells of today look like mole hills compared to mountains.
So to you Mr. Good Knight, I must come out with it. A true definition of a "pump and dump" is when someone "pumps the price of a stock" up by spreading false innuendos and generating a perception of rising liquidity, only to "dump their shares into the rising value". The crucial point being the latter, which is "dumping" your stock. Now, my problem is that I've never sold a single share of this stock, even though I've watched it rise in my book by over 250% and then fall back down to break even or a small loss, then rise again to a triple digit gain on paper, then deflate again. I've never really lost much if anything because although I've never sold a share of this stock, my cost basis is very low, which is really why I don't spend much time even thinking about this company right now or for the past year as I pursue my PhD in school. Because a single stock is never relevant to my annual performance in the market. If it were, then I would definitely be in the wrong profession.
Not once did I have the professional integrity of taking my paper gains and banking them. Why? Because for some stupid reason which I have yet to understand, the "story" of this stock has had me fascinated for quite a significant number of years, and I'll be the first to admit I have a dangerously curious personality. And this world has a lot to be explored. So many things to experience, see, feel, touch, taste, it's all out there for the taking. But what I will never do is not take ownership of my trades, regardless of what the impetus may have been which led me into the position. Experience has taught me that if I take a single variable into account when entering a position, ONLY a SINGLE variable, then I have a 99% or greater chance of getting hurt in that trade. A position has to be entered because of plethora of informational variables, streams of analysis such that once the position is put on, it's done so based on a myriad of variables. The more variables, the lower the % of my being wrong, a simple inverse relationship, and it's advice I give everyone, whether someone I work with, am training for my own firm, or giving advice to a great trader that just experienced a complete blow-up, as we all have.
I even think there's a direct correlation between the number of times you've blown up with how good you are as a trader. Although Victor Neiderhoffer is an exception to that rule. To lose the entire firm twice by taking the exact same bet in the exact same direction with exact same security for the exact same reason, is beyond bad luck or bad trading, it's a personality fault, which should never be an obstacle to someone's forward progress in this career, as difficult as it already is. My style is one which collects a position of 20-30 stocks and then treats the whole deck as a single organism with multiple cells, and when a cell is sick, I kill it and try to foster a new one to take it's place, while at the same time, always having that deep-out-of-the-money "Black Swan" trade on because it's extremely cheap insurance for what's supposed to occur only once every thousand or so years, whereas in 2008, we experienced I think four 5 or more Sigma Events during the course of a single year! That's profound. But having the "Black Swan" trade on at all times is not only good risk management, but it's also like having life insurance on yourself but you're the beneficiary, and it doesn't cost much in the long run. Especially when it saves you from having to turn-over your entire portfolio because you're making a tremendous % gain on what I call the "death trade". Just the commissions alone would be more than a continuous trade that's on only for the purpose of a possible Black Swan move in the market.
Now, Mr. Good Knight, it certainly and quite unfortunately appears you have mistaken a trade in which I was guilty of nothing more than being "wrong" as we all are almost a majority of the time, if not more, with ill intentions designed to pumps and dumps like the many "free" small cap stock newsletters you get in your spam folder, as I and everyone else does.
IVAN, if you look at the developments of the company over the last 10 years, and correlate those directly with movements in the price of the stock, what you'll see are areas where the "regular" pattern of up with good news and down with bad news is broken. It is during those "disjointed" periods when it is Mr. Market ruling the show and not the individual stock, nor the company.
By definition, pump and dump implies I "pumped up the price in order to dump my shares". Unfortunately, I have never sold a single share of this stock. I have been tested, tried, driven absolutely mad, and ultimately become a "forced investor" rather than a rationale investor, but when have you ever found a "perfect" trader?
In the "long run" or "short", I was wrong. I admit to that. But nothing else. Please hold disparaging remarks that can be construed as an intentional attempt at slandering ones name and reputation to yourself for the sake of your own well-being and livelihood; for if you truly were a fan of Investment Capitalist (InvestmentCapitalist.... you would see that I share a tremendous amount of global macro information with my "fans" and reader base on my own dime. I needn't, but since I was 23, when I started a Global Macro Advisory firm with venture capital funds at a time when your spit on the back of a napkin could get funded, I've had a large and consistently growing group of followers from all over the world.
What I'm saying is, don't judge anyone by a single trade. I could produce for you authentic trade logs from a single month where I generated almost $200,000 in gross profits, and I can generate logs where I entered a draw-down that lasted several months and went as low as $150,000 before I was able to turn it around. Just email me and I'll send them to you, and that goes for anyone.
For example, say you subscribed to a brilliant advisory and paid $10,000 per year for it (around what we charged), and the trades were all bull's eye's, for the most part, but it came down to risk management with the winners and quick cuts on the losers. Something we're all familiar with no? Now imagine a subscriber that was completely underfunded. Someone looking for a quick score off a cheap stock from the group of selected trades, and only buys the cheap stock because it's the only one he can afford, and thus puts the entire b.p. of the day into that stock; and that happened to be the one that went down and was eventually cut because the managers made a poor judgment call or were perhaps swayed by a false variable, or applied the wrong model of analysis to a stock that required another specific type of analysis, etc..... Could you crucify the Portfolio Manager because you only took 1 trade? Of course not. That's completely unimaginable! Besides being extraordinarily stupid.
Now I know that comment you posted came from someone not a day older than say 23 or 24. Because only at that age are we all naive, not to mention stupid enough to not understand the implications of our actions and what may easily and painfully be categorized as "slander" and hence, more costly than our worst losing trade, EVER.
So consider this my admitting to you that yes, like all experienced traders, I do make mistakes, yes IVAN has tested my patience and I often wonder if I'm justifying the position a posteriori, you know, after the fact, or if I actually agree with what the company is doing. But what I know for a fact is that I know way too much about this company. Which means as a Global Macro Trader, the fact I requested the actual certificates of my shares in IVAN and locked them in a safe, implies my stubborn side won in this scenario, and making a determination if the actual technology is relevant to the every day main street, John Doe, or the big oil companies was the result of a curious nature in me, always ruling my perspective of the world around me, and believe me, I've been curious in a very big world.
Another point, since I felt compelled to respond to your highly disingenuous and potentially troublesome (for you) comment, and the fact that I never respond to comments so this is kind of fun, is that "if you lived in a vacuum and only knew IVAN when you thought of me, never judge anyone other than yourself! Especially as a trader most importantly!" Always take ownership, it's the only thing that improves your skills, because it forces you to learn rather than brushing it off as someone else's poor foresight. Furthermore child, keep to yourself when you're up or down.
I remember trading in a small office where the traders were taught to make $300 per day to live a life where they were earning close-to $100,000/yr. A figure that when I think about, I want to puke! Because to work my bum off to only make $100k for the entire year is a ticket to the unemployment line. Regardless, that's what they were teaching their traders but the founder of the firm came and recruited me so nobody was going to teach me how to trade. If anything, he wanted his other traders to pay closer attention to how I traded. This was at the dawn of DMA platforms and ECN's. So here comes this 26 year old kid who sat by himself with 9 screens and 2 server strength computers, who never made a sound, unlike everyone else who would whine or cheer over a $100 swing. And all of a sudden they're watching someone manage daily swings of $7k - $15k and as high as $50,000 in a single day without even one of the company's principals saying a word to me while they knew if they lost $1k two days in a row, they wouldn't have a seat anymore. Then comes along one of those GOOD days, you know one of those days where everyone makes money and most set highs for the year in terms of daily P&L, when those who made a few hundred a week made in a single day $1k to $3k, all hyped up, completely overwhelmed with euphoria, and 100% NOT in control of their emotions when they came to my station to see if they were able to make more than me because I don't make a peep. Ever. It's work, I don't get a high off of making money, nor do I need an anti-depressant when I lose money. If you do, whoa, watch out. This is not the right profession for you. But when they would see on my P&L box $25,000 in green, they would blurt out "You MADE $25K TODAY?" and it would annoy the heck out of me because it's like, DUH! What does the figure say? So what's with the redundant question? AND EVERY SINGLE TRADER would do the same thing!
One day, a Principal of the firm caught me splashing water on my face in the bathroom right after the market closed and, as was his norm, he asked me "so, how'd you do today in the market?". Normally, when asked that question, I respond rather vaguely with "not bad", or "pretty good", or "I got steamrolled", "I was run over by an elephant", etc...
But since this was the firm's "resident trainer" who built an elaborate study profile to teach aspiring traders how to make $300/day while generating about 300,000 shares, I replied rather spitefully (but truthfully), "I made a hundred points". Quite nonchalant and off the cuff. He pondered on my response and said "a hundred points for the newsletter or for your account?", because I also ran the company's advisory for our clients since we were a B/D with 1 of the first 3 licenses for Real Tick, and I responded "no, in my account".
Then I left the building, walked across the street, and got so hammered that I couldn't tell the cab driver where I lived and my wife had to talk him home over the phone. Of course I wanted to burst at the seams because I just bagged over $100,000 in a single day, but I left before anyone could find out, though I watched my buddy from the bathroom head into the CEO's office to ask if what I said was true or not and I watched from the stairs to see his reaction and it was quite a sight because he came running out looking for me but I was gone. Outta there like bat out of hell.
I've been trained to have discipline. Discipline to either NEVER listen to anyone or if I'm going to take someone else's trade, I always take full responsibility, even when they're wrong. Discipline to NEVER take someone else's trade, Discipline to stop and walk away when I'm getting pounded by the equivalent of Mike Tyson, and the Discipline to NEVER, EVER openly and publicly slander someone who has a professional reputation and the simple presentation of the slander would compel poor SA to reveal your identity and then I would let my lawyers decide what to do because I have no care in the matter at all.
But I have a strong hunch you're just a little boy in need of advice, a newbie, unaccustomed to the treacherous realities of the market, especially post 2008 when 70% of the market was evaporated. Don't take this the wrong way, I say this with the sincerity of an older brother. That was pretty dumb. I don't know how else to describe it. I actually think it was dumber than my IVAN trade (for now). That loss of liquidity felt during the '08 market shock hasn't even shown the slightest hint of recovery, and the time it takes to adjust to something of this magnitude, what's called a "Triple 7 Sigma event in 1 year", and then get chopped up, chewed up and spat out in a whipsaw algorithm crazed market where it's algo against algo and if you try to get in the way, it's like getting between two very skilled knife fighters and trying to use your bare hands to fight against both. Of course those falling knives are going to cut you to pieces. Hence, we don't intervene when the market's experienced what Schumpeter calls "Creative Destruction". We await the "creative" after the "destruction" has settled. I'm not quite sure it has. What I am pretty sure about though is that there still remains opportunities in financial markets. The problem is the long term devaluation of the US dollar. Even if you are dollar-centric, because you live in the US and your paycheck is in dollars, it's gotten to a point where opportunities in other markets of the world, compounded by the positive spread in the currency cross, compounded by the dividends earned in the host currency, compounded by a continuing slide in the USD with the occasional 3-4 month counter-trend rally because of some fiscal or monetary tactic to appease the natives for the short term, then you start to realize, in a globalized world, there's more than just the Nasdaq and NYSE, and on a micro scale, there's more than just IVAN. But there is only 1 definition for, and I really hate this word, "slander". And after 15 years of experience, my advice to you is never put yourself in a situation that exposes you like the emperor with no clothes. It's not a pretty sight, nor a fun place. And it is analogous to the markets: "Always watch for potential weaknesses in your holdings". Ones portfolio should be a constant and dynamic reshuffling of the deck with the primary eye on a global macro or 5+ Sigma event, otherwise known as the "Black Swan". That's all we have to do as traders. Watch for those "Black Swans" and not only protect ourselves from them, but also make money from them, for no matter what you hold, always have a "Black Swan" trade on. I already said, they're very cheap to put on, especially in a low volatility environment where the VIX is in the 20's. And I repeat, it's just like life insurance, but when you blow up, you get the payout, and it's smart portfolio risk dispersion.
With all that said, the final word is thus: Don't Slander anyone for a single bad trade, because the trade depends on when you bought it, not when I bought it, which means I had nothing to do with it. Secondly, who knows when the original dialogue started? You can't expect to come into the game in the 6th inning and suddenly realize you're down 7 points as if the game just started. The content you will find on Seeking Alpha, my IVAN views included, are usually valued information shared with proper intentions and honest motives. Why else would I or anyone else waste their time writing for a site that doesn't gain them any benefit at all? But the real question is, why would some moron publicly slander someone that they can deduce is significantly more resourceful than they are and then open up both flanks for a Pincer move where you don't have a fighting chance in the world. It's like that freight train running you over in a bad trade except you can't get up from this one. You're down and out, with no reserve to tap into for a come back. You have to return to being a bus boy or perhaps finishing high school.
The position you never want to find yourself in is when you're 100% wrong, regardless of how your target takes it. With all due respect, speaking in a very insulting way in a public forum about another's profession can be extremely painful to the pocket book. It's a trade you NEVER wanna take. You'll always lose, and by the time it's over, you'll be hoping for an actual bad stock trade rather than what you just put yourself through for lacking foresight and typing out of anger, guilt, stupidity, naivety or whatever.
Got it? Good. Don't do it again because I assure you, the 2nd time, the person may not be as kind as I am being this time.
Ivanhoe Energy: Rapid Fire M&A and Q4 Drilling Could Deliver Breakout News [View article]
Well said Leguran. Create "Alpha" by trading around the core. And others who couldn't trade water in the desert can sit and drown in annual losses that just keep building.
Google's Answer to Rejected $6 Billion Buyout of Groupon [View article]
If I'm buying into a bubble at the bottom, then God Bless bubbles.
You think I care about FB or their CEO? Or their Biz plan or their whatever? The fact that they're ubiquitous gives them the name recognition and brand awareness that triggers bubbles. Then it brings in the big funds because they have to own some for the long haul. FB at $35, which is around where it will start trading as I've already picked up a block pre IPO, is a steal. Not because of their cash flow, but purely because of "Behavioral Finance" and nothing else. Who said "In the long run, we're all dead"? Rhetorical. I know who said it, but get the point. Seriously. Market's not for investing. You wanna invest, go to Africa and South America. US markets are for speculating right now. It'll be a while till the smoke settles. Until then, trade or die.
Euro 'Crisis' Or Alarmist Dialogue Amongst The Talking Heads And Where Are U.S. Assets Headed? [View article]
Thank you for the honor.
Euro 'Crisis' Or Alarmist Dialogue Amongst The Talking Heads And Where Are U.S. Assets Headed? [View article]
It's not about "cheap labor", it's "unskilled labor" that causes the pain. Cheap labor fits into low skilled positions, but West Germany had nothing to offer and thus went through an actual, not theoretical recession that lasted almost an entire decade.
Thus, the inference to Korea's "theoretical unification" was based on historical facts. There are a finite number of positions for short-order cooks, janitors, McDonald's cashiers and car wash hands. Moreover, what the reunification of Germany taught economic historians is an influx of labor from a former communist economy creates a significant spike in overall unemployment and a surge in entitlement spending. It's like busting a huge labor union and laying off millions of workers. These people will not easily accept positions which in California, tend to be filled with migratory labor.
Either way, Keynesian economics dictate deflationary measures. The experiment with "money supply manipulation" ended with Volcker and Carter after a poorly conceived idea to jump on Milton Friedman's bandwagon and adjust the "M's" eventually failed and Volcker's bluff was called by bond traders as they reacted opposite to what was intended; they pushed bond rates higher and forced the Fed to revert to Keynesian dogma and raise rates as high as 23% before breaking the back of runaway inflation.
The events in Germany were enormously deflationary, not inflationary, and astute or not, the Bundesbank flooded the economy with liquidity, and it still took 10 years to recover from the blow.
Euro 'Crisis' Or Alarmist Dialogue Amongst The Talking Heads And Where Are U.S. Assets Headed? [View article]
Thank you.
Ivanhoe Energy: Rapid Fire M&A and Q4 Drilling Could Deliver Breakout News [View article]
Ivanhoe Energy: Rapid Fire M&A and Q4 Drilling Could Deliver Breakout News [View article]
Netflix - Stock Manipulation & Naked Shorting - Where Is the SEC & NASDAQ?? [View instapost]
Euro 'Crisis' Or Alarmist Dialogue Amongst The Talking Heads And Where Are U.S. Assets Headed? [View article]
Euro 'Crisis' Or Alarmist Dialogue Amongst The Talking Heads And Where Are U.S. Assets Headed? [View article]
Euro 'Crisis' Or Alarmist Dialogue Amongst The Talking Heads And Where Are U.S. Assets Headed? [View article]
Euro 'Crisis' Or Alarmist Dialogue Amongst The Talking Heads And Where Are U.S. Assets Headed? [View article]
'Enormous Consolidation' Expected In Gold Mining In 2012 [View article]
That type of activity is an indication of actual gold being removed from the market, and the investors are willing to absorb the massive expenses of taking delivery, storing the gold, and keeping it secure. At $900 an ounce, it would easily add $100 per ounce to the price. It's been a straight shot and as we consolidate around $1700, $2000 is an obvious target, but do we test $1500 first? I recall in 1996 Gold was $280 and I was just graduating from high school and I told my future in-laws to mortgage their house and buy gold. To my shock and utter horror, they actually did, but not overly aggressive, I think it was around 50%, and as their home kept rising in value, they kept buying more gold because it wouldn't get over $300. The trade netted them, thus far, over $2mm and their home was worth $400k when they started borrowing against it. Now the loan is paid off, the mortgage is free and clear and their life has changed completely. There are smart risks and there are bad risks. Stupid risks are day trader monkeys who hot key all day long. Smart risks are the "Arnold Rothsteins" of the world from Boardwalk Empire on HBO. "Sometimes I have 20 bets on, sometimes I go for weeks, months even without a single bet. Waiting patiently, garnering my resources, and when the perfect bet comes along, I bet it all". I loved that line last week. It's quite appropriate for global macro trading. A position in Gold that's 16 years old, which includes about 30 racks of pure gold coins, 5 bullion bars, and European style options is what Macro trading is all about.
Those that get hung up on 1 stock and keep beating a dead horse are the ones we take money from all day long like candy from a baby. If you're stupid enough to buy 1 stock because it's a penny stock, and bet $10k on it thinking you'll double your money, and end up losing 50%, you're an idiot. It's very simple, You're best bet is Vegas, because the longer you stay in the market, the more of your money will end up in our hands. I love it when idiots wave their colors and scream "I'm the greatest fool" by criticizing anyone but themselves for taking any trade. Regardless of the circumstances, the source, the price or the stock, you will always be the Greater Fool. And when you whine, you make us laugh during times of inactivity in the market, when we feel like a break from writing algorithms is necessary. We just check the boards for the perpetual morons that constantly whine and remind ourselves, there's a lot of money out there to be taken from the greatest fools of all. God Bless Capitalism
Ivanhoe Energy Looks Set for an Interesting 2011 [View article]
When you can afford about 250,000 shares of a stock, or 50,000 shares of GS, then come back and shoot me an email. I'll put you in a seat in my hedge fund and give you a 8 figure line and see if you can pull a nickel out of the market. But here's the catch. If you lose $15k, you're going to post a video of yourself with the word "moron" written on your forehead. So what'll it be? Do you have the wits to take an oppty when it's presented to you, an oppty which can make u a millionaire in exchange for the possibility of writing MORON on your forehead in red lipstick and having it go viral? Or are you just going to sit there and tell me about the 90 cents you spent on a stock?
Pathetic penny stock players. How about this: I'll give you a seat on my hedge fund, but, I'll take the other side of every single one of your trades. I'll let you trade for free, and I'll give you a $5mm line. I've said here publicly as everyone is my witness. But the deal is I take the other side of every single one of your trades in any size you want. And there's no limit as to what I can do after you put on your trade in the stock. You buy 1000, I'll sell you 1000, but if I go and hit the market with another 100,000 shares, you're also welcome to buy the other side. Otherwise, you see the pinch you're in? Stick to school or your day job. It's obvious there's very little you know about trading. You talk about a pump and dump, then brag about buying it at 90 cents and making a profit. I believe the first half, but you're unwilling to let the world know you're a moron, so the part about buying it for 90 cents is a crock and you and I and everyone else knows it my dear dear friend. On Oct. 4, 2011, the stock traded a few hundred shares at 85 cents with a high of 94, and a 1 day reversal from there to $1.50 back to $1 where it is now. Are we supposed to assume you cherry picked the bottom? I'll pay you $1000 cash if you can produce the authentic, source documents that prove you made the trade. Again, a public declaration that I can't re-neg on.
Move on, trade other stocks. You're probably getting hammered right now because you don't know which country in the Euro zone is in trouble, and which country is next in line.
What's going on in Israel off the Republic of Cyprus, why is the Israeli Navy and Air Force doing flyovers over Nobel drilling sites in a threatening manner? Why is the US sending a task force to protect Nobel Drilling? Why is Turkey getting involved? What's the big deal? Is there a problem of some sort? Can you tell me what IVAN does? Which direction is price of gas is going and why?
How about the fact that you even have time to troll these boards. I'm a Hedge Fund Trader and the only time I have is 4 am PDT on Friday night. You're the type we used to fire. They would come in at 8 am and create a game plan based solely on their charts. God knows I wanted to throw them out the window but they were tempered double layer glass so they would bounce off. I tried once. It was funny.
If you're a technician and nothing else, then you're nothing more than a bus driver with a C class license allowing you to drive a bus. Put you in a Ferrari and you die. It's simple. Why? Because you're clueless. I'm sorry to say but tough love is the best love there is. I care about you, really. Like I care about the kids with Down Syndrome when I do my weekly rounds at C.H.O.C. They need special treatment because their dopamine levels are out of whack. Yours seem to be too.
We are trained to take money from morons. Morons are easy to spot in the market in any stock. The difference between a moron and an algo is easy to spot. If you don't know what that difference is, pay Online Trading Academy a few thousand to teach you how to lose more money to us. We love those companies: Pristine, OTA, T3. For without them, and without people like you, those days when the market's are event less, we wouldn't have anywhere to turn to take money from a baby. So God Bless you and your mother for giving birth to you. You allow me to put very expensive food on the table and drink 80 year old Bordeaux for fun.
Keep it up. And don't forget how much you're loved. Keep doing what you're doing. And if you need any advice, ask your neighbor for a drill. It's better than the hole you screw without the help of a drill for the benefit of the pro. If you're buying and hung up on a $1 stock, HA. May God have mercy on your soul. Oh yah, God's not a Capitalist. I forgot. Sorry. You're hopeless apparently. But keep working hard at it. You'll get there, eventually. Even Neiderhoffer got there, although he blew up a few billion dollars on the same stupid trade twice after he preached "statistically superior trading" until his statistics cost him his life, and now he writes freelance articles for Money magazine. A guy that used to run $20 Billion writes for money and refuses to trade because he admits his faults. You should to. I do all the time. I think you should write to him. You both seem to like making contradicting remarks and claim you cherry picked a stock on the single day at a price where it traded at for a moment, and probably bought 500 shares, for what $450? That was the fee I paid on a parking ticket yesterday so I could make it to my office in time to make 10 times that on an event driven trade. Keep trying. You'll make it. By the time you're 80, you'll have made it, and made me and made many other hedgies rich from your obvious stupidity of disclosing your prices. You bought at 90 cents? Let me know the next time you buy the stock. I have as large enough line to not only sit on the board, but to drive your stock higher so you can get out for a small profit (wink). I love it when daytraders show themselves. You see the few thousand people in the streets on Wall Street defecating in public, most of them were daytraders. Now we stand on the roof and with our binoculars, laugh when we recognize former traders that like you, played in the pennies and dwelt on it. A few water balloons is always fun too before returning to our desks, which span the globe and never stop because the sun goes down in NY.
What is trading to you? Looking for a stranger to tell you what to buy and buying it to blame them for a loss and take credit for a gain? You know how many psychology books have been written for people with your sickness? It's a disease which you should really consider getting help for.
I told you, I have certificates locked away in a safe. One day, I'll either wipe my tush with those cert's or I'll give them to my kids to give to my grand kids. But sell a share? Never. Buy more around $1, I would if I would sell it at $3.50 but you know I hate short term cap gains? 35% in the hole when you buy the stock as it is. So if I make 50 cents on a $1 stock, I give back 35 cents and pocket 15. What for? I can trade from Spain and the Isle of Man and use my profits to buy land in Montenegro with a deflated Euro. How about you? Do you make your bus fare with your profits from your 90 cent trade?
Ivanhoe Energy: Rapid Fire M&A and Q4 Drilling Could Deliver Breakout News [View article]
Although I rarely engage in commentary on others banter that goes on around anyone's articles, I feel compelled to intercede at this juncture because there is a point where one "crosses the line and does so willfully and intentionally". When referring to a person's profession, and their intent, slandering them in a public forum is probably the least intelligent (eg. dumbest) thing you or anyone can do. Now, I'm assuming you're not a day older than 23 or 24 and hence your naivety compelled you to make such a retarded miscalculation of extreme proportions. I remember I was that age once, although I was the CEO of my own company, but that aside, one thing I learned early in life, was that to slander in a public forum against someone and their profession, especially on an internet site, which records everything we write for the rest of time, has the potential of costing more than the worst trade one could possibly make. Catch my drift? Terribly disingenuous on your part, don't you think? Now, I do admit, I'm guilty of trading this particular stock completely against how I've been trained, actually, I haven't traded this at all, which is why it's a terrible mistake on my part.
Regardless of the $1 to $3 to $1 to $3, etc.... pattern of the stock, there's no reason for me to have called in my certificates only to lock them inside a vault because I'm being overly stubborn with this position. Moreover, although I do believe that one day we'll see this stock enter into an established trend because I am a believer in their technology, we just haven't hit the point where we need to be sucking oil out of shale anytime soon. Instead, we're making discoveries of magnificent proportions all over the world. Especially at this time, with the pesky US Dollar continually being devalued, and the pain that's inflicting on US companies engaged in oil as oil too is priced in dollars, although paid for in local currency, so when the repatriation takes place, the CFO must deal with nasty haircut. Nonetheless, off the coast of Brazil, in the Gulf of Mexico, all around the world, we're making discoveries so large that they're making the largest producing wells of today look like mole hills compared to mountains.
So to you Mr. Good Knight, I must come out with it. A true definition of a "pump and dump" is when someone "pumps the price of a stock" up by spreading false innuendos and generating a perception of rising liquidity, only to "dump their shares into the rising value". The crucial point being the latter, which is "dumping" your stock. Now, my problem is that I've never sold a single share of this stock, even though I've watched it rise in my book by over 250% and then fall back down to break even or a small loss, then rise again to a triple digit gain on paper, then deflate again. I've never really lost much if anything because although I've never sold a share of this stock, my cost basis is very low, which is really why I don't spend much time even thinking about this company right now or for the past year as I pursue my PhD in school. Because a single stock is never relevant to my annual performance in the market. If it were, then I would definitely be in the wrong profession.
Not once did I have the professional integrity of taking my paper gains and banking them. Why? Because for some stupid reason which I have yet to understand, the "story" of this stock has had me fascinated for quite a significant number of years, and I'll be the first to admit I have a dangerously curious personality. And this world has a lot to be explored. So many things to experience, see, feel, touch, taste, it's all out there for the taking. But what I will never do is not take ownership of my trades, regardless of what the impetus may have been which led me into the position. Experience has taught me that if I take a single variable into account when entering a position, ONLY a SINGLE variable, then I have a 99% or greater chance of getting hurt in that trade. A position has to be entered because of plethora of informational variables, streams of analysis such that once the position is put on, it's done so based on a myriad of variables. The more variables, the lower the % of my being wrong, a simple inverse relationship, and it's advice I give everyone, whether someone I work with, am training for my own firm, or giving advice to a great trader that just experienced a complete blow-up, as we all have.
I even think there's a direct correlation between the number of times you've blown up with how good you are as a trader. Although Victor Neiderhoffer is an exception to that rule. To lose the entire firm twice by taking the exact same bet in the exact same direction with exact same security for the exact same reason, is beyond bad luck or bad trading, it's a personality fault, which should never be an obstacle to someone's forward progress in this career, as difficult as it already is. My style is one which collects a position of 20-30 stocks and then treats the whole deck as a single organism with multiple cells, and when a cell is sick, I kill it and try to foster a new one to take it's place, while at the same time, always having that deep-out-of-the-money "Black Swan" trade on because it's extremely cheap insurance for what's supposed to occur only once every thousand or so years, whereas in 2008, we experienced I think four 5 or more Sigma Events during the course of a single year! That's profound. But having the "Black Swan" trade on at all times is not only good risk management, but it's also like having life insurance on yourself but you're the beneficiary, and it doesn't cost much in the long run. Especially when it saves you from having to turn-over your entire portfolio because you're making a tremendous % gain on what I call the "death trade". Just the commissions alone would be more than a continuous trade that's on only for the purpose of a possible Black Swan move in the market.
Now, Mr. Good Knight, it certainly and quite unfortunately appears you have mistaken a trade in which I was guilty of nothing more than being "wrong" as we all are almost a majority of the time, if not more, with ill intentions designed to pumps and dumps like the many "free" small cap stock newsletters you get in your spam folder, as I and everyone else does.
IVAN, if you look at the developments of the company over the last 10 years, and correlate those directly with movements in the price of the stock, what you'll see are areas where the "regular" pattern of up with good news and down with bad news is broken. It is during those "disjointed" periods when it is Mr. Market ruling the show and not the individual stock, nor the company.
By definition, pump and dump implies I "pumped up the price in order to dump my shares". Unfortunately, I have never sold a single share of this stock. I have been tested, tried, driven absolutely mad, and ultimately become a "forced investor" rather than a rationale investor, but when have you ever found a "perfect" trader?
In the "long run" or "short", I was wrong. I admit to that. But nothing else. Please hold disparaging remarks that can be construed as an intentional attempt at slandering ones name and reputation to yourself for the sake of your own well-being and livelihood; for if you truly were a fan of Investment Capitalist (InvestmentCapitalist.... you would see that I share a tremendous amount of global macro information with my "fans" and reader base on my own dime. I needn't, but since I was 23, when I started a Global Macro Advisory firm with venture capital funds at a time when your spit on the back of a napkin could get funded, I've had a large and consistently growing group of followers from all over the world.
What I'm saying is, don't judge anyone by a single trade. I could produce for you authentic trade logs from a single month where I generated almost $200,000 in gross profits, and I can generate logs where I entered a draw-down that lasted several months and went as low as $150,000 before I was able to turn it around. Just email me and I'll send them to you, and that goes for anyone.
For example, say you subscribed to a brilliant advisory and paid $10,000 per year for it (around what we charged), and the trades were all bull's eye's, for the most part, but it came down to risk management with the winners and quick cuts on the losers. Something we're all familiar with no? Now imagine a subscriber that was completely underfunded. Someone looking for a quick score off a cheap stock from the group of selected trades, and only buys the cheap stock because it's the only one he can afford, and thus puts the entire b.p. of the day into that stock; and that happened to be the one that went down and was eventually cut because the managers made a poor judgment call or were perhaps swayed by a false variable, or applied the wrong model of analysis to a stock that required another specific type of analysis, etc..... Could you crucify the Portfolio Manager because you only took 1 trade? Of course not. That's completely unimaginable! Besides being extraordinarily stupid.
Now I know that comment you posted came from someone not a day older than say 23 or 24. Because only at that age are we all naive, not to mention stupid enough to not understand the implications of our actions and what may easily and painfully be categorized as "slander" and hence, more costly than our worst losing trade, EVER.
So consider this my admitting to you that yes, like all experienced traders, I do make mistakes, yes IVAN has tested my patience and I often wonder if I'm justifying the position a posteriori, you know, after the fact, or if I actually agree with what the company is doing. But what I know for a fact is that I know way too much about this company. Which means as a Global Macro Trader, the fact I requested the actual certificates of my shares in IVAN and locked them in a safe, implies my stubborn side won in this scenario, and making a determination if the actual technology is relevant to the every day main street, John Doe, or the big oil companies was the result of a curious nature in me, always ruling my perspective of the world around me, and believe me, I've been curious in a very big world.
Another point, since I felt compelled to respond to your highly disingenuous and potentially troublesome (for you) comment, and the fact that I never respond to comments so this is kind of fun, is that "if you lived in a vacuum and only knew IVAN when you thought of me, never judge anyone other than yourself! Especially as a trader most importantly!" Always take ownership, it's the only thing that improves your skills, because it forces you to learn rather than brushing it off as someone else's poor foresight. Furthermore child, keep to yourself when you're up or down.
I remember trading in a small office where the traders were taught to make $300 per day to live a life where they were earning close-to $100,000/yr. A figure that when I think about, I want to puke! Because to work my bum off to only make $100k for the entire year is a ticket to the unemployment line. Regardless, that's what they were teaching their traders but the founder of the firm came and recruited me so nobody was going to teach me how to trade. If anything, he wanted his other traders to pay closer attention to how I traded. This was at the dawn of DMA platforms and ECN's. So here comes this 26 year old kid who sat by himself with 9 screens and 2 server strength computers, who never made a sound, unlike everyone else who would whine or cheer over a $100 swing. And all of a sudden they're watching someone manage daily swings of $7k - $15k and as high as $50,000 in a single day without even one of the company's principals saying a word to me while they knew if they lost $1k two days in a row, they wouldn't have a seat anymore.
Then comes along one of those GOOD days, you know one of those days where everyone makes money and most set highs for the year in terms of daily P&L, when those who made a few hundred a week made in a single day $1k to $3k, all hyped up, completely overwhelmed with euphoria, and 100% NOT in control of their emotions when they came to my station to see if they were able to make more than me because I don't make a peep. Ever. It's work, I don't get a high off of making money, nor do I need an anti-depressant when I lose money. If you do, whoa, watch out. This is not the right profession for you. But when they would see on my P&L box $25,000 in green, they would blurt out "You MADE $25K TODAY?" and it would annoy the heck out of me because it's like, DUH! What does the figure say? So what's with the redundant question? AND EVERY SINGLE TRADER would do the same thing!
One day, a Principal of the firm caught me splashing water on my face in the bathroom right after the market closed and, as was his norm, he asked me "so, how'd you do today in the market?". Normally, when asked that question, I respond rather vaguely with "not bad", or "pretty good", or "I got steamrolled", "I was run over by an elephant", etc...
But since this was the firm's "resident trainer" who built an elaborate study profile to teach aspiring traders how to make $300/day while generating about 300,000 shares, I replied rather spitefully (but truthfully), "I made a hundred points". Quite nonchalant and off the cuff. He pondered on my response and said "a hundred points for the newsletter or for your account?", because I also ran the company's advisory for our clients since we were a B/D with 1 of the first 3 licenses for Real Tick, and I responded "no, in my account".
Then I left the building, walked across the street, and got so hammered that I couldn't tell the cab driver where I lived and my wife had to talk him home over the phone. Of course I wanted to burst at the seams because I just bagged over $100,000 in a single day, but I left before anyone could find out, though I watched my buddy from the bathroom head into the CEO's office to ask if what I said was true or not and I watched from the stairs to see his reaction and it was quite a sight because he came running out looking for me but I was gone. Outta there like bat out of hell.
I've been trained to have discipline. Discipline to either NEVER listen to anyone or if I'm going to take someone else's trade, I always take full responsibility, even when they're wrong. Discipline to NEVER take someone else's trade, Discipline to stop and walk away when I'm getting pounded by the equivalent of Mike Tyson, and the Discipline to NEVER, EVER openly and publicly slander someone who has a professional reputation and the simple presentation of the slander would compel poor SA to reveal your identity and then I would let my lawyers decide what to do because I have no care in the matter at all.
But I have a strong hunch you're just a little boy in need of advice, a newbie, unaccustomed to the treacherous realities of the market, especially post 2008 when 70% of the market was evaporated. Don't take this the wrong way, I say this with the sincerity of an older brother. That was pretty dumb. I don't know how else to describe it. I actually think it was dumber than my IVAN trade (for now). That loss of liquidity felt during the '08 market shock hasn't even shown the slightest hint of recovery, and the time it takes to adjust to something of this magnitude, what's called a "Triple 7 Sigma event in 1 year", and then get chopped up, chewed up and spat out in a whipsaw algorithm crazed market where it's algo against algo and if you try to get in the way, it's like getting between two very skilled knife fighters and trying to use your bare hands to fight against both. Of course those falling knives are going to cut you to pieces. Hence, we don't intervene when the market's experienced what Schumpeter calls "Creative Destruction". We await the "creative" after the "destruction" has settled. I'm not quite sure it has. What I am pretty sure about though is that there still remains opportunities in financial markets. The problem is the long term devaluation of the US dollar. Even if you are dollar-centric, because you live in the US and your paycheck is in dollars, it's gotten to a point where opportunities in other markets of the world, compounded by the positive spread in the currency cross, compounded by the dividends earned in the host currency, compounded by a continuing slide in the USD with the occasional 3-4 month counter-trend rally because of some fiscal or monetary tactic to appease the natives for the short term, then you start to realize, in a globalized world, there's more than just the Nasdaq and NYSE, and on a micro scale, there's more than just IVAN. But there is only 1 definition for, and I really hate this word, "slander". And after 15 years of experience, my advice to you is never put yourself in a situation that exposes you like the emperor with no clothes. It's not a pretty sight, nor a fun place. And it is analogous to the markets: "Always watch for potential weaknesses in your holdings". Ones portfolio should be a constant and dynamic reshuffling of the deck with the primary eye on a global macro or 5+ Sigma event, otherwise known as the "Black Swan". That's all we have to do as traders. Watch for those "Black Swans" and not only protect ourselves from them, but also make money from them, for no matter what you hold, always have a "Black Swan" trade on. I already said, they're very cheap to put on, especially in a low volatility environment where the VIX is in the 20's. And I repeat, it's just like life insurance, but when you blow up, you get the payout, and it's smart portfolio risk dispersion.
With all that said, the final word is thus: Don't Slander anyone for a single bad trade, because the trade depends on when you bought it, not when I bought it, which means I had nothing to do with it. Secondly, who knows when the original dialogue started? You can't expect to come into the game in the 6th inning and suddenly realize you're down 7 points as if the game just started. The content you will find on Seeking Alpha, my IVAN views included, are usually valued information shared with proper intentions and honest motives. Why else would I or anyone else waste their time writing for a site that doesn't gain them any benefit at all? But the real question is, why would some moron publicly slander someone that they can deduce is significantly more resourceful than they are and then open up both flanks for a Pincer move where you don't have a fighting chance in the world. It's like that freight train running you over in a bad trade except you can't get up from this one. You're down and out, with no reserve to tap into for a come back. You have to return to being a bus boy or perhaps finishing high school.
The position you never want to find yourself in is when you're 100% wrong, regardless of how your target takes it. With all due respect, speaking in a very insulting way in a public forum about another's profession can be extremely painful to the pocket book. It's a trade you NEVER wanna take. You'll always lose, and by the time it's over, you'll be hoping for an actual bad stock trade rather than what you just put yourself through for lacking foresight and typing out of anger, guilt, stupidity, naivety or whatever.
Got it? Good. Don't do it again because I assure you, the 2nd time, the person may not be as kind as I am being this time.
Cheers,
Mwiz
Ivanhoe Energy: Rapid Fire M&A and Q4 Drilling Could Deliver Breakout News [View article]
Google's Answer to Rejected $6 Billion Buyout of Groupon [View article]
You think I care about FB or their CEO? Or their Biz plan or their whatever? The fact that they're ubiquitous gives them the name recognition and brand awareness that triggers bubbles. Then it brings in the big funds because they have to own some for the long haul. FB at $35, which is around where it will start trading as I've already picked up a block pre IPO, is a steal. Not because of their cash flow, but purely because of "Behavioral Finance" and nothing else. Who said "In the long run, we're all dead"? Rhetorical. I know who said it, but get the point. Seriously. Market's not for investing. You wanna invest, go to Africa and South America. US markets are for speculating right now. It'll be a while till the smoke settles. Until then, trade or die.