Some companies just need to be "recycled"

Just read this headline on marketwatch.com: Tesla charges up for an IPO

Electric-car maker seeks to raise up to $100 million. This could be first U.S. auto public offering since Ford went public in 1956.

This is how it should be. The company that got it wrong and is making the equivalent to noisy stinky steam engines instead of smooth quiet electric engines bites the dust. So from the ashes of the dirty car companies rise the next generation, future ready electric car makers.

It can have been nothing but complancency and laziness or stupidity that stopped the big car manufacturers from developing electric cars much faster?! How else could a small californian company come out of nowhere to become a serious long term threat to the petrol guzzling motors....

It's like the company I was following that makes components for CRT monitors and missed the LCD and TFT wave. Not always their own fault of course. Sometimes someone else just has new technology that is better and more effective and can't be bought in the open market.

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That aside;

I'm pretty surprised that EURUSD is where it is... 1.3861 .... glad I didn't hold onto my long EURUSD! Jesus....

Off Topic Post

Going to the dentist to have my teeth bleached (with some technology called Zoom) has changed my last 48 hours. Simple reason: I have had to cut the coffee, tea, cola from my diet. Sounds innocent and easy, but when you're hooked on 2 litres of the caffeine drinks a day the brain really sends out signals that you're changing something with the chemistry up there.

I had a headache for pretty much 24 hours. With some sleep in between. But I decided to read up on effects of cutting caffeine when "addicted" to it and the symptoms included all what I was feeling. Headaches, tired, bit achey...

Anyway. 48 hours later and after a rock solid night of sleep (8-9 hours!) I feel my old self.

Surprising what technology can do with teeth. Of course I wouldn't have needed the bleaching if Coca-cola and Pepsi didn't add stuff to their addictive drinks that discolor them... ? Guess that's another story though.

RE: Trading

Have just had 4 trades this year in equities. They were small considering the account I manage for that 3rd party and thus have not really added anything to performance.

My own account is asleep at the moment.

I did have a dream tonight that money was going to be worthless and not many of us left on the planet and the only important thing would be finding clean water, food and sanitation :S

Guess that's how they feel in Haiti. Thanks to the dream I can relate better. I was getting annoyed with all the media coverage of the whole thing. It's not that I'm heartless (not really anyway :D), but you can just get sick of all the requests for help and huge media attention.

I'm sure Africa has plenty of wars and diseases that are just as bad. That quake just happened to be nested right next to the media hub known as US of A ?! Out of sight out of mind....

Illiquid Stock - Trying To Bluff

I've been playing this relatively illiquid midcap stock. 70% of float is in hands of large conglomerates that don't really trade it and there's one market maker who dominates the trading in it (algo-aided)

Anyway. I have some bids in it, right. Then lunch time, out of the blue, some joker sends a limit order to sell 5'000 into the live order book (it's traded 150 shs at this point). He/she clearly had the wrong stock, cos this one was trading in the mid 400s and the limit on the 5000 to sell was at 77 or something like that. Completely off.

The order took out 560 shares or so. 300 mine. Then the stock was stopped limit down 2%. The sell order was then retracted. At that point I was sure that it was a mistake. Someone mistyping a ticker. I immediately put limit orders in the book where I'd bought stock to protect my price.

In some cases the sell order could attract further sell orders, as a lemming effect sets in. That's why I immediately put in buy orders. To let the market maker know there's demand at those price. Also anyone with a Bloomie can see what was on offer at what price to get the stock stopped. So I was pretty confident the trader who entered the sell order would quickly cover.

But he didn't. He just put bids in around where he'd sold. So I bid the stock a bit higher. Nothing happened. Suddenly I get hit and am now holding 500 shs. Decided to take out the nearest offer and print a .8% higher price (2-3% above where seller had knocked out his shares) - holding 620 shs. That finally did it. The algo trading machines slowly started putting in bids now (alongside where I had been biding). 10-20 minutes not much happened. Then I saw larger bids coming in and started knocking out the shares I'd been dealt. The earlier mistaken seller was biding I was sure, as it wasn't the market makers usual size.

All in all just over 1k for my troubles. But interesting to "play" against a real human.

Blog-Writing Saved Me Serious Money

I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't written down my rational/reasons for being stuck in the recent long EURUSD trade I would not have received the feedback that helped sway my decision to cut the loss.

If I hadn't, my loss would now be approx. 3 times what I realized and I'd probably be out of action.

So something very good can come of communicating to others the predicament one is in. Of course it's not good for the ego to write about a position eating away equity, but I now believe it's for the best. It helps to share. Like Christmas.

Sold @ 1.47567 (-752.8 pips final)

Sold @ 1.47567 (-752.8 pips final, i.e 3 lots @ -251)

After a big loss they say one should keep out of market to avoid

revenge trading. I'll keep that in mind.

Improved prospects for the USD (says Barclays)

Thought this was interesting. I concur. Only big question is: Has this USD rally just started last Friday or am I going to get chance to offload my lots at 1.50?!

"2009 has been a perfect storm for the USD. The abatement of general global risk aversion and the relative US monetary/fiscal policy stances contributed importantly to the sharp decline of the USD. In our view, it will do better in 2010 as some of these factors become USD neutral or even positive. That said, we are not forecasting a major USD rally (which would require an aggressive Fed tightening cycle, a structural shock like the IT revolution, or a major financial crisis). What we are looking for is a limited USD rally that will play out largely during H1 10." (David Woo @ Barclays)

source: Barclays Capital Global Outlook published 10th Dec 2009.

Dead As A Dodo | - 900 pips (cumulated with recent -300)

This isn't how it was suppose to go :(

Haha ;) But it's the game. Mustn't hate the other players (for selling, when I bought).

Very good reasons to sell EURUSD were:

- Greece debt rating weighing on sentiment

- Brilliant jobless numbers in the US

- A run-up that was really impressive

- Arab concrete desert aka Dubai

Now we're at 1.47. I bought (!) at 1.50 (average).

Weird is: I can't bring myself to sell EURUSD. But I'll have to, otherwise I'll get a margin call Friday as I'm allowed 33:1 leverage over weekends but 100:1 during week.

All I have to consider now is:

- Do I sell whole lot (3 lots) and realize the loss

- Sell 1 lot so that I'm clear for the weekend

- Give up FX (!) :)

I'd love to tell myself the market overreacted to this crumby little Dubai and Greece. But then again I'm pretty sure US isn't as bad as everyone is making out.

Sentiment has changed. The stock market is fair value + 20% I reckon (based on Jeremy Grantham at GMO). The dollar could see another upmove by 4-5% by x-mas. Which would wipe me out.

Hm. I don't know. I really don't. Take what I have left and run and come back after x-mas might be smart. But I'm not very smart :D