Ryan The Rapper

I like to trade my portfolio,
Buying mutual funds, stocks and IPO’s.
I read the Wall Street Journal every day,
looking for the winning stocks to trade.
CNBC is the only show for me,
I like watching Jim Kramer on Mad Money.
More buyers than the sellers makes the markets rise,
never short the uptrend, it wouldn’t be wise.
Baby step positions are the way to trade,
always cut your losses if the bid starts to fade.
So when you see the futures dropping as the market opens,
Remember Baby Ryan, cause he’s the one whose shorting.
Word to your mommy!

The short of Google has yet to be initiated.We are stilling on the offer at $405 awaiting our turn. The market is still in a churn mode and I anticipate an overall down trend to continue on by midweek.Please share the blog with just one person. It will make a difference :)

Staying Alive

Wow. This can't be healthy for the market. I have been watching the major indices swinging around from positive and negative territory like a vicious tug of war between bulls & bears for the past two weeks. I am trying to “stay alive” right now by staying in cash until a true entry point develops. The moves today from -400 to + 400 is completely noise on the charts so it is just not worth trading at this point.

So I did a google on the word “Google” and I got a gaggle of trading goodies for goodness sake. I got “Excited” and yelled, “Yahoo” to celebrate my new short trading idea. I really “Lycos” this trade.

 Google posted better than expected earnings. Keep in mind that the street already lowered their forecasts so it made it easier for Google to beat the street. The stock is trading up about $35 in the afterhour’s market. The chart clearly shows it has been in downward pattern for many months. I am going to test my concept that a bear market is unbiased to its victims regardless of earnings and fundamentals. I do not need an analyst to tell me that next quarter more companies will spend less money on advertising. It is a no brainer so I am going to take advantage of the markup on GOOG and I will short 5 shares of GOOG at the open with a Sell Short limit of 405. We will also place the GTC buy to cover order simultaneously with a 350 Bid. Our stop will be set for 445. We will await our gain /loss in the next 3-5 trading days. 

 
Who in their right mind would short such a beast? Baby Trader, that's who. This is a lesson of being non committal to any company in the market place. Look at the chart above and notice  the nice rally today closed right at the 5 day moving average. This was a mild relief / oversold rally today.   The 5 day moving average  now begins to factor in lower closing points it will force the moving average to push lower and make the market fall some more.  

Bears & Bears & Bears Oh My....

Sorry I have not posted in the past two days. I had a busy schedule which included a day at Mommy & Me class where we held a round table discussion about the theory of relatively and its impact on global warming in the Ozarks. It was very boring and I could not wait to get out of the place.

I would like to thank everyone for helping Ryan Thomas Baby Trader break the 10,000 hit barrier today in exactly 30 days. At least something is going up these days. It seem like just yesterday when Lehman folded and my parents thought it would be cute to manipulate me into an alphabet block shuffling icon on Blogger. I have been extremely accurate on the entire market direction over the past few weeks which are documented throughout my blog. I would like to thank www.investingdad.com for doing a video commentary about this website. He took the time to do a conversion of how I would have done with the exact same trade but in options. Please check it out his site.

So I am sitting in cash right now waiting for the market to come back and test the lows from last week which is 7800. I actually believe 8000 was the original level that I was targeting, however due to the sudden rise in the VIX (69.5) and the incredible rally (+938) and sell off (-733) in two trading days, we will continue to sit on the sidelines and wait for our entry point. I am very bearish right here and have no reason to doubt this call. 

Do not ever put all your money into calling a bottom on the market. It would be like buying insurance on the Titanic from someone on the Titanic. It will never work. I introduce to you the concept of baby steps. Buy 1/4 of your positions if the INDU hits 8000. Then buy another 1/4 position if the INDU drops to 7500 and if we drop to 7000 you buy another 1/4 position and you are done. Keep 1/4 available for unforeseen issues. 

Here is the link to the video if the above link is not working

Baby Trader on investingdad.com website

Vote For the Sucic Family !

A call for all the Baby Trader readers to do a favor. My cousins are finalists to win a road trip with their 2 beautiful children. The youngest child has Down Syndrome which does not stop them from living a wonderful life. If they can win a free vacation, that would definitely help them relax. A simple vote is all I ask of you. Click this link to make the 1-2-3 vote.

www.parentingextras.com/familyroadtrip/sweeps_vote.php

and choose the Sucic family on the bottom right. Simply type in your email and click enter. It is that easy. If you have to sell candy for your kids school or something of this nature, I owe you the favor back and count me in for a box or two. Ryan loves those Girl Scout Samoas. A good deed always gets paid forward.

The Rally caused by the Sheep!

Well the target was 9300 and we got there in 1 trading day. That is not normal, but I shall take it. The sheep were running wild today buying up everything. Nothing has change. The market is still sick. I have moved back into cash for the near future. I expect nothing but lower highs and lower lows for the next 2 weeks until lwe have a complete retest down to 8000. Yes 8000. So I thank the sheep today for getting me out at a decent profit.

Starting balance was $2,500.Balance after today is $3,444.50

Here are all the trades that were closed out today.

A little bit of luck?

 10-13-08 4pm QUICK UPDATE :

MARKET IS UP A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT AND  I WILL BE SELLING EVERYTHING AT THE CLOSE.

We hit the target in one day 9387. A great baby trader call indeed. Moved into cash at the close. A monster trad percentage wise.

It was almost like winning the NYS Lottery. I guess I had my buddy, A Little bit of Luck on my side. I thought the entire prediction from Tuesday was quite accurate.I shall let the judge decide if the play was good. Anyways, I bought in using margin and established 8 positions based on dollar cost averages of $500 per symbol. Normally I would suggest 1/3 positions going in, but I am using money that I can afford to lose. When the market opened I executed market orders across the board and did not worry about timing the bottom. Here are the entry points. Notice the volume on the QQQQ. It was 2.5 times the daily which is a great indicator for a short term bottom.

Here is where all the stocks closed on Friday night 10-10-08

Every position is in the money, and I am in these trades for a rebound to approx 9300 on the INDU. The reason for this number is simple. Every time the INDU has had a massive collapse or capitulation such as on Friday, it pulls off a rally of approx 18% from the low point. The low was 7882, 18% of this is 1418 which brings the sum to 9300. Not need to over think this play. Just buy and hold. Yes the market can go lower, yes more negative news can affect the conditions. These are the risks of the market. 

Here are the other risks that will cost you. Never take advice from the flock. The flock loves AAPL, RIMM, and GOOG. They think these are godly stocks. They are the ones that will KO you every time. These are the people that end up going to share holder meetings in order to have their free therapy as they watch the stocks fall out of bed to levels they can't understand.

Never buy a stock that shows up on your radar due to volume increase, hot news, or an analyst upgrade. You must find 3-4 sectors that you have a passion about. I follow semi chips, video cards, video game makers and box makers. These are the only sectors I trade period. If you watch your basket of sectors every day you will be rewarded. These stocks become your children. You know when they are happy due to volume spikes in the 1st hour or trading, you know when they are sick immediately. You can simply look at them and you just know, almost innate. So you have the upper hand on the risk reward just based upon this aspect. When your stock becomes a hot stock due to new or earnings, all the sheep that see it pop up on the most active list and the news wires are about to step onto your playing field. Now you have home field advantage. That is how baby trader plays the game. This is the biggest game of mind chess in the world. Never go for the homerun and  never go off your home court, The best players in baseball get into the hall of fame for 2 reasons, base hits and averages,  rarely homeruns. If they are hitting homeruns, then they are using steroids.

So while I am not bullish on the market, I would like to see this dead cat bounce rally up to the 9300 on the INDU. Then I will move back to the sidelines and await the signals from the flock on how to play the next inning. Please share the blog with someone. I takes 5 seconds to leave a comment. These posting take me away from time with my daddy. A comment or feedback is critical if I am to continue forward with this blog. Thanks for reading and remember Sheep are very bad.

Pocket Full of Kryptonite

Well, if you read my last post from Tuesday called, "Help save the animals", you can see I was pretty accurate on the 8500 range by this Friday. No market crash is exactly the same as history has proven. Tomorrow Baby Ryan will be going long in his trading account in the form of the common stocks listed below. I expect the market of open down approx 200-250 points  and will become a buy once the INDU is down 300 points off the open. After the forced liquidations get absorb you will see the infamous CAPITULATION take place. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to buy in at a discount better than you can find at the Christmas Tree Shoppe or Kmart. Simply buy your position, shut down your computer and enjoy the weekend.

The Vix is at 65 and moral is at zero. These are the indicators that make this market a nibble right now. Now what sectors do you buy for the future. You buy Semiconductors and Storage Management companies. Look at this list and notice that some of them are up during this massive selloff and the rest are mildly down. 


A smart play is to buy all 8 of these for 1/3 of your normal position. You now have you own mini mutual fund without all the extra lagging stocks. Regardless of how long the market takes to regain its footing, technology and storage will continue to advance. It falls under the topic of, "Who moved my cheese?" This basically states that if you sit dormant and complacent you will miss the boat. Adapt now and bitch later. You can apply this to anything in life. The new lifecycle of the market is about to begin so just get in small. I can imagine how many people sat and watched their money disappear the past month and actually have started liquidating this week. These are the sheep and sadly, sheep are abundant. Never follow the flock for they are the greatest inverse indicator within the stock market. The market always trades on emotions rather than earnings and technicals when it is overbought and over sold. 

Positions of all 8 will be acquired in lots of $500 per symbol. The final prices will be updated tomorrow night. I plan to sit in these for at least 2 weeks to maximize their discount. Please share this blog with a friend. My daddy lets me stay up late to share my views and since I can't walk he has to wait till I finish my blog to carry me into my crib. So for a reward of my time, please share the blog or just leave a quick comment below. See you on the field when the bell rings at 9:30am.

Help Save the Animals

Ryan is thinking the stock market must have had some bad Chinese food or something. It's puking all over the place....... 

When the 4 PM bell rang on Wall Street you would have though that the Dow Jones (INDU) announced a 2-1 stock split. It was that bad. Another 500 point erased on top of the 4500 points that have vanished in the past 10 months.  This is an unprecedented market that will play out in a way our economy has never seen. I met this raccoon living in a cardboard box on the grates of Grand Central Station. He told me he has a subprime mortgage that blew him out of his home. This is nothing to joke about since the biggest losers will be our parents who have been screwed out of their retirement accounts and will probably have to work longer then they have expected.

If anyone tries to call the bottom on this market they are playing the guessing game. With that said, I am a child and I love games. So I am going to guess that the market drops to 8500 on an interday fall by this Friday. I blew out of my QQQQ's for a 4 point lost -($200). Cash is king right now. Please share my website with your friends. Thanks, Ryan :)

Photo of raccoon is from www.icanhascheezburger.com Please visit their fantastic site

Avenue QQQQ

My daddy is an ass! Go buy an index, it's the best type of trade when the market is in a major downtrend. The QQQQ's were in my face by 5 sticks at one point today. They rallied back in pity and are only 3 1/4 away from cost. I feel like the market is driving the wrong way  into traffic on Aveneue Q .

While my buddy Warren Buffet is investing in the market and robbing the markets everyone is losing their shirts. Warren is trying to make some coin by buying in under his terms and screwing the shareholders. He is already down sharply on his investment, but he can at least sit on it indefinitely. This is an unprecedented marketplace that is going to take a long time to rebound.

All because of 3 letters CDS (credit default swaps)

Here is the definition of a CDS

A credit default swap (CDS) is a credit derivative contract between two counterparties, whereby the "buyer" pays periodic payments to the "seller" in exchange for the right to a payoff if there is a default or credit event in respect of a third party or "reference entity".

In the event of default in the reference entity:
The buyer typically delivers the defaulted asset to the seller for a payment of the par value. This is known as "physical settlement".
Or the seller pays the buyer the difference between the par value and the market price of a specified debt obligation. This is known as "cash settlement".

By calling the product a SWAP instead of INSURANCE, the SEC does not having the authority to regulate the product. So while the SEC is chasing down some boiler room stockbroker who is looting grandma's life savings, the big boys are looting America and leaving us to hold the bag.

I am going to ask my daddy to search for monsters under my bed before I go to sleep tonight. It was that scary today. I am hoping for a market rally, but the INDU at 9000 is a stone’s throw away.

The Little Guy

Sometimes I wonder if the market is truly accessible to the little guy.

I was in a gang years ago when gangs didn't carry guns, they carried lollipops. Lollipops are great for teething babies. That's me on the right.

The bailout has been finalized and each and every American will pay around $3,000 of our taxes to subsidize the $700 billion price tag to keep our economy afloat. Baby trader believes that each publicly listed company should have to pay a nominal amount to help contribute to this bailout. These companies can afford to make a contribution and get a tax write-off at the same time. 

Wachovia Bank with all their financial problems lingering still managed to make some nifty donations such as this check to the University of Maryland to the sum of $150,000. As we know most universities have coffers bigger than 3rd world countries and they actually invest these gifts into the stock market for bigger returns. Just for comparison this amount is equivalent to 5,000 overdrafts @ $30 per check. Banks should have more common sense with respect to honoring the shareholder's value agreement. 

Increasing shareholder value should be the first mission of all companies. I only mention all of this because I am irate that the Wachovia-Citibank marriage is already a thing of the past. Wachovia now plans to unite with Wells Fargo Bank at an 80% premium compared to the Citibank deal. So now you get $6.00 instead of $2.00. Big Deal. Why couldn't the CEO of Wachovia figure out a simpler way to create shareholder value instead of allowing this company pummel to the single digits. 

If you want to know more about the lollipop kids and what we have been up to since the Wizard of Oz please click on this link below. It is all about the little guy aka Munchkins. It is hilarious!

Click Here for Ryan's Favorite Video

Gophers and Golfers

This is a list of some very high ranking portfolio managers, CEO's and directors who work on Wall Street and have very low handicaps on the golf course. Amazingly 1/3 of these companies have since fallen from grace in the form of bankruptcy, mergers or take under. 

If you have the time to play golf where your handicap is this low you should not be managing any money. How can these money managers fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities to investors when they are playing golf during market hours?  

Here is a quote from #29 on this list of golfers.
Many were reluctant to discuss their devotion to the game. "Wall Street is paranoid about golf," says Stephen Worth, a five-time club champion at The Creek Club in Locust Valley, N.Y., and a managing director at the investment firm Evercore Partners. "I think it's because our customers expect us to be available 24/7, and you can't play golf with a cell phone or BlackBerry."

Uh.. shouldn't the people that you trust to manage your life savings be reachable during market hours? Is this too much to ask? What do they have a Blackberry for, to make their tee times? Obviously many people have been duped into mortgages and loans that they were never capable of managing, however; as a consumer & investor it is imperative to do your own due diligence on the people that you blindly trust to control your money.

Still long 50 shares of QQQQ @ $38.00. The market was down sharply, yet financials  held strong and UBS  and regional banks were actually up. Crude dropped to $93 which is now $54 from the highs 3 months ago. A bottom is trying to form in the market. Baby trader's instinct says a quick test and dip under 9,800 on the Dow should be a solid entry point for buy and hold.

It's Just a Flesh Wound

You can come out from under your desks now. The market is closed for the day. Today was inevitable and we all know that. I bought to cover 30 shares of CALM at $24.25. I laid them out at $40.41 last week as the trade blotter shows. A net profit of $484.80 and the account is now worth $2,984.80.
How often can you get to watch the markets freefall in your lifetime? Today is one of those days and it is not fun to see. The VIX ran up to 50 which is totally insane and makes the smart money want to go long the market. Here is how the VIX works.

The common interpretation of VIX movements is that the VIX will rise when fear or uncertainty does, since there will be a greater demand for put options. Conversely, when the market is rising, that typically creates complacency on the part of traders and the VIX will fall as the demand for put options decreases.

FEAR=RISING VIX=FLOCK OF SHEEP BAILING OUT=BABY TRADER BUYS

I bought 50 shares of QQQQ @ $38 near the close today based strictly on the VIX being severely extended.

Rather than watching the market drop in chunks over the next few weeks, it cleansed itself in one big freefall which is the better scenario to the road to recovery. If the short sale rule was not in effect this capitulation would have happened last week. I think I might buy stock in Kimberly Clark (KMB), the distributor of Huggies Diapers since I used about 12 diapers today. 

Please remember to share my blog with just 1 person who would enjoy reading my musings.

The Wall Street Kid

I now have a video game created about me call The Wall Street Kid. The mission of this game is to go around and put seed money into commercial banks that are about to get shorted to extinction. In exchange for saving these banks you are rewarded with warrants, options, and preferred stock at deep discounts. In the end you reap millions of dollars in profit because your cost basis is basically nothing while saturating the total outstanding shares by 10%. The more you saturate the shareholder's value you are rewarded with larger yearly bonuses.

The government has announced the $700 billion bailout details. Here is one actual piece of action that will be incorporated into the bill.

The government would receive stock warrants in return for the bailout relief, giving taxpayers a chance to share in recipients' future profit.

Now I may be young, but I am far from stupid. If you are issuing stock warrants (which tend to be deeply discounted), to the government to provide a bailout program to those banks that choose to participate you are essentially diluting the overall value of the shareholder's equity. So if and when these struggling banks begin to turn profitable one day, the government will be sitting on the sidelines and slowly selling stock back to the open market to the tune of $700 billion dollars. 

A better solution would be delivering immediate relief to the taxpayers who were hurt by these large banking failures. Perhaps raising the the amount of money you can put into an IRA or a 401k plan to $10,000 and $25,000 respectivly. Also, raising  the yearly limits on capital losses from $3,000 to $25,000 per year. These are very simple tweaks that will allow the honest shareholders immediate relief in their pockets. 

Baby trader is furious that this is going to affect his future and you should too. Please free feel to leave a comment beneath this article. I am curious as to what my readers think about this. Also, share my blog with those who would find this blog of interest. I really would like to meet Jim Kramer in person one day.

Ryan :)

Wheel Of Disaster

I would have bought more letters to solve this puzzle,
but my assets at Wamu are now frozen.

Darwinism is running through the stock market. Chase gobbled up Wamu for next to nothing and Wachovia will obviously be the next to succumb to the pressure. Wamu currently pays 4% on a savings account. I guarantee that rate be lowered to 1% very soon.

Here are some of new promotions to get the masses back into the banks.

Chase will be offering 100 free shares of Wamu to all new depositors who sign up by the end of the year. Wamu closed at 16 cents the other day.

Goldman Sachs fires up the grills and serves burgers, dogs and lemonade to its customers, their families and friends. They realize people can't even afford to eat.

A Bank of America sweepstakes gives people a chance to win one of three gas guzzling Chevy Trailblazers. The fine print on this one is that gas is not included.

Wachovia is attempting to go with the more popular toaster giveaway. They feel the need to return to the grassroots approach as a way to bring back the people.

Sometimes the obvious just stares right out at you. Now that elite members of Congress have hammered out the bailout of our country your fellow Americans will be footing the bill. While I 100% disagree with this bailout, it must be done. These great minds came up with a figure of $700 billion dollars within 1 week. In my one year watching the market and watching analysts predict quarterly earnings estimates for some of the biggest companies like IBM, Microsoft, and Intel, they were never right. Now the government came up with the perfect dollar amount in one week. It will probably be double this number when all is said and done.

Hopefully, some good will come out of all this stupidity. We as babies and future taxpayers, need to be more proactive and less reactive when it comes to reporting the abuses, loopholes, and greed that is at the root of all these problems. Knowing that my daddy will be affected by this, it would be nice for him to be able to tell me how great our country is from an economical standpoint.

Wamu National State Park is Officially Open

Wamu is gone. A very famous icon had his mortgage with Wamu. Aol running man who banked millions of $$$ during the internet boom has officially gone bust. Although he had the looks, Aolman lacked the market sense to make solid investments. Aolman wanted all his logo friends to suffer as he did. He shorted Priceline (PCLN) and Yahoo(YHOO) and was crushed on these plays 5 years ago. He thought all internet plays were easy shorts but was completely wrong. Aolman became a night time infomercial junkie and bought books on how to flip houses and properties with no money down. This backfired too and his investment turned into long-term holds and now he lives on the trailer park property with his 4 children. Aolman took his salary in the form of options. His personal bank account went down even more after the Time Warner (TWX) merger with AOL that was not well liked on the street. Eventually his wife left him for someone else who is hiding in the picture.

Investors forget that there are three type of trading positions in the marketplace.

Long , Short, or on the Sidelines. 

Baby trader is on the sidelines except for the short CALM position. The market will be around forever.

Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

I haven’t posted in two days because I was arrested for shorting Goldman Sachs (GS)

Through a carefully calculated raid in the wee hours of Monday morning they broke down the door to our house. Suddenly, in one foul swoop they grabbed me from my crib and cuffed me. I was dead asleep dreaming about the terrific short I laid out at $135.42 and was getting ready to cover with a $115 bid GTC. I had 20 handles on 10 shares ($200 profit) which would have been a 5 week supply of organic milk.  

I was absolutely humiliated. This was far more embarrassing then pooping in my pants. This was uncalled for. They even arrested my cat Trevor because they deemed him dangerous because he was not declawed. They made me sleep in the same cell with a person named Bernie Ebbers. He was ranting something to the tune of, "I am the king of the Worldcom". Anyways, my trading record is as follows.

I was short GS but they cancelled the trade  due to the naked short.

Still short 30 shares CALM @ 40.41

Here is the summons that was issued to me for numerous violations. Too bad Johnny Cochran isn't around anymore. I would have been easily acquitted.

"If the baby can't talk, then he must walk."

My Day in Times Square

It was an unprecedented week in the market not seen since The Great Depression. Lehman gone. Bear gone. AIG had 2 arms and 1 leg cut off. Fannie and Freddie are in wheelchairs. I could not resist driving by the Lehman Brother’s building in Times Square on the way home Friday. As I looked out my rear view mirror I was just amazed at how desolate the Lehman headquarters was. There were no newspaper vendors or hotdogs carts around peddling their wares. Even the media had moved on to the next news headline. Only one person stood in front of the building. The Naked Cowboy, he obviously is still in denial. I bet his income from strumming his guitar has dropped 90%. He might be the first true casualty of the trickledown effect from the Lehman bankruptcy. For a man who already lost his shirt to make an income, he might have to put it back on and get a normal job. It was a sad day indeed. Very sad.

Still Short GS and CALM going into Monday.

Sell Mortimer Sell

I was in the options pit today waiting for the moment of sheer panic to hit the markets. I even wore my favorite bib because I have a bad habit of drooling when thinking about all the shorts that were in the money. I began to cover slowly after seeing the VIX run up to an insane 42. Suddenly, the sheep arrive and munch on the offer. There were bids everywhere, 1/8 for 10k, 1/2 for 50k, even pikers yelling out 1/16th for odd lots. It was unreal. The flock of sheep took a 300 point downturn into a 400 point gain within the hour. I raised my hands high and laughed to myself. I have followed Bill Fleckenstein on CNBC and completely agree with his seller mentality.

While people think this was a capitulation, baby trader's like me know that this is simply another fantastic opportunity to lay out some short positions. 

Now to the plays


Sell Short 10 share GS @135.42

Sell Short 30 shares CALM @40.41


PS: I brought my pet ostrich to work today to keep the flock of sheep away from me.

Try to find him.

My Loan From Wamu

With all the turmoil about mortgages going under due to poor qualifications of applicants I decided to investigate this in person. I crawled into my local Wamu branch the other day. I attempted to cover my youthful looks by wearing a pair of Sarah Palin glasses that I borrowed from my Mommy. The loan officer whose name was Frank  welcomed me into the Wamu family. He never once challenged my age. He explained the various types of loan I can qualify for. ARMS, HELOC's, Fixed, 15 or 30 years. I was excited knowing I was so close to having a house at such a young age. I was so close until he ask me for my driver's license to attach to the loan application. I was somewhat nervous but handed it him anyways. He came back within 15 minutes and I was approved. We then took this fantastic group photo of myself with Frank and Barry. I went home, logged into my Ameritrade account and shorted another 500 shares Wamu (WM).

Below is a copy of my driver's license that help me become a first time homeowner.

Ryan's Trip to the Central Park Zoo

My boy loves to short stocks. Not to Brag, but my boy is good. Real good. We took him to the zoo to celebrate his 1st birthday last week  on  9/8/08 and while inside the petting zoo  visiting with the house Alpaca he had another short play epithany.

He swirled the wooden box letters for 15 seconds and there it was. We as parents failed that day. Ryan was trying to tell us something. He can't speak yet, but his actions were telling us something. Another monster short in the form of AIG. 

Unfortunately, we only transferred the photo from the digital camera tonight so we completely missed this stellar play. Sorry son :(

By the way, he is the house Alpaca. We call him Larry. Most people confuse him with a llama, but he is indeed an Alpaca. 

Alan and Me

Every CEO is finally admitting that they had tremendous losses due to poor risk management. I was asked by my pal Alan Greenspan to join him on the Hill for official hearings on how to handle this debacle. This reminded me of the hearing for all the hyped up stocks back in the 1999, where no one took responsibility for their actions. Companies like KTEL records simply added a ".com" to their name the stock rally from $1 to $59 in less than 2 weeks. I remember when Qualcomm(QCOM) and Broadcast(BRCD) rallied over $100 each in a single day. 

My favorite is this quote by Henry Blodget of Merrill Lynch fame.

"AOL is the most stable investment opportunity in a sector that is anything but," 

I thought he was dead wrong on this call. But who is going to listen to a baby over a 5 star analyst leading the Thundering Herd? AOL was a screaming short. AOL was an organized environment of web browsing, email, games and reading. I thought that people should just surf the web on their own. Why did we need to pay someone to take you to the internet?  Unfortunately, I let some three year old talk me out of it saying that it was way too risky to short given the current irrational exuberance running through the stock market at the time.

I made my first $1 this week

I went home short Lehman (LEH)  over the weekend anticipating that a bailout merger was not going to happen. Too much risk even with the firesale. 

I am awaiting the earnings of Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanely (MS) due out Weds. If these are bad I will stay my shorts and await the capitulation for the complete short cover. 

The Early Days.

My initial investment of my christening money was used to fund my 1st computer, Blackberry, and workspace.