April Showers Brought May Despondence...

A little bit of perception a little bit of reality... and a whole lot of nothing... Consumer Confidence soundly beat expectations, although Chicago PMI was much weaker than expected... if this is what they call a 'strong growing' economy, than I am indeed one of the handfuls of walking dead... waiting for the sun to set... cool that I get to see my brother though... yeah, he's coming over briefly for some coffee and a bite to eat... the pain of being wasteful can be the worst pain ever sometimes... ouch... ouch... ouch... I'm so ready to just short GOOG now and sit on it... it's not easy, it's not any easy profession... it never is... just so you know that...

No Escape... France Says No to EU...

...I performed in house surgery on Hay's rotator cuff earlier in the night... she was brave and only winced a little... Curious doesn't like to watch these often grueling rehabilitation sessions, all of which are out of the pocket expenses... France negged on the EU constitution, as long as their is still a little pride and dissidence, this will prevent one trick pony behemoths that can collapse with the failure of a single component(variable trajectories) bringing down the standard of living for the entire human race(of course there are people who want to remain primitive because of the ironic sense of sophistication and elitism in being outwardly primitive but the bottom line is, the euro is going to dump against the dollar)... then again, this also ushers in communist front runners to oust Chirac... but I digress... there is no escape... I am running very low on light bulbs...

Last Supper...

I purchased to pairs of ring dings...
I have grey sweatpants on, pulled up really high...
...I have modest dreams...

Our House... in the Middle of Manhattan...

Nothing ever slows her down and a mess is not allowed... Father wears his Sunday best... father gets up late for work... mother has two early shifts... sends the kids off to school... she's the one their going to miss in lot's of ways...

Well That Sucked... GDP 3.5

Why does it suck? because I don't know how the fuck there is a growing economy... I must be making other people rich... line the pockets of fuckers at ecns... that's all I do... well, so much for the clean trading... tomorrow is a shit day and so will be the day after memorial day... fuck, wouldn't mind being a dead fuck to memorialize on monday...

Gonna short the Fuck out of Fucking Visteon (VC)

Yankees tickets 40 dollars... beer and cotton candy... 20 dollars... hotdogs and sausauge...20 dollars... hoping to die peacefully in my sleep, asap... fucking priceless...

Pissdom...

Oooh... so flipping 20000 shares of LU back and forth is just a fucking waste of commission... and NORTEL is so for faggots I hate it... freaking gonna short the hell out of Visteon VC Viet Cong bullshit... about 2.60 days left in month... I failed this month... the kids will eat ramen without pride.

FOMC MINUTES...YAWWWWNnnnnn

No photo for this post... my plan was to trade clean and robust this week, I've so far failed to execute with 3 trading days left in the week, if you can even count friday before memorial day when the bond market will close early... holy if you shorted EYET yesterday... these are dream fundamental trades... for now, I eat pizza night with the kids... FOMC revealed nothing, nothing at all, housing starts were ridiculous... I just need one or two solid speculations, and it will make up for these small scrappy days of spring...

Blanche Dubois...

...This picture was taken during a period of half-life for me, harboring on half-death... in the Met on 5th Ave... Kouros, rigid and angular of 90 degrees... In the back of the Beacon Theater on Broadway you can always hear whatever band is playing... tonight I heard Billy Idol... Billy Fucking Idol... I am now 3 quarters dead a la mode...

Rally But Not Backed By Volume...

...Google shifts into the S&P 500... I don't know what left... Dow rallies again but NYSE volume mild and tepid... I need to get some Draino... things are withering... FOMC minutes, durable goods... who cares... was waiting for a call from citigroup... never came, so there... I must rise alone...

LU approaching 3.00 Figure...

...So... 6 straight up days for Nasdaq, 4 strong days for the Dow... housing bubble is 'frothy' says Greenspan, crude oil is drooping towards the 45 level... plenty of supply according to AIP... auto part spinoffs VC and DPH strong movers... weak ISM numbers... no CPI inflation threat... 5 trading days left in Mayfair... I must be clean and aggressive... I have no choice... a handful of pikers can certainly strike with the fury of a whale...

Okay, So No Inflation... Crude Worries No More... DJIA Up 133...

...Dow has made up 300 points in the past three days... and I've lost 50% of my net for the month in the last 3 days all due to ridiculous fees and commission... Sure I made a many good trades and grossed alot of revenue, but I would have been better off taking a vacation...There are 8 trading days left in May... 2 or 3 of which will be garbage due to Memorial Day... that leaves me with 5 trading days left to place clean trades with clean fills only and make something out of nothing... then, with my small fortune, I will go and establish myself as Goblin King of the Ramble in Central Park... As you can see, the scenery is quite peaceful to the eye and soul...

Oil Drops but Stabilizes... DJIA +112...

...I should know better not to have open orders so close to the market, or trade at all when my mind and concentration were disjointed and amuck on a Monday... A slight mold developing on this month's bread after the bizarre 7 point spike within a minute's time in LU during lull hours, which is well outside the boundaries of 2 standard deviations in momentum for this sluggish beast... I will spend the next 15 hours kneading and stretching and bouncing silly puddy until I can exact an adept trading fortitude with precision and intellect, and heat up leftover roasted meats from Bleecker Street from Wok and Roll and eat them with mum and the kids for I cherish these moments most with the family...

Automatic Slims...

...Hay snuck an opportunity to try on Mum's lightening sneakers... which propels her across the street when the orange hand starts blinking... Which aids her in escaping the wrath of villains on the streets of Manhattan late at night... other than that, Corporate Raider, Carl Icahn followed in the footsteps of Kerkorian, as a billionaire parade ensues to designate the bottom of the markets... Telix(TELK) was one of those ridiculous classic market order behemoths that ripped through 400,000 shares propelling it upwards 15%, only to be so classically and adeptly faded to well past 50% Fibo retracement... It might very well prove to be a more active summer, with crude oil at a crux, China's Yuan, the dollar reversing, the 30 Yr Bond(beast) returning in triumph, Hedgefunds blowing up, Trade gap shrinking, freakishly volatile employment...

Night Descends In Eerie Heat...

View from our window at dusk...

That Time of Year... Cycle of the Beast...

...Boat Basin Cafe... amphitheater of an old boat basin turned into a seasonal bar and grill... I like the old colliseum cornerstone dry mortar brick arches... reminds me of the old Dutch Exchanges where merchants and traders would trade whale oil and brandy futures...

Dell Strong Earnings... Boring Post...

...Fairway grocery as chaotic and tense the interior is while gathering one's nutrients, actually has one of the most expedient check out lines I've ever encountered... and the fresh non-processed food is excellent... and now for the less important news of the day, no Cessna withstanding, the Dow still dropped triple digits in light of strong April Retail Sales... Crude Oil now finds resistance at 49.00 sending down oil stocks which weighed the index in turn with initial claims spiking again, disconfirming the tomfoolery of last month's NFP... spent the day churning and stumbling, only to have one of those lousy 'grossed enough to cover commission' days, a big donut for the intensity and effort... of course better than a down day... and only good for training the mind...

Four Ring Circus: Jimmy Page at NYSE, 55 Bil Trade Deficit, a Cessna threat, and Floating the Yuan...

...What are the chances of Jimmy Page playing the riff to track one on Zeppelin II to open the bell at the New York Stock Exchange, while a fucking Sessna plane flies low near the White House, with the quickest and now second nature kneejerk reflex of the markets a rapid dip down an extra 50 points in about 2 minutes, and the right back when all is clear... with China no longer bullshitting about floating the Yuan or expanding the band a bit... and a record decrease in the trade deficit to 55 billion... Of course, not even a Stairway to Heaven could help the sinking Led Balloon as Warner Music's IPO already battered, meant very little interest to the people of the world...

Temporarily Agitated...

No photo for this post... I've had some fairly robust allergies the past few days and it's felt like I have a fishbowl over my head... tomorrow we have trade balance, or shall I say, gap, number tomorrow expected back over negative 60 billion... Dow drops over 100... not surprisingly, that double impact of Kerkorkian's tender and the GM downgrade last week squeezed the hell out of some massive hedgefunds causing tremors... my throat is dry... phlegm... laying down on my right side, then left side, as drainage piles up on the underside of nasal septum...

From the High to the Low to the End of the Show...

...on the corner of Bleecker St. resides this italian restaurant whose maitre'd is Indian(Bombay), the seating areas on the left and right that protrude from the main dining area is decorated in an old manner with cheap but relaxing gaudacity, reminds me of hard candies like Braches brand gleaming in the sunlight by a window on a wooden window sill... Mum and I experienced a nostalgia eating alfredo and carbonara as we recognized an old substitute teacher from our high school days up in New England, dining here in the West Village, occasionally eyeing us with timid embarrassment at acknowledgement. Of course, all roads lead to the new Rome... Now to the less important news: As both Lucent and Nortel hit all time bottoms early this year establishing support and languishing for months in the $2-$2.25 range, serious talks of mergers to consolidate the skeleton frame of the hulking yet unproductive networking systems across the globe were touched upon in Barron's weekly, bidding up both telecoms. Every now and then both LU and NT will actually trade with momentum like the tech stocks of old... such was the case today, especially in Lucent which had an upward range of .38 cents on around 170,000,000 in volume in possible buyout rumous(which we've all heard before), however, this time backed with some strong technicals... We expect it was a bit overextended today, although still bullish with a possible retracement to 2.75.

Always Gets the Replay... Never Tilts At All...

...Went to see a Who tribute band named after their second album, Who's Next... It was fun stuff, but my ears hurt now... they even slammed the guitar to pieces at the end... the ticket cost $0.75.

274,000 New Jobs... I Must Be Damaged Goods...

It's May...it's chilly... Hay and Curious drew this card for Mum... Now, for the less important topic of the day: Nonfarm Payrolls... The jaunty propulsions and dissipations of the labor force per month remind me of a dying animal who's neurons fire off erratically with robustness, a death rattle before it expires in riggermortis and decay... 274,000 new jobs created in April across the board from forklifters to CEOs, everyone from down and out circus clowns, fire-breathers, puppeteers, sushi chefs, collateralized mortgage obligation specialists all obtained gainful employment... of course, the true sign of validity and sustainability of a strong labor market will only be given when I stop ranting about my own tightrope situation and bother brushing my teeth and changing my underwear before sauntering out of the house. The number was like the boxer that depends on that one knockout punch, disregarding the virtue of landing consistent jabs and working the body... NFP for April simply gives fuel to the Fed, nothing to the bulls(perhaps a trap), and more edge to the bears... with that said, I'd love to be wrong...

Like A Cock... GM/Ford Feel the Heat of Junk Bond Status...

Talk about giving up edge... then again, investing is not trading... the day after 87 year old billionaire Kerkorkian tender offers to buy at $31 a share to raise his stake in GM close to 9%, Standard & Poor, Fitch and Moody's finally drop the axe on the big autos' credit risk to below investment grade... sending prices back down in fear from yesterday's squeeze and a sizeable flight to 10 yr treasuries... who dares fund commercial paper when you know your SUVS aren't so hip-hoppety anymore when you're paying 3 bucks a gallon... of course, throughout all of this, my NYSE feed froze up again, leading me to trade on the barren wastelands of the ECNs...

But I Need To Buy Money Cheap... +25 Basis Points...

Well...the second hub of the Broadway 72nd street 1,9,2,3 subway station has become a pitstop for me when it's sunny after going to the gym... it's really just an 'only time will tell' scenario, how things play out... with the Fed maintaining key phrases, 'measured' and 'accomodative' with a focus on inflation that is still able to be passed off to the consumer with the multiplier effect... $100 spent to the earner, who then spends $75, who's new earner spends $56 and so on, but now, it's stopping again at the second earner... so not much action today across the board... You see, the Fed fucked up when their aggressive hikes overkilled the bubble, and did the reverse during the recession, chasing the economy... so now it's content to just use a 'moderate' pace, forgetting that we're still in the rut from the first overkill in 2000. With that said the cost of money must be relatively cheap for at least another year if we're going to get any solid wind in our sails... once again, I write to mask the pain...

ISM Weak Enough to Stop Fed Hikes?

I like to mask my my dumpy mood and inner turmoil and raw bitterness by writing about technicalities when inside I seethe to the utmost extent... as such, the Dow squeezes out a gain prior to the fed meeting, despite or perhaps in conjunction with a slow down in expansion in manufacturing per ISM report of 53.3 vs 55.0 expected(formerly known as NAPM, or napalm screams of agony in the trenches), basically a rather poor showing enough to illustrate a potential 'softpatch' that may lead to less tightening in the crotch tomorrow at 2:15 pm est. It drives me crazy when they talk of an impending 'slowdown' when I seriously by all means have felt nothing of any 'acceleration' since 2001. With that said, the Fed simply hasn't kept an eye on the price of the Mozzarepa(mozza-ripoff), which skyrocketed a crying 33% since last year... I had one at the street fair yesterday, and truthfully, there not that tasty(mozzarella and cornbread) and best to be purchased towards 6:00 pm, when the supply often builds up as spring and summer dusk approach, and is rendered useless if not sold...

And the NEW Heavyweight Champion... In a Division of Chumpions...

...well, it was as expected...a rather uneventful heavyweight title bout for the WBA at Madison Square...but in the end, reigning 'chump' John Ruiz was pathetic, pitiful, and at best desultory enough for James Toney's occasional connections of overhand and straight rights and a single knockdown to crown Toney as new champ... When going the distance, there's usually a necessity for a strongly definitive performance by the challenger to take the title, but Toney, being as venerable as he is in the sport did just enough. With that, we usher in a new month... my April gains made up for the lousy March, so I begin anew in May, where I expect flowers of triumph or flowers at my burial... We're going to the first street fair of the street fair season along Broadway...