Satuki @ Home

I receive automated calls from Telemarketers and debt collectors every day.  I told the debt collectors that they got the wrong person.  They just kept calling.  I am home 24×7.  This really annoys the heck out of me especially when I am napping.

 

I have registered on the National Do-Not-Call list. But it does not work well. That list blocks some telemarketers. But there is a long exemption list. So I was on a quest to search for something that could work like our emails.  You know something like you can set up a filter for a particular number that would go straight to your answering machine or simply just block that number.  Speaking of number blocking, a lot of phone companies have call block services. But they have limitations. I heard Verizon does not provide this service to new customers any more. For those that do have this service, they can only place 6-12 phone numbers on the block list.

 

So I started looking on Amazon for a handset that has the number blocking feature built in.  I thought it was easy. But to my surprise, none of the handsets I found on Amazon has this feature.  Then I started looking for an external device that can be connected with a handset and stop telemarketing.  Finally I found one. What I like about it is that it zaps all automated calls without ringing the bell.  Nowadays, a computer calls you first most of the time.  When you pick up the phone,  it switches to a human caller. Because of this automated nature, it is easy to terminate all the calls before it even rings the bell. The device also has a very sweet feature that can block all calls except emergency ones when I am sleeping.

 

Ever since I have installed this little thing a week ago,  my phone has become much quieter.  My only gripe is that it cost me 70 dollars. I might be missing something here. But how hard could it be to write a few lines of code in a handset that could block unwanted callers?

 

As for my trading, I am on a month long vacation.  But I have been working occasionally  on some automated trading algorithms with my husband, which is basically all his idea.   He is a programmer, who likes to automate everything.  We are almost done with back-testing, which is fairly rigorous and extensive.  In a week or 2, he will start trading small positions with it. I will see how it goes in real life trading.  If it is good, I will post his results. Although, he will not reveal his algorithms, we can still take a look at his results for entertainment or  just a laugh, LOL….

The market experienced some dramatic plunges last week.  The worst was the Dow’s intra day drop of 1000 points on 5/6/2010.   I did not trade that day.  But my TradeStation was open and I saw it.  Initially, I thought it was a technical error from TradeStation.  I immediately opened Interactive Brokers and Yahoo Finance.  They all showed the same thing.  While I was scratching my head, it pulled right back up in just a few minutes.  

 

Now we know that it was caused by some glitches in the Exchanges’ electronic networks. On top of that, I believe machine trading contributed to it too.  However, the market still lost 300+ points on Thursday, which has never happened since March 2009. What made it worse is that the market continued to drop on Friday(5/7/2010)

 

Before the crash, the market was in an extended overbought state.  But Dow standing around 11000 does not necessarily mean it was overbought. Then what made it “overbought”?  I think it was the continuous rally from 6000 in March 2009 to 11000 now.  That rally had very few meaningful corrections.  This is not good for the overall health of the market.  The market needs constant corrections to inch higher in a healthy way.  Let’s use 2 stocks as an example. One stock shoots up like a rocket. One moves forward 3 inches and then backward 1 inch.  Which one do you think has more stamina provided the fundamentals are exactly the same?

 

The first stock will crash when it runs out of steam simply because there are many profitable people. Because people have massive profits on paper,they will sell it @ any price when they look for an exit, which will cause a big crash.

 

The second stock is a lot more stable than the first one. It moves a bit and takes a rest(consolidation or a small correction) during which it can shake off those who are not determined to tag along.  This process is very important for a stock to continuously move higher without much resistance from the profitable sellers.

 

It is the same with the general market.  A lot of funds(big money)have made massive profits on paper during this rally. They were just waiting for some kind of signals to unwind some of their large profitable positions. The euro zone crisis and the oil contamination were just triggers.

 

Personally, I do not think this is the start of a prolonged bear market like we had in 2008 and 2009.  The overall fundamentals just do not support it.  However, we might face a mid term correction here since this drop is big.  We will perhaps see a few violent fluctuations in the next 1-2 weeks.  If it bounces higher, It is a good opportunity to unwind some of your long positions.  The worst at this stage is being fully loaded with net long positions.  Remember you should always close your weakest positions first. Never average down.

 

Safe Trading