OJ update 4/30/18

OJ is climbing higher today, breaking past resistance with ease it seems. Up around $2k in my simulated trade.

I got up at 6:15 Saturday and Sunday no problem. I ate pizza and drank this weekend, but I'm okay with that. Back on track today with better diet. I spent many hours over the weekend studying while stretching, and today I can put my head down onto my knees with almost no effort. Pretty cool. Took a few trades this morning, but nothing really panned out majorly. $LRGR totally tanked like I thought it would. I don't remember who I told to watch for it happening, but it did haha! Crashed down to $.60 and rose back up to $2.00 pretty quick. Amazing, but very risky as it's super illiquid right now, and of course in danger of being halted.

Sugar popped this morning and so far rejected pretty strongly, so we'll see if that means further downside with the main trend or not. I spent hours this weekend discussing Futures and Equities trading with a couple of my neighbors, so that was fun. Talk to ya later.

Noteworthy News

It is only a few days after my last post and I have some details to share. A milestone of sorts, and some other things I just find interesting.

First of all, I have officially made my first ever trade in the futures markets! I am long 1 contract of sugar 12.73 cents per pound. The reason I took the trade is because I am well aware that I missed out on the OJ trade. My intuition, in spite of my price point plan, had told me that it was going to bounce and I did not take the trade. at worst I would have been wrong a likely had to hold for a dip while prices came down and I added another contract. It took off after it hit $1.35 and this friday closed at $1.53.


I have also been watching sugar because it has been trending down for a long time, and it had just recently bounced and closed green on the day. I had decided that this time I would listen to my intuition, and if I was wrong, who cares because it's not going to zero. I did have an alert set in case it hit 10.3 cents per pound, but I just decided to take the trade. It's probably not the bottom, but it is nice that I ended the day up $288 from when I got in :)

On a different note, I have really been killing it in my paper trading. I want to be patient and calm, because I am not yet emotionally involved in the same way I would be with real money. So while I am seeing progress and feeling great about my potential, it is still a long long journey of proving it to myself. Here is my most recent graph:

I was able to add so much gain recently, mainly because I took advantage of the Crypto market bouncing, and a Pump I have been watching for the last 2 weeks finally crashed. $LRGR has been gaining every day, as a pumped up stock does. Every day I have been raising my price alert, so that when it cracks I am alerted and can watch the stock. Well, Friday morning $LRGR spiked up to $7.20 and then hit my alert, probably because a negative Press Release came out about the stock that it was fraudulent and probably deserved to be suspended by the SEC. When news like that comes out, it's basically over for promoters, and thusly the stock.

Long story short, I bought the first dip and made a little, then shorted it, made a ton, and bought the bounce for more. It felt really rewarding to be watching and waiting for so long and then trade it profitably. The only difference, is that in real life I would not have had shares to short the thing at the time I placed the trade, and possibly not at all. If I had found shares, I would have had to box the trade (hedge in another account long) until it was time to execute the short position.

Anyhow, things feel up, but that's the cycle of life. Will report later if I feel like there's something worth reporting.

OJ, and my performance as a human.

Just wanted to post this chart of OJ's action lately. Definitely been moving, which is nice, although it is down this morning. Was up from $1.35 a total of $1,950 per contract. that would be a nice little gain had I got it. I really need to work on remembering that I can make this work if I am just patient enough.

On the crypto front, Bitcoin has bounced off the lows of $6,000 and was just under $10k last night. On the rise it carried the Alt coins up with it a little, so that's nice. I don't think I will be playing the sector at this point, because I want to stay focused on waiting for OJ, to have that available when the time is right.

There have been lots of stocks moving lately. I have been paper trading the Bitcoin stocks and will probably sell out today.

I have a lot of things I would like to express about my life lately, but may not execute with very much detail because I have to watch the market this morning. Basically, I have been waking up at 6:15 AM every morning regardless of what time I went to bed. The way I figure it is, I need to get the subconscious action stuck in my head to wake up when the alarm goes off, and that if after my coffee I am still tired, I can try to get some rest later.

I have been coming to the market after making watchlists the previous day, and I have been studying video lessons and watching DVD's. Most importantly, I have been listening to motivational videos on YouTube as I am looking at the premarket movers for the morning. It's been interesting to see this side of me, for what honestly feels like the most consistent push of effort with trading for the first time in my life. I used to dread trading, and resist any thought of preparing. But now, I have watched myself, my attitude, change massively. I actually have seen the hunger to get to the market and do the work. I am really grateful for that. my performance has been there lately. I have a chart to prove it, even though some of that chart has been created with poor trading.

I just wanted to report. I am trying to be very level headed about everything, because while I am seeing improvement, I do not want to rest on this accomplishment. I have so, so far to go. But I am becoming more and more dedicated to making this work no matter what happens. This is worth my life and one way or another I am going to grind out a place in this world for my personal freedom.

Whew...

Ok, so I got my money back from Profitly. That's a relief.

So aside from that, some things to report.

I am strangely both happy and feeling some remorse that OJ is going up without me. I enjoy seeing the numbers in the simulated account, but of course would like that to be real.

The last few days, my wife has been pretty down and we are experiencing some disconnection at the moment. In part because she is having difficulty with her schedule and lack of progress/motivation. I have been a little more on the ball, waking up consistently in the morning and leaving the room to trade. There has been an obvious disconnect, and we have been sort of arguing a little bit. I have been trying to help and offer suggestions about her circumstances, but it has been made clear that she does not like to hear these things from me, and associates them very negatively.

It was explained as such: Because she sees how hard I am on my self, and in her eyes, I hate myself, she equates that as how I feel about her. I tried to make it very clear that I don't hate myself. I can be extremely disappointed with my performance and lack of consistency, without hating myself, and that I definitely do not hate her.

My last relationship had this same issue, in that she made it clear that when she was expressing problems, it was for me to listen only and not try to offer solutions. That is basically where we have arrived at the moment in this relationship as well. I get it, people want to learn on their own and ultimately you gotta do what you feel is right.

I am currently trying to condition myself to listen-listen-listen, without giving any input whatsoever if it is a problem, unless specifically asked. I'm sure I can do it, it will just take a conscious effort.

Some shitty feelings....

FUCK!!!

I woke up like a good little boy this morning to fucking trade stocks, and I see that my Card has been charged ANOTHER $907 for another year of Pennystocking Silver...

I called Bank services to put in a dispute and I emailed the website, but I don't know if either of those will work. Here's hoping.

Now it's time to get to the market.

Some brighter feelings than usual

I have been watching Orange Juice for a bit now as you know. While I do regret to say that I never took the opportunity to buy it when it came down to support at $1.35, I can say that I have been growing in conviction even more that my future lies heavily in commodity investing. Here's the main theory behind that, and if I've already written this before, please forgive me but just talking about it makes me feel better.

People love the idea of investing in real estate because it's real, holds value and over time is likely to increase in value. As nice as it is in theory to hold something that will rise in value over time, there are several barriers to entry and difficulties with real estate. When you finance a home, you are now obligated to pay a mortgage until it is either offset by rental income, or the house sells in the future, hopefully for a profit. You have to also pay yearly taxes and insurance on the house, along with maintenance and management, but in the end, you may sell that property at a significant profit with enough time and the right market conditions. It is easily a multi year process for many.

What if you could buy a pristine house for 50% off it's historical price, never have to actually pay a mortgage, insurance, or upkeep payment on it? What if you knew for a fact that in a matter of months or weeks you could sell it immediately for a 10-40% profit, or even more in a period of months? What if you didn't even have to purchase the home outright, but only had to prove to the bank that a portion of the money for the house was in your account? Well, with commodities you can do just that. It sounds too damn good to be true, that you could make such a high percent of return with so little cost, doesn't it?

I have spent some time creating a spreadsheet to figure out the best route for investing in OJ. I've looked at the costs involved with minimum account fees, commissions and so forth at my broker, Interactive Brokers. you can check that out here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18d0ETu1r5P7xt861RO8cAB8-YRw4ABca4T1Gqv_MhvE/edit?usp=sharing

Seeing the numbers and how inexpensive it can be, and how profitable it can be, is really inspiring and uplifting, and I needed that as of late. The table on the bottom of the spreadsheet demonstrates buying 5 contracts OJ at $1.00 and rolling over the contracts before they expire. Each time the contracts are rolled over into new ones, you can see that the price had moved. The corresponding profit or loss is indicated on the right, while the total profit at the time of finally exiting the position was $48,750.

If I had actually purchased a contract of OJ when it hit $1.35 I would be up $1,575. That's not much, but it would have helped me get started.

The main reason I created the spreadsheet was to try and identify whether or not it would be better to roll the most recent ("Front month") contracts into the next month, or just initiate the trade on a contract that had 1 year of time on it to begin with, thus removing my need to roll any contracts, because there wouldn't be any expiring.

The interesting thing you will notice on the top table, is that the cumulative extra cost (Cumulative Value differential per contract) from buying a front month and rolling it out to a contract that expires a year later, adds up to be a cost increase of $562.50. At first this discouraged me, because I thought "That's a lot of money to lose just to save on the costs of rolling into new contracts every 60 days", but upon further contemplation I realized that it isn't an actual cost for the most part. Let me explain.

It's really not much different than buying 1,000 shares of a $2 stock ($2,000 value) and making $200 profit on it (10%), versus buying 1,000 shares of a $2.05 stock ($2,050 value) and making $200 profit on it (9.7%). The farther out contract is worth 2.6% more than the front month contract, yet price movement basically mimics the front month contract. The whole point of buying, is buying when prices are low and likely to produce a profitable move sometime soon. The only real drawback about buying a contract that costs 2.6% more, is that by the time that contract expires, theoretically you will have lost that 2.6% value that was priced in because of time value and other reasons. If it takes OJ a year to move and give you a profit, you probably didn't buy it low enough. But even then, just roll it into another contract and keep holding. I look forward to diving into these thoughts deeper in the future.

I also wanted to talk about investing in the total stock market long term. I saw a great YouTube video about it here:

The guy makes an excellent point about people trying to pick stocks, and that even the very best people in the long run can't outperform the overall market. The best strategy for most, is to simply go long the entire market index. I really liked this idea because it goes back to buying something that has real value, which the companies on the index do. It actually convinced me even more to go with Orange Juice instead though, because the market is SO big, it takes forever to grow. Orange Juice is a very thinly traded market in comparison, and much more volatile. Volatility is your friend when trading an asset that will never go to zero!

Here is what OJ is currently doing, and my current paper trades to test things out. I have some Options straddling OJ at $1.40. That simply means that either way OJ goes from $1.40, up or down, if it moves significantly enough I can make a profit, and if it doesn't I should only lose a little money as the time value of those options decay.

You will also notice I'm up $786 on a contract of OJ from $1.41 and the current price was $1.46ish.

How to be "Unfuckwithable"

As usual, I see most people as full of shit, and most of what they say then follows appropriately as shit. Not that they are shitty people, just that we spend far too much time not thinking, and just being spoon fed because we are in discomfort when we expend our own effort.

There is a post on twitter that means well no doubt, but my cynical and personal thoughts about realism color how I read things. Thusly, I read a post called "How to be unfuckwithable" and had some thoughts about it. I want to preface that this is merely my instinctual reaction, and I understand why the poster wrote it and why anyone would share it. As negative or pessimistic as my response to it may seem, I am trying only to be realistic.  I get that these are supposed to aggregate to "Unfuckwithable", but I just don't like them for the most part and think they are bullshit pleasantries that don't actually get you there.

1. Have written goals so you know what you want to accomplish and where you want to go. Ton's of people have written goals and are fuckwithable, while others have no written goals, and are at peace with the opinions of others. This has no correlation to the goal. 

2. Let your life be guided by internal principles not external circumstances. Your Internal principles can be fucked up, and likely are, simply based on the fact that the overwhelming majority of individuals are born into and groomed by patterns of thought, that are simply unchallenged and failing loops, perpetuated by the ignorant individuals before them. For this point to be beneficial, you would have to already have the proper internal principles, which, if you had them, would likely nullify your need to even be told this principle in the first place. 

3. Never take criticism from someone not doing better than you are. What the hell do they know? First of all, "Better than you" can be completely subjective depending on the matter. Furthermore, this lies in direct contrast to the idea of having an open mind, and that the correct message can come from a shitty messenger. 

4. Internet trolls are losers, always ignore them. Never waste any time or energy on someone that has already made up their mind. This is one in my personal life that I adhere to strongly, but consider: Are they trolling, or are they making a valid point that your're not open to hearing? There is always that possibility. For example, I called out a trading guru on YouTube because he is selling courses to people without showing his trades transparently, or offering a shred of data on the system, and he called me a troll. "Never waste time or energy on someone who has already made up their mind"?! Yes, this is a great theory, and likely a great practice to employ, but as devils advocate lets look at the other side. You can't derive whether they are blindly committed to another view point until you engage them! All average people are trying to do in life, is surround themselves with others that agree with them, or attempt to get them to agree.

5. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone but yourself. Now this is a great one. Not only is it not true, because no one makes it entirely on their own in any endeavor, but, lets just say that the "One person you have to prove things to" (yourself) just so happens to be an insecure person that NEEDS others to approve of them before they approve of themselves? This statement is a paradox for most people. You can't just tell a desperate person who needs other people's approval "You only need to prove it to yourself"! That's like trying to have a job before you have a car, when you can't even get to an interview without having a car first!  

My point so far, is that THESE ARE NOT STEPS... these are not HOW -TO'S... They are evidences that will appear AFTER you already have that self reliance and are "Unfuckwithable". This is NOT  a road map, it is someone else's report after having ALREADY ARRIVED.

6. Be a life long student and don’t let your ego control your reactions when you have a lesson to learn. "If you are not "Unfuckwithable, how are you going to control your ego? Once again, a paradox.

7. Always become competent in something before you try to be confident. "Try" to be confident? How does that work? "Ok self, let me try to be confident..." This one blows my mind. Confidence is a state of mind that you either have or you don't, which comes from perspective, which can of course be highly flawed. It's like being hungry. you can act hungry, but you're not really hungry until you're hungry, you can't try to be hungry. You can only go through the process of being not hungry, until hunger arrives. I would love to hear this persons thoughtful explanation of how one tries to be confident. 

I'll stop being so technical for a second and approach the likely idea that the author may have simply meant "Feign" confidence, instead of "try to be". We can surely fake just about any state of mind for a period of time. The point of this matter in general though, seems to be about avoiding errors brought about by not having the authentic skill, while thinking or faking as if you do. I will give credit if that's the fact, because you are so fuckwithable, if you are just faking, but can't muster what the task requires. Once again though, this is not a step or how-to, but it's the most beneficial piece of advice so far, in relation to getting there.

8. Do not participate in toxic relationships with anyone. My instinctual response is this: it is unavoidable to a person who is not already "Unfuckwithable". They lack the experience to read others, and likely have  a toxic relationship with themselves that they need to escape, before they will ever climb out of the pattern of choosing toxic people to engage with. The bottom line of all of my thoughts, that I was hoping to wait until the end to summarize, is this:

NO ONE IS UNFUCKWITHABLE. 

That state, like all states that are acheivable within us, are passing and cyclical. Seriously. There isn't a person that has, or ever will exist that is Unfuckwithable sustainably. We all have identities with values that are tied to the energies of others, and if we don't, we're sociopaths.  Perhaps success (I hate that word) isn't being Unfuckwithable, but more like understanding that every thing a person can and will feel, exists and does not need to be avoided, but understooding those states helps the natural cycling of them.

9. Emotions are great servants but terrible masters. Yeah, now can you tell me how to be unfuckwithable? No. K thanks bye.

10. Let logic, reason, math, and science be your guide through life. P.S. Breathe air and eat food. Don't forget those on your path to unfuckwithableness.

11. Diversify your life between finances, health, peace, happiness, relationships, and career so no one area can ruin the rest of your life. Yeah, they won't totally ruin you, just fuck with you a little... except for that health part, that could totally fuck with you. But hey, diversify with religion: Extra lives!

12. Cut your losses fast but let your winners run. Unless you're investing with a full cash position in assets that have real value, that will never go to zero, and are trading at substantial discounts.

13. You don’t have to listen to financial advice from broke people. Jesse Livermore made millions and was broke several times. I would suck his dick for advice.

14. You don’t have to listen to relationship advice from people that are not in a good relationship. We often know just what we need to change, without having the fortitude to do it. It is also much easier to give objective advice when you are not personally involved in the situation, but have experienced it in the past. Don't ignore the message because the messenger is fucked up.

15. You don’t have to listen to nutrition advice from unhealthy people. See above explanation.

16. What people think about you is none of your business and they should keep it to themselves. Almost always to some extent, what people think of you can drastically effect your life. Hell, that's what racism is. They don't even have to know you to want to kill you. but even if they should keep it to themselves, free speech is a beautiful thing. 

17. You have nothing to prove to anyone if you have faith in yourself. I have faith that one day I will know how to try to be confident... Wait a minute bitch, didn't you just say in #5. that I have myself to prove shit to?!?! Ok seriously now, we've already covered this, and this is just padding from #5. Faith only gives you the motivation for action (or in some cases, inaction) faith is in YOUR head, not someone else's, that just may have their finger on the button.

18. Maintain multiple streams of income so no one source can control you. Once again, that's just an evidence, not a road map. It is a very powerful principle, but the point of this post was the "How-to-be" part. This is just another version of "Breathe air" 

19. Be more valuable to your employer than they are to you. A.K,A. Don't work for a large company in a position where you are expendable. A very good thing to consider and strive for, but, as long as you work for someone else, you are fuckwithable. Admittedly, less so the more important your position, but we're not discussing how to be "Mostly unfuckwithable".

20. Always remember you can fire your boss just like he can fire you. Actually no, you're boss can fire you without any reason, and you will have to explain to the next person why you quit... Unless of course you become self employed.

21. Always value your time correctly. And don't forget to breath-ah fuck it.

22. Have enough customers in your business so you can fire the bad customers. Now this one, I actually really like. 

23. Diversify your investment portfolio so no one position can hurt you. Another good one, assuming you have that kind of net worth and intelligence.

24. Stay out of debt to maintain your freedom of choices. My mother fucking mantra.

25. You always have a choice if you can accept the consequences. My second mantra! We're ending with a bang here! These are real, specific things that are self contained.

26. Don’t waste your life living it for someone else. Awww damn it, we were on a roll! This is a beautiful thought, but not very related to being "unfuckwithable". It's more along the lines of, as it says, not wasting your fucking time.

27. Stay close to people who care about you and have your back. Another great and logical duh, that amazingly so many people just can't accomplish. You know why? Because life, and their thoughts and emotions are constantly fucking with them. 

28. Some people will try to manipulate and control you for their own purposes, don’t let them. Air for sale! GET YOUR AIR!!!

29. Don’t listen to people that have no skin in the game of your life. You have to live with your choices so you get to make them. So because you have no skin in the game of my life, I shouldn't listen to this post. See how ridiculous this can be, yet we don't even examine the shit people say?

30. Life is too short for bullshit.  Unless bullshitting is how you manipulate others to better your life? I dunno, like nearly every business ever? All of marketing? 

The whole reason I can counter any of these points, is because truth is contextual. You gotta learn how to think for yourself. And, you gotta learn how to "learn to think for yourself".

Some light

I have been tracking my paper trades since the beginning of the year and finally decided to throw up a chart to see the distribution of profits and losses, and a chart of percent gains. It seems that I am possibly becoming consistent at winning.

You can see that huge loser there. That was a 33% loser that I had forgot about and held for a few days. I turned some things around there a little. A lot of "Scratch" trades for small losses or gains, while trying to hold winners as much as I can stand. As of now, I'm up around 55%, but if that one 33% loser had not happened I'd be up over 85%.

I still have to go and make another chart as if I had actual positions with reasonable risk. I suspect that will turn out interesting. 

Same old shit

I'm so sick of my life and how busy I am.

I am in this fucking torment and I hate it. I don't have enough time to do any one thing I want to do thoroughly. I can't stretch worth a shit. I can't trade for shit. I can't focus. I can't workout well. I can't decide what to do with my free time, and I don't want to be social either. I can't handle my emotions in the midst of knowing all of this. I am becoming a bitter asshole again because I am working too much and at the same time not hard enough to get the fuck out of my shit situation.

I do not want to have poor health, but I wake up and forget to exercise and stretch after, and when I do, it's shit. I get nowhere with it. Before I know it it's 10am and the thought of having to go to work soon scratches at the back of my mind.

We just signed up for a gym membership, and I am so pissed because I spent $60 extra than I needed to because I blocked out the information the salesman was telling me.

I have been watching documentaries about fasting and all that, and each time I watch them I just want to stop eating until I look like I look... But I am just so easily frustrated because of all the other stresses....

on the 10th we go to court over some dumb shit my wife's ex is doing, in which he is violating the decree... As much common sense says we should win this no problem, you just fucking watch him win, or the commissioner tell her she should change her stance in some way.

I had to shell out thousands of dollars out of pocket today to pay medical bills because my insurance broker didn't actually do his fucking job and submit the claim properly for my deductible reimbursement... At least the check should be here soon.

My wife told me today that she signed us up for some treatments for the trees in our yard, which will cost another $380 a year or something. I'm fucking tired of this slavery bullshit. I fucking hate it!

Trading should be all that matters, and I am neglecting it for other things that distract me that also need to be taken care of. There aren't good plays every day, so waiting feels fucking like forever, and when I do trade, I don't do well. To wait for the best setups I would have to be there all damn day because they could happen at any time. I am growing desperate for this shit to show me some progress, and it's killing my passion. I am hating how much I work, I am hating the toll it is taking on my back. I am hating the toll all of these things are taking on my life and relationship.

Orange juice hasn't come down to a level I want in at yet, and who knows how long that will take. I am just in a prison like hell of my mind and my physical body that must work like a slave to bring in the money we need to survive... Also, did I mention we're inuring $1,500 in dental costs? Yeah that too.

Why does it seem like the entire system is setup to take the money you make? It is so hard to keep when every damn reason has this justified realization behind it.. We need to have our trees treated so they survive?!?! Fuck, if a tree can't survive on it's own then fuck it! My grass is just fine! Yes, I neglected my teeth my whole life, and I need them fixed, so that's on me.

I want so desperately to throw this computer out the window right now, go on a rampage of destruction and break someones neck.

I'm the same old me, reacting the same old way, to the same old shit. Life is a grind just to stay afloat. Life is hell trying to move forward and only stand still...

Something has to give, and right now, it's my sanity and civility.