Here goes nothing

Im not sure why Im doing this. I mean who really cares about my trading or my thoughts on equity markets? Oh well there are plenty of people who opine regularly so Im gonna give it shot.
I run a VERY SMALL hedgefund, I traded on the CBOE for 6 years and have traded "off the floor" ever since. I dont really know how to do anything but trade and there are lots of days Im pretty sure I dont know how to do that either. I trade long and short, up and down and all around. I trade convertibles (not cars, though I drive one), futures, stocks, bonds you name it anything in the equity world.

I come to write this blog after one of the toughest ten day stretches in my career. My partner said the S&P would traded down to 872 a few weeks ago and it did, we were off to a huge start for July, we covered a bunch of our shorts and felt like kings...My partner is a technician - he reads charts - I say every shipwreck on the bottom of the ocean had a chart on board..oh well - he'spretty good at it. We figured the market would rally to 915-920 or so and then it would sell off again...errr well lets just say that didnt happen, the market ripped higher everyday for the last 10 days all the way up to 977 or so. I have fought a trend before but this one was tough - relentless buying in the S&P futures nearly constant upside, selloffs so small if you blinked or went to take a piss ( i try not to do that to often) you would miss em. So all that money we made at the beginning of July was gone - we took on the market and got our butts handed to us..its happend before and it will happen again. What made this one particularly tuff was that our long positions didnt work either - we were getting beaten on both sides of the market - not good. So anyways we are still short the broader market up here at S&P 972 (after hours the futures are down 4 bucks - yipeeeeeee) and we still have our longs, and arbs (arbitrage positions) etc....

Trading is a self absorbed business I dont have any grand allusions that Im doing society a service the only people Im helping ( on the good months that is ) are me (and the familia), my
investors, and the brokers who make commissions servicing our accounts. Beats being a lawyer though - those guys think they actually provide value - ok a few do but not the freaking army of lawyers that this nutty country has.

Anyways on this blog im gonna try and offer my thinking (my apologies in advance) on the broader market and interesting arbitrage positions im working..


more to come

JB