Testing Stock Market Hocus Pocus

I’ve always thought stock market prediction was BS, but I’m going to give my hand a try at these dark arts.  There will be a 5% or more correction (counter trend) in around 2, 7, or possibly 12 weeks.  The counter trend will have a duration of a couple of months at least and will likely have 3 waves (down, up, down).

Translation: Nell- Fisheyes

As I translated it on Nov. 23, 2008.  This was never subbed.

Nell’s album Seperation Anxiety track 7- Fisheyes

자기의 가면 뒤에는
Behind our masks-
짙은 그림자
the dark shadow
슬픔에 잠긴 탄식은
The sigh of frustration overcome with sorrow-
날 위한 노래
the song devoted to me

모든 게 밝혀지는 오늘을 기억해둬
Don’t forget this day when everything becomes clear

“It’s all breaking down”

천사의 연못에 잠든 피묻은 영혼
Asleep in the angel’s pond- a bloody soul
소돔과 고모라의 불꽃 영광의 축제
The fireworks of Sodom and Gomorrah The festival of glory

모든게 사라지는 오늘을 기억해둬
Don’t forget this day when everything disappears

“It’s all breaking down”
“It’s nobody’s crown”

“You were meant to be my reality”
“But it’s all over now”
“It’s over now”

Nell- Act 5

As I translated it Nov 26, 2008.  This was never subbed.

굳어버린 그 입슬과 핏기없는 여린 몸을
Those lips gone tight and your colorless tender body
섬세했던 그 영혼과 고요했던 그 마음을
That soul that was delicate and heart that was tranquil

이해해 이렇게까지라도 해서 나의 곁에 두고 싶은 이 맘 이해해
Please understand Even having done as much as this This feeling of wanting to keep you at my side Please understand
“I’m in love with you”

다른 곳에 머물렀던 아름다운 눈동자
Those beautiful eyes that always stayed somewhere else
내 것일 수가 없었던 깊었던 그 눈동자
Those deep eyes that couldn’t be mine

이해해 이렇게까지라도…
“I’m in love with you”
미안해 하지만 언젠가는 너도 나의 이런 맘 이해할꺼라 생각해
I’m sorry But I think some day you will understand this feeling of mine too

“Cause this is all about love”
“Yes, it’s love”

“Sharing heart and soul”
“Sharing whatever”
“This is love”
“That’s what lovers do”
“This is love”

이해해 이렇게까지라도…
“Cause I’m in love with you”
“With you”

Translation: Nell- Part 2

r3yray87@youtube subbed some of my translations and his accounts been gone for a while.

Nov 27 2008 I translated Nell’s Part 2:

지나가더군요 마음이 어떻든 시간은 그렇게 계속 흘러가고
Where did the time go Whether your mind keeps going on or not time does
믿기 힘들었던 받아들일 수 없던 그모든일들에 익숙해지네요
Everything that happened which used to be unacceptable and hard to believe I’m becoming familiar with

Chorus 1

멍하니있다 눈물이 흘러
I sit around and the tears flow
누구 볼까봐 고갤 떨구고
Afraid someone will see I let my head fall
도망칠 듯 그 자릴 피하긴 해도
I avoid that place like I’m running away but yet

풀려진 신발 끈을 묶으려 주저앉다가 무너져내려
When I plop down to tie my untied shoe I collapse to the ground
순간 모든개 멈춰버리긴 해도
Everything this moment comes to a halt but yet
익숙해요
I’m used to it

Verse 2

버텨지더군요 고달픈 하루도 어떻게 해서든 또 지나가고
I’ve been making it through Days when I’m exhausted pass by again doin’ whatever

Chorus 2

수많은 사람속에서 들려온 안녕이란 말 그 한마디에 가슴 덜컥 내려앉는 일에도
My heart dropping suddenly from that one word ‘farewell’ (or maybe hello) heard among the countless people
아직까지도 너의 말투로 말하는 내가 너무 싫어서 그저 조용히 침묵하는 일에도
And just being silent because I hate myself still talking like you after all this time
익숙하죠
It’s all familiar

Bridge

익숙하긴 하지만 여전히 낮설고
It’s familiar but still Unfamiliar just like before
버텨지긴 하지만 힘든건 여전해
I’ve made it through but yet It’s difficult like before
놓아버릴 듯 해도 여전히 손 끝에
Though I thought I’d left it It’s at the tip of my fingers like before
지워낸 듯 하지만 여전히 가득해
I thought I’d wiped it out but it’s full just like before

Chorus 1

Outro

맘에도 없는 말들로 그렇게 널 떠나 보내고
Sending you away like that with words I had to fake
그때 니가 나에게 했던 그말 아직 기억 하는 지
I wonder if you still remember what you said to me
또 다른 겨울이 찾아오면 모든게 다 잊혀질거라고 했던 그말
Those words that ‘when another winter comes it will all be forgotten’

DJIA- About time for a correction

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Trading involves calculating when the odds are with you or against you.  In times of relatively high stock prices, and in overvalued conditions, the odds are lower that you’ll be able to sell your stocks at a higher price soon.  That is the time to moderately claim some of your gains, increase your cash by selling some of your holdings, and lower your stakes.  By increasing your cash, you have more cash available to invest if stock prices do indeed go lower, and less money at stake if they do go down.  By keeping some of your holdings, you continue to make money if stocks continue to rise.

When prices are relatively low and have reached stability the odds are usually on your side that you’ll be able to sell your stocks at a higher price.  That is the time to increase the stakes, invest a large portion of your cash, and even use some of your margin funds if all indications tell you that the timing is perfect.

Due to technical indications and trader intuition I will be selling some of my stocks to claim gains, reduce my risk in the case of a correction, and to have more cash available for better opportunites.

One stock I will definitely be watching for short term trading/ long term investment is MEE:

Scottrade F’s up my daytrade

I’ve had experience with scottrade and ameritrade.  Scottrade’s always been the slower, but recently Scottrade has had awful load times and sometimes it just gets stuck on one page when I try to do something.

I’ve made some awful decisions this year and have missed out on so much money from that and from sleeping in.  So I finally got up before the market opened this morning.  I decided today would be a good freakin’ day to do a short sell.  So I entered in an order to short 100 shares of cnx while it was around it’s top and the 5 and 10 minute stochastics were maxed.  (The daily and hourly stochastics for cnx and djia were at their peaks too, which made this great timing for a short sell).

I entered my short sell order and guess the f what?  I get this crap from Scottrade: “Stock Order Entry is temporarily unavailable. Please call your local Scottrade Branch Office to place a stock order.”  WTF??  All my money in Scottrade is going to Ameritrade as soon as possible.  I was powerless to do anything as my limit order never even got placed.  All I could do was sit around and take screen shots as CNX dropped 80+ cents (from 55.2 to 54.3  in < 10 minutes)  in the short period of time while I wrote this post.

Song Meanings: Nirvana- Heart Shaped Box

She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak
I’ve been locked inside your heart-shaped box for a week
I was drawn into your magnet tar-pit trap
I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black

Hey!
Wait!
I’ve got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice

Meat-eating orchids forgive no one just yet
Cut myself on angel hair and baby’s breath
Broken hymen of your highness, I’m left black
Throw down your umbilical noose so I can climb right back

Hey!
Wait!
I’ve got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice

—————————————————————————

When I recently thought about the lyrics to this song, I strictly considered the symbolism (without doing any research about it online).  After looking online at SongMeanings though, apparently a widespread belief (based on what Cobain told the media)  is that this song is about a baby with cancer.  Anybody who seriously believes that is gullible.    People like Cobain basically just give big FUs when the media asks them serious questions.

To get the general theme of any song, you don’t have to read some book some guy wrote some years after the lead singer died (like it’s the freakin’ bible of Nirvana).  Look no further than the chorus.  “Hey! Wait! I’ve got a new complaint- forever in debt to your priceless advice.”  This screams nothing to do with a baby with cancer.

Some clues to the general theme of the album are- the album cover and album title.  The album title being “In Utero” (in the womb) and the album art being an angelic woman with a warm, welcoming expression and gesture, with her innards exposed to open sight.  This suggests to me a theme of birth, the noble role of woman as giver of life- but there’s still something queer about having her organs and muscles exposed.  Having listened to this album 100′s of times (it used to be with this particular on repeat) and knowing about Kurt’s new family life around the time he wrote this album, I think there is a deeper level to the symbolism.  What the symbolism means to me is the rebirth of man in a relationship with (In Utero) the bachelor’s angelic savior, the woman.  Precisely what Kurt meant with the symbolism might never be known, but I think the theme of rebirth is worth considering.

To expand on what I wrote, the woman’s role of life giver isn’t limited to just new babies, but it extends to the bachelor.  The rebirth of the bachelor signifies the change in lifestyle and life views required for the transformation from bachelor to husband and father.  This rebirth takes place in the symbolic womb of the lover, (the womb symbolizing the relationship- where the bachelor is reborn).   The angelic, warm open gesture is mother-like- saving the bachelor from his single ways and giving him a new life.

This is what I see in the album art particularly because of the chorus of Heart Shaped Box:  “Hey! Wait! I’ve got a new complaint- forever in debt to your priceless advice”  This screams to me (again not of a baby with cancer) but of a man, dependent on (and perhaps regrettably irreversible from) the reformation forced upon him by his lover- whether it came in the form of nagging, demands, expectations, or whatever.

————————————————————————

Line for line…

I’ve never known what it means to look at somebody like a Pisces would, or like they are a Pisces…  But I’ve always thought of it as alluding to the experience of being looked down upon in times of weakness:

She eyes me like a Pisces (Kurt’s zodiac sign) when I am weak

Something I’ve always considered to be symbolic of relationship are the lines (shouldn’t this part just be obvious?):

I’ve been locked inside your heart-shaped box for a week
I was drawn into your magnet tar-pit trap

This seems to me to be a desire to get rid of something that’s bothering somebody else, like stress or some emotion that they won’t let go of:

I wish I could eat your cancer (Courtney’s zodiac sign) when you turn black

(My interpretation of the chorus is given above)

I think the next four lines need to be looked at as a whole.  The meat-eating orchid could reasonably be a  symbol of the vagina (that wouldn’t be unbecoming of Kurt Cobain- see my explanation of the final two lines).  The first two of these lines also express the irony of culturally beautiful things bringing with them perhaps unexpected consequences (like the every rose has it’s thorn analogy):

Meat-eating orchids forgive no one just yet

Cut myself on angel hair and baby’s breath

Broken hymen of your highness, I’m left black
Throw down your umbilical noose so I can climb right back

And what the last two lines mean to me is kind of weird, but I’m throwing it out there anyways:

I think it’s safe to take these two lines literally instead of metaphorically.  Literally then, these 2 lines would be about sex and child birth.  Specifically [third line], some kind of shame, blame or guilt (being black)  connected to having sex (breaking the hymen/ taking the symbol of a woman’s innocence or purity- whether she’s a virgin or not) without the intention of giving birth.  The “Meat eating orchid” forgives no man haha (there is a toll to pay)…  Then [fourth line] inviting child birth to make it seem like the intentions of sex are pure or acceptable (paying the toll and climbing right back), and accepting the responsibility of fatherhood.  The umbilical noose brings the birth of a child and the ultimate death of the bachelor.  Kind of weird, I know, but I think the general ideas stemming from all the symbolism are worth considering .

Briefly about the music video.  I’ve never paid much attention to it, but I just watched it to refresh my memory.  The location is this strange beautiful fantasy land, where something awful is happening.  The sky turns apocalyptic during the chorus.  Flower fields grow right next to dying trees.  Birth and death go hand in hand.  I would equate the old dying man who crucifies himself as the outward bachelor Kurt who must inevitably, nobly die.  Kurt and the other members have no power to stop it, they just sit and watch him as he withers away.  I see the energetic Kurt emerging in the chorus and in the third verse of the video as the resentful voice of the bachelor screaming in the chorus.  The heart shaped box that keeps showing up is significant because of the heart shaped box Courtney gave Kurt.  I see that as one of the clues linking the song with relationship.  There is no regard for privacy, it’s just relentlessly opened, looked inside of, and the lid kind of gets shown off.  I see that as deliberate exposition.

The exposing of the angelic woman’s innards (especially the womb):  I think that is what this song is all about.

Opinions and comments are welcome.

Short Story- The Dragon

This was written for school.  I’ll probably post some of the reports I’ve done in the past if I still have them too.  Oddly I love learning but I hate going to school.  I actually missed an online quiz that was available 24 hours from 12:00 AM yesterday morning to 12:00 AM this morning for this class.  Not because I forgot, but because I kept putting it off to enjoy my time and didn’t really care.  So I realized I missed the quiz when I woke up way early this morning and started to worry about my grade.  I decided to get an early start on a writing project I had been loathing for said class.  I ended up having some fun with it.  Excuse the cliche once upon a time and any other weird things in the writing style.  I just threw it together (making a few revisions as I wrote it) after doing some research.

The Dragon

Once upon a time there was a dragon named Dracos.  Dracos did not know what kind of a dragon he was because he was blind.  He had heard of different colors of dragons, all of which had personalities and types of behavior based off of their color.  Over the course of his life, Dracos spoke with various people and other dragons to find out more about himself.  From what he knew about dragons, he needed to figure out what color he was to know how to act and how to behave himself.

While he was young and his scales where still developing, some people told Dracos his temperament resembled that of a white dragon- isolated, cold, and intelligent.  He then secluded himself in the north- becoming more keenly aware, sharp, and alert in the pain of the arctic chill.  Instead of turning colder to match his climate, eventually Dracos decided it was more comfortable to keep his body warm in his lair- only sometimes going outside to enjoy the fresh air and to sharpen his senses.

Dracos learned to control his body temperature and to breathe out hot air.  When he breathed out hot air, warm water gathered at the floor of his lair and violent winds were created outside.  Dracos regularly went outside to prey on groups of arctic animals. One time he had a gruesome encounter with a pack of polar bears.  Dracos went back to his lair to take a warm bath.  He breathed out burning hot air, melting the ice in his lair and making a pool of hot water large enough to submerge his enormous body into.

The heat from his lair escaped into the arctic air, making winds and covering the land with a windstorm, more violent and strong than the other white dragons had ever seen.  Dracos sensed a fearsome white dragon making its way towards his lair.  Dracos listened to the wind to learn more about his approaching visitor as he soaked in the warm waters he had created.

His visitor’s name was Cerebus, an especially cold, manipulative white dragon who had killed other white dragons for their treasures.  Dracos feared for the valuables he kept in his lair, which he had inherited from his family.  They were all he had to give him clues as to his heritage.  As Cerebus got close to the opening of Dracos’ lair, Dracos breathed out fire.  Blazing and blocking the lair’s entrance, the fire shocked Cerebus, who was uncomfortable around such intense heat.

The winds told Dracos to relax, for Cerebus would not challenge him as he could easily be killed by fire.  The humbled face of Cerebus peaked into Dracos’ lair and gave an expression of surprise.  “What is a red dragon doing in the arctic?”  Dracos advised Cerebus to leave and he gathered his treasures flying back south.

Now that Dracos was informed that he was a red dragon, he decided he needed to act like one.  He found a cave near a large civilization and began imagining all of the wealth he could amass with the destructive power of his fire breath, which had scared off the mightiest of white dragons.  He began destroying the nearby civilization- demanding gold and riches delivered to his lair in exchange for periods of non-destruction.  Besides the riches, giving knowledge of the location of his lairs invited many dragon hunters.  Some of them fell into the traps in his lair, and the rest were slain with ease- throwing the human civilization into a state of hopelessness.

The king ordered the scholars of his kingdom to learn more about this Dracos, a dragon more keen and invulnerable than any the king had ever heard of.  The scholars learned of Dracos’ story- how he was blind and unsure of his true color and inferred identity.  The king appointed a blind scholar to come up with a plan to trick Dracos into leaving his kingdom.  A blind man, he concluded, would have a better understanding of Dracos’ weaknesses.

Dracos enjoyed being a red dragon.  Knowing he would never see his wealth, he felt security in feeling the deep carpet of gold and silver coins beneath his feet when he moved, and under his body when he rested.  Dracos didn’t know the glitter of precious metals, but he felt comfort from their presence.  He felt a sense of familiarity with the texture of precious metals and with the ringing of moving coins.  He became familiar with the silence that accompanied him as he stilled himself in his adorned lair.

The silence informed Dracos of a scholar, who would come to his lair and tell him more about his identity.  Dracos heard the blind scholar’s footsteps beyond the maze of the entry to his central lair.  “Who are you?” Dracos belted towards the lair’s front entrance.  “I am Cornelius, a scholar of dragons who knows much about you”.  Dracos guided Cornelius through the tunnels and past the traps into his main lair.

“What could you possibly tell me about myself?  I am Dracos, the fearsome, greedy, red dragon.”  “I know who you are.  You are blind and were once mistaken for a white dragon.  I have seen you, and the people of my kingdom have seen you.  You have mistaken your true identity again.  You are not a red dragon.”  After the scholar finished speaking this, the silence told Dracos to keep listening.  “You are a bronze dragon, easily confused with red because of a slight similarity of color and your control of fire.”  “Cornelius, send my apologies to your king, along with some of the riches I have stolen.”  Dracos gathered the remainder of his riches, making several trips to a large cave in the desert where he would make his new home.

Dracos frequented the nearby trading routes, conversing with the merchants traversing between nations.  He acted as he saw fit and felt like he had more opportunities than when he restricted himself to a single code of behavior.  Different people gave him different reports as to his color.  Merchants whose caravans had been spoiled by him claimed Dracos to be blue or copper.  Pirates from nearby waters claimed he was bronze.  Wanderers and friends claimed Dracos was silver or brass.

Dracos pondered his identity and the words which the dragon scholar had spoken to him.  He happened upon a merchant from the civilization he used to terrorize and asked about the scholar Cornelius.  He learned that Cornelius was also blind and that he had passed away recently.  Dracos returned to his cave, laying down, shutting his eyes tight, and contemplating what all the diverse reports could mean.

In his mind Dracos could hear the echoes of all the people he had spoken to, each assigning him a different identity.  Dracos then heard a voice in his lair.  It was Cornelius’.  “You never really saw me.”  “I did.  I saw you and I perceived more than anybody you’ve met ever since.  Open your eyes.”  Dracos opened his eyes.  He saw inside himself.  He didn’t see a dragon, nor a human, just an existence.  “I had learned to use the eyes you are using now while I was still alive.  That is what I really saw when I spoke with you.”  Dracos perceived that the identities the other dragons and people attached to the existence he could now see were a reflection of what they thought of him, how he acted around them, and sometimes it was just what they thought about themselves.  He also perceived that all the people he had come in contact with, besides Cornelius, were the ones who were truly blind.

Successful Day Trades- Jan/Feb 2010

The boxes above open up detailed pictures for the trades I talk about in this post.  Not sure why it doesn’t just show the pictures in my post but whatever.

I try to keep trading a learning experience.  By posting some of my trades I can document them better, look at what I did right or wrong, and try to do as well or better in the future.

Here are two trades that started out with the intention of day trading.  MAT had just released good earnings and was down on the open so I decided to jump in when it looked like it had reached a low.  I track the lows and highs by using stochastics.  My grandpa taught me about them and I learned more about using them in the book “The Master Swing Trader”.  Basically if a stock’s stochastics are low when looking at daily, hourly, and 10 min ticks, that’s a pretty good time to buy (at minimum I prefer the hourly and 10 min tick stochastics to be low on day trades).

Mattel didn’t have enough volatility to raise enough for a decent day trade, but that also made it safer to hold over night.  I still ended up selling  early, but profit is profit.  MAT was a pretty slow mover but the circumstances made it a pretty safe trade.

CNX is one of the stocks I’ve been trading since back in the winter of 2006, when I first realized how profitable trading could be.  This was a quick day trade I just made today.  Pretty easy to follow.  CNX was on its way to dropping a little more than a point from it’s early high and I put in a limit order at 46.  I considered putting in a limit order at 45.8 but I was worried that would be too low.  The plan was to sell it quickly around 47.  With the stochastics on the 5,10, 15 minute tick and daily tick charts low, and today being an up day for the DJIA,  the odds were definitely on my side.  CNX made a quick bounce back.  I debated whether to sell at 47.04 or 47.14, where 47.14 would make $100 plus cover my commissions.

I ended up entering a limit order at 47.14, and changing it to 47.04 when it looked like the stock price was backing off.  My limit order at 47.04 went through, the price did back off.  It ended up bouncing back above 47.14 shortly after.  I don’t think I sold too early.  It might have been possible for me to hold those shares for a couple of weeks and sell them above $50, but I made my money faster and safer.

The way too make money with small stock price movements is to buy a lot of shares.  Multiples of 100 work well because it’s simple to calculate how much money you’ll make.  For example, in both of these trades I bought 100 shares.  Any difference between buy and sell prices is simply multiplied by 100 then I subtract commissions.

So far this year:

1 short sell gain

4 gains from traditional trades

4 losses from traditional trades

Ratio- money lost: money gained ~ 2:1

I’ve gotten off to a bad start this year (more on that later).  I’m not going to just post successful trades and act like I never make mistakes.  Last year however I had a very successful year.

Some ratios from last year’s trades:

total dollar amount of gains: losses ~ 10:1

# gains: # losses ~ 4:1

dollar amount of average  gain: loss ~ 2:1

My current goal in investing is to learn from what I’ve done right in the past and keep in mind what I’ve done wrong in the past.

Been kind of sick of subbing on youtube

When I first started subbing on youtube I didn’t know hardly anything about Korean music.  I started out with my first translation, Epik High’s “One” because the widespread translation at the time left room for a lot of misunderstanding.  After that I took requests and ended up doing mainstream stuff like Taeyang, some Big Bang and general love songs.  I also tackled Epik High’s album “Pieces, Part One” and eventually “Remapping the Human Soul” out of personal interest.  Taking requests for mainstream music worked out for the time because I had a whole lot to learn at first.

Translating mainstream, and even Epik High was an important time for me, like a stepping stone.  Soon I took on Nell’s albums and MC Sniper’s “How Bad Do You Want It”, and I have to say I am much more confident in my translations of them than my earlier Epik High translations.  Time took it’s course and I ended up finding the Korean music that I enjoyed the most, so I stopped taking requests.

Subbing isn’t a job for me, I did it because I enjoyed finding new songs and learning what they meant.  I also did it to improve my Korean,  out of love for the country, and out of a sense of responsibility to do something meaningful while careless white kids continually give Americans a bad name in Korea.

When I had found what I considered to be just about the summit of Korean music, translating lost its thrill.  It feels like I’m listening to the best of the best when I hear Nell’s and Drunken Tiger’s songs.  There are other songs I still enjoy listening to, for example Kebee- and I’ve been listening to a lot of underground on one of my subscriptions’ channels- but it’s gotten hard for me to feel that old thrill like I’m finding something new and great.

Besides being busy with school and my life, translating rap takes a considerable amount of time for me because I still do it in steps to make sure I catch most of my mistakes and to make sure I understand everything in context.  When I continue subbing, it will have to be out of feeling that same thrill that I felt at first.  The only place I can still feel that is from Drunken Tiger and underground music.