Tuesday IWM Gap Up

 

On Friday, $IWM had an inside day. Tuesday morning, it gapped up big. Right off open it came down into daily 2-U trigger and ran about $3 up to $170.08. On gap ups watch for retest and break higher. These do work out nicely. I traded this on the way up, but I didn’t HODL to my PT 🎯, which was in fact, $170. 

Green Streak

 

Trading $SPY yesterday off open. I used the premarket candles to draw a trendline that was useful off open. The first 15 min candle rejected initially and I went short at $3.94. Within seconds it was $4.20 and I sold. 

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Other notes: on fifth 15 min candle we got to NHOD and at a key level i thought going short was the play. I didn’t execute as I am working in a more patient mindset — observing and memorizing so as to be more automatic in the future. This was the right trade as a nearly $4 move down occurred within seven candles (105 minutes). Hit magnitude again later in the day and did not go short on it at NHOD around 2.30pm; once again, this will be memorized. I actually did try to go short here in TD acct, but it was inaccessible due to a transfer. 

Later in the day, $spy had a 2-1 on the hourly. That had a great move upwards. I was too focused on $appl and missed this. The move up was about $1.20. I was focused on $appl because the compression on the hourly looked better at the time, but in hindsight, it began to expand too close to the hourly close for the r/r to be worth it. It did, however, hit the PT. 
 

eleven months, one day, and a thorn in the flesh (volume one)

(From 12.1.2008)

To-day, we marvel at the wonder of the overcast day. Blankets of grey clouds fill the sky and through them rains down soft, beautiful, and perfect light. Thank you dear Sun for hiding your face and until Spring, let it remain anathema.

To-day, we also marvel at the wonder of the India Blend at Prince St Cafe, the barely 2 year old coffee shop on the the corner of Prince and King Streets, across from the Opera House and parallel to the Market House. While we've definitely had better coffee in the past (as long ago as 2004 that made its way from State College to Philadelphia while inducing sleepless nights and heart arrhythmias) it is the best the small (but strong) city has to offer. When India is on tap, you know you are Home.

Home is a funny thing (and by the way, I/we think I/we use the word funny all too glibly, but I/we will continue to do so until reprimanded by someone of higher authority). Just under two years ago, Pittsburgh was about to become our home and in the early part of this year, Richmond, Virginia was supposedly the very same. Pittsburgh tried to spit us out with its uncommonly warm March and subsequently snowy April (Who wants to watch a Pirates game in sub-30 temps? And to be honest, who wants to watch a Pirates game all?), but by Steelers' Season, the city had etched itself on our hearts and it's six-month winter (Halloween through Tax Day) was shortly seen as endearing rather than brutal; the drunk Uncle you can't help but hug, even as he cusses you out and spills beer and cigarette ash on you. Richmond posited a different set of problems - primarily a lack of consistent income and a rare and diffcult to treat neuralgia - home was a word it never wanted to attach to us; not to mention the coffee was far below mediocre.

And now, almost two years to the day (12.8.06) and after thousands of miles on the Eisenhower Interstate System we are Home, sitting gently, with jittery-coffee-hands, in the very same coffee shop where the decision to leave was made.

So we grew up in cultural-Christianity, where church was somewhere you went, not something you were. Where information preceded belief and ultimately behaviour. Where alcohol and tobacco were not used in gentle moderation not because the Bible said so, but because the church covenant deemed them immoralities that would damn you to The Pit. Where dresses were demanded of the women and missing mid-week service for a Little League game was the unpardonable sin. Where community was a thing based on likeness, not diversity united by Christ and everyone kept up their facade because, apparently, Sanctification, like Justification was once and done; cracks were not permitted here because we're no longer broken people. And that's why we don't listen to rock devil music, smoke, drink or cuss and that's what gets us to Heaven, of course, if the Rapture doesn't happen first.

Fear of eternal Hell cannot produce true saints, and we lived in that misguided preconception up until age twenty-six. Jesus was our get-out-of-Hell-free-card and we used him for what he could give us, rather than love him for who he was. This smacks of as much idolatry as the false gospels that have other names attached to them (ie: prosperity) for it forces us to love things rather than Christ and use him to get to our very own ends. Living in the blood-soaked atonement changes us and we will never be the same.

We had seven hundred dollars in our pocket and nothing more. Rent was due on 95 South 22nd Street in just four weeks and that was more than half of our available funds. Saving one dollar on Brillo Pads at Giant Eagle was something to be jazzed about; so was keeping the gas bill under eighty and electric under forty. Internet was free if the wind blew just right, especially at night. There was no Farmer's Market or coffee-shop of our liking but this was the price to pay to flip a city on its head we arrogantly and naively thought. We thought this was our purpose here, but time revealed that it was only Training for Utopia.

Humility was Session One and its Lecture is far from over.

"In Him, we live and move and have our being" says the great Apostle. The Body, to function properly, needs to function with the thickness of blood. Anemia will not do. Thick authenticity comes only with superior sacrifice. Our propensity to go wide but not deep shelters us from the penetrating cuts that will bind us to-gether more tightly; that will weave into us the spirit of Shalom and healing. When we go brother-to-brother and sister-to-sister emptying our souls to and for them in prayer, the blanket is woven with chains. When people matter more than possessions or power the Body scabs its wounds and another step toward Shalom has been taken.

Seven days short of two years later and we're only crawling.

It was a warm March. Really warm. Low 70s. Sunny and breezy. Just beautiful. All day. For weeks. To Bloomington and back. The VW hummed. It loved those trips. Bloomington was its surrogate garage. All midwestern adventures were locus here. On that beautiful Monday, I dropped a letter in the mailbox on Carson Street. Immediately, I knew it was a bad idea. But it couldn't be taken back.

Thursday, the snow and cold and ugly came. The weather turned with the reading of the letter some 600 miles away. The cold stayed. We tromped to Michael's while the wind pushed us back. Gray snowflakes whipped around, but we found comfort in fifty cent slices and less-than-two-dollar Yuengling. April ground down, ground away. Another miserable Pirates' season was about to begin, punctuated by out of place red jerseys that no one remembers. I remember Jason Bay. He was the hope. The great Pirate Messiah. And then he wasn't. He had that great year in Boston. Did we get anything for him?

The ten dollar radio from Rite Aid crackled out game after game. Lanny's voice was a great comfort despite the outcomes. There was that job down Beck's Run Road. I couldn't tell you the town or much about it now except that it had a lot of no coat on the corners. Three rolls, I think. Dad came and helped one day. We found newspapers there from the '60 World Series. I wonder where those went.

The days, like winter, never seemed to end. I escaped to the highway over and over and over again. Settle in, friend. It'll be okay after awhile. These things take time.

norman + lorraine take a holiday at the beach

images from 22 June 2009.
styling: melissachoi.
photos: davidschrott.
the entire series here (follow norman+lorraine link): davidschrott.com

The Beautiful Highway (Thank You Dwight D. Eisenhower)

Your color is black and gold (with white trim); the perfect colour combination as anyone with any sort of intelligence knows. Most lust after women in short skirts, I desire your satin asphalt and smooth curves taken at seventy-five miles per hour.

They say that smell is the sense most tied to memory, but two nights ago those twelve ounces of Wawa coffee (coupled with free literature in the restroom) with hazelnut creamer put these thoughts back to I-70 West (circa 2006). Substitute the Zero for a Six and those fifteen miles at midnight aren't so bad. In fact, they move rather fast and soon another Six is added to the sentence.

Columbus (not Ohio). Almost home.

It's been five seasons since a pass through the 614 has been made. Damn, it's got a pretty skyline, especially in the rearview at the golden hour. Jason Lytle would be proud. He's making music again, you know, but without the Grandaddy moniker.

He was the soundtrack of October Oh-Five as the Volkswagen and I glided across the red Kansas flat-hills; this time at one hundred plus, though it only felt like fifty-five. They say the fines aren't as bad out there. We weren't worried because points don't carry over to Pennsylvania.

You know, there's a Manhattan out here too?

You don't say?

516 days ago, I left for Pittsburgh (2.17.07-8.17.08)

From a Hotel Room in Springfield, VA

Pittsburgh. Washington D.C. Richmond.

Pgh. DC. RVA.

The Interstates with odd numbers go North-South. The Interstates with even numbers go East-West.

279, 79, 70, 70/76, 70, 270, 495, 95.

327 cigarettes for the year, none on this trip, none in a long time.

On the third trip to Bloomington (East) we left early. It was the Friday after the breakup, the first Friday of that September, it was cold out, American Idiot thumped thru the speakers and the sun was yet to rise. It snuck up sometime before Exit 31 on I-70 West where we got off and found a Sheetz. The sweatpants were blue and the hoodie was Ferret. A pack of Camel Silvers, Please.

This is so disgusting. I know. Why do we do it? I don't know. Me either.

Near 312, on College Ave, at the corner of 15th there's a place called Big Red. The brews are from all over. How about Red Stripe? Sounds good. How many can we put down before the game? Who cares; Let's go.

It's 5am on Saturday morning, the 10th. Up already? Yeah, if we leave now, we can make it to Sarah's game in Pittsburgh.

There's the sun, slow down a bit, I'm gonna pop outta the sunroof and take a shot of it. Look at it, it's a pink disc, just floating... Crap, there's a cop; We were flying.... We'll never make it to Pittsburgh on time now.

Salinger kept us company on the final leg as we wound thru the soon-to-be-orange-yellow-and-red-tipped mountains of Western Pennsylvania. It was hot but as the Pink Disc continued it's west-ward nose-dive the temperature fell with it and the heater was on before dark.

Tim called. Call him back; you should go over to his house to-night....

More People Got Married

Lancaster is the Center of the Universe (1)

Finally, some new work I am amped about. Leave it to the home-land to inspire such wonder....