Where will Twitter (TWTR) close today?

5 thoughts on “Where will Twitter (TWTR) close today?”

1. Yes the market is (or was) going up. One reason is that all the money the Fed is printing did not end up in the banks' reserves for losses. Lots of it was lent out to people buying stocks on margin. Good interest made by the brokers/bankers. When the margin calls go out it will not be pretty. For sure it is not a booming economy that is making the stocks rise.

2. IPO timing seems a bit off. Market is getting over bought. Short term bound to 30's

3. Great... but what is the prize? Some kind of a T-shirt, a trading book, must have something laying around for all us poor sods who hang out around here !!??? (;

   OFF TOPIC HERE... BUT JUST FOR FUN... REMINISCES OF A STOCK OPERATOR... These are some trading thoughts and observations that I have learned over the last 30 years of trading. I hope they may help those just starting out to build a successful trading platform, part time or full. The basics have never changed.

   First off... good day my friends. (:

   Everyone should buy this little book from the 1920s... "Reminisces of a Stock Operator" by Jesse Livermore. Arguably one of the finest stock traders of all time. Fascinating reading... getting into this man's mind. Read it and read it again. That is truly what it is all about. The mindset of the trader next to you! What is he up to? What will he do next next?

   Always remember... trading is a -zero sum game-, the man next to you, or across the street is there trying to take -your- hard earned money away-. If you win, someone else loses. There is no altruism here... not in this game. When you buy a stock, someone else has decided to sell. The shares do not come out of thin air. You are expecting the stock to go up, and the seller has sold those shares, because he expects them to fall. Only one of you can be right. Sure... there are always "some" shares that are liquidated for other reasons... say sending a child to collage. But the vast majority fall under the above pretense. Always remember that... It is hard earned, fought for money that you are attempting to take away from another who made the wrong decision.

   Take your trading dead serious, keeping the above in mind, and you will make money long term. Probably lots of it. The money follows the trade, just put your focus on the correct trading principals. Religiously do your homework, learn technical analysis inside and out and all of a sudden one day you will have an epiphany. You will see events in the news fall in line like magic with the charts in front of you. You will never know truly why, but they will.

   But always remember this... You will only ever be a -Student of the Markets- nothing more. Every year in the news you will read of powerful hedge and fund manager who are liquidating their funds. The market has changed and evolved, and their current thinking just wasn't what it took. The markets are constantly in flux, changing right in front of your eyes.

   The one most important rule is to learn to take and accept and actually embrace your losses. --Quickly and constantly--. You'll make a ton of them, you always will. You have to learn to accept your losses without personal pain. Yes.. losses will always hurt, but they are often and you must accept them quickly and often. You must ask yourself.. "Ok... what did I do wrong here if anything?" Losses are a necessary part before and during the gains. Let me use this old analogy... An old adage in car sales was: "For every 50 prospects, 2 will buy." There you have it... same idea. You need all those trades coming through, before you will get aboard with the big winners. The other 48 need to be a part of the equation. Luckily the odds are nothing like that, but the example proves true.

   And don't be a loser when you're losing. That happens everyday in casino's around the world. A player loses, so he tells himself.. "I need to win this money back, right here, right now... it's my rent money." Yeah right... you all know the results of that... utter desperation. So when you having a losing streak, Oh.. and you will... slow down, make less trades, make smaller trades... if that doesn't work, stop totally for a while. Reassess everything during your "time out." Problems possibly in your job, your personal life at home, just dumb old bad luck??? All of the above??? But stop and reassess. -You cannot ever, ever lose your trading capital-. You must guard it with your life. It takes money to make money! How many times have we heard that?

   I was heavily short until yesterday morning, on my old reliable Rydex funds that I have traded with for decades. I can get in enough trouble with once or twice a day pricing. I don't need to sit there at the computer, like a slave with my bottle of Tums all day long. Always looking, checking, feeling like your pants are down around your ankles, every time you leave the office. Check the price, check the price, have you checked the price??? I could be making a trade right now !!!??? Damn toilet!!! Should have a TV in the bathroom. Everybody should have a TV in their bathroom! Why isn't a TV standard when they build a house!!!??? (;

   Right... The once or twice day pricing eliminates all that foolishness!

   I was a sport one year and took a shot at that foolishness of day trading. What a bill from my accountant at tax time with literally a pile of paper four inches thick. All the "wash rules" and on and on. Listen carefully to the next remark... The only way you can possible prosper at that game is if you are trading inside an IRA, preferably a ROTH IRA. You cannot begin to have all those hundreds of transactions taxable!

   You just really need to master one stock, and you know its every nuance. And it absolutely does pay off. But then right away, you get into all these issues with the "wash rules" from the IRS. So that doesn't work either. I think I traded about 18 million that year. I normally traded 1,000 share blocks. It is all about keeping those transaction costs down.

   Who made all the money? The brokerage house and my accountant. And all I did was chase my tail around in circles. Day after day after day. Big, economy size bottles of Tums! Oh... I think I knew what I was doing. This was no "flower child" buying a stock going up. Just the opposite... I would love the mean ugly days. I normally traded FCX. It had a nice stable pattern to its trading. I would watch the high speed tick by tick trades, and literally traded by color. When the solid red would end, during an ugly falling period, and the greens would start intermittently popping in between, it was time to get ready. Always probing for the bottom. You were often wrong, and immediately closed the trade. I'm taking trades for 15-30 seconds! But finally, finally you did have the bottom! And what excitement as often a thousand dollars or more racked up in just minutes! What a high... often my mistake was taking my profits too soon. Let your solid winners mature. And I'm hesitant to even repeat these words, but I must: ***Cut your losses short, let your profits run***. It is so basic a statement, repeated so often, but so many do just the opposite. Keep their losers, hoping they come back up, and sell their winners when they are just starting a run that could go on for a year or more. Sounds easy, but tough to do in real life.

   I bought a special new high speed Mac and a high speed Internet connection to the cutting edge speed. What was totally free in the end??? Now for a good laugh but a -very valuable tip- for all of you.... The old non HD TV in my office gives you a signal about a -second faster- than high definition. I could hear the lag from my family room TV to the TV in my office! The old TV in my office made me thousands of dollars, again and again! I had a trading edge! (:

   I would love to trade the 2:15pm FOMC meeting results. Sitting and waiting and watching and carefully listening for that -one word- from old Hampton Pearson on CNBC. You had the order all ready with your finger on the send key. Did the Feds cut rates again or stand pat? If yes, bang, you hit that key. And often the order would fill like there was no news at all on a thousand share block. Sweet.

   But the worst thing that I sadly have to report about day trading, is that I was often CHEATED. Yes cheated. Here is an example... one of many, many times. The same 2:15pm FOMC meeting, except this time, no rate cut. I was long ahead of the news (figuring a rate cut was almost a certainty) with a 1k block and simply had a AT THE MARKET sell order ready if the news was negative. Of course "at the market" is you sell immediately at the current prevailing price, no matter how low. I hit the key... but nothing happened... and I watch and I watch the live feed in horror, tick by tick... WHERE IS MY BLOCK??? I'm just going to use the words "THEY". "THEY" on purpose, held my order for about five seconds to "hang me out to dry". It was about a 1k loss. Immediately I looked up the -time and sales figures-, and sure enough there were several other trades that went through ahead of me but later in time. Yes.. I got my money back after fighting for it. But something like this really pisses you off. Wondering for the "little guy" how many times are THEY cheating them? Enough said. I was done with day trading. That was the clincher though... always having to go down and fight for what was right.

   Anyway... I watched the market this morning and more or less "yawn" at Twitter, although Twitter was very strong on the opening trade as expected. But the overall market didn't seem to want to dip into the punch bowl. So this morning I put all the shorts back on.

   You see what I'm doing? I'm taking my cup of punch, and going back and standing quietly in the corner, watching the crowd. Are they having fun, are they bored, are many leaving already? That is what I am watching. In this case, the reaction to all the hype around Twitter. You would think (although Twitter is trading on the NYSE) that all the tech stocks would be strongly higher. But what do we have? A Nasdaq down, and not just a few points either? We all know what happened with FaceBook. Am I right? Who knows? I certainly don't. We'll see... if not I'll close the trades at 3:30. No big deal. It really is that simple. I'm either right or I'm wrong. But I will keep as I say "launching probes" until I "get it right" and find the top in this market. (:

   Best of Luck to You All!!!
   Comments and questions welcome.

   Regards,
   Steve in Sebastian

4. The worst is that the NYSE and other places are more and more inclined to BE casinos.
   Otherwise explain me why there is such discrepancies between the real economy and the performances of the market place -> the casinos !!!

5. Well whatever it takes.Life is a gamble.I bought TWTR and plan to hold on for a long long time to come, I am
   aware it will go down but it will turn around for sure in the long run 'cause increase in population will make more people to twitter in the future.

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