A couple trader’s thoughts of the day

First trader’s thought of the day — If there ever were a day to do it, today is the day to go buy a lottery ticket. Seriously, why would you buy the lottery ticket when EVERYBODY else is?

Winning a lottery, whatever its size is the key, right? Not whether the lottery’s going to pay $15 million instead of $105 million instead of $500 million off a lottery ticket, right? You paid $1 for the ticket? These people who spent $1000 or more buying lottery tickets on Friday should have waited til today and then go waste, er, spend that $1000 on the same lottery tickets. Bet you’d have a much better chance of winning a decent chunk of change now than you did when everybody else was buying tickets last week, no?  Contrarianism is a way of life. All that said, let me repeat — I HAVE NEVER IN MY LIFE BOUGHT A LOTTERY TICKET AND PROBABLY NEVER WILL. I’d rather buy some assets, even if that asset is a Snickers bar, with my dollar.

Second trader’s thought of the day — you guys know that I’ve pointed out my “dislocation warnings at the top” indicator in the past. That is, when a market/stock/asset class has been on a huge, long-term rally and then spikes up and then, most importantly in this case, starts to make daily 2-5% moves up and down — well, that’s a bearish indicator and one that makes me worried about a top being put in. You see Apple up 2-3% and then down 2-3% for the last week or so? Something to pay attention to, though I’m obviously not freaking out and running for the hills yet with Apple remaining one of my largest positions. I have trimmed it down since we got to $600 though, and I would suggest you consider doing the same, especially on one of these up days, like today.

There are some things that you can’t do with being a part of the crowd.

Цекало и Puttin` отожгли на Воробьевых горах (Putting on the Ritz Wedding Reception Flash Mob in Moscow)

Trading and investing is not one of those things.

Back later with my latest positions.