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• Financial Reform Farce
  Posted by Leigh Drogen on June 24th, 2010 at 9:41 am, Comments: 0

  So the Volcker rule is officially dead as of today, what a surprise.  As for the rest of the financial reform package that is in its last hours of debate, it’s a complete farce.  I won’t go through every aspect here, but just understand this.  The reform does not in any way address the idea [...]

• Long The Long Bond
  Posted by Leigh Drogen on June 22nd, 2010 at 3:52 pm, Comments: 0

  I bought 25% of my book in TLT today at 97.96.  Although that sounds like a lot, the risk is extremely low as the trade would have cost me less than .4% of total account values had it gone against me and stopped me out, it’s a slow moving asset. The long bond is breaking [...]

• Strategy Session: Dip Your Toe to Feel the Water
  Posted by Leigh Drogen on June 21st, 2010 at 5:06 pm, Comments: 0

  I’ve talked at length here over the past few weeks about how I’ve been largely paralyzed at my desk, unable to pull the trigger on the long side.  I had a great  Febrary-May, just about as good as I could have expected myself to trade.  I put on risk when it was appropriate, took it off when [...]

• It’s All About China Now, Get Used To It
  Posted by Leigh Drogen on June 21st, 2010 at 3:53 pm, Comments: 0

  We better get used to trading in a market that’s all about China because it ain’t going away any time soon.  Frankly, we’ve been trading in that market since July of 2008 when the Chinese central bankers put an end to the appreciation in the Yuan and crushed the commodity complex to prevent run away [...]

• Momentum Book Update
  Posted by Leigh Drogen on June 20th, 2010 at 1:38 pm, Comments: 0

  I gave back a lot of alpha this week as the market surged without me, about 240 basis points worth.  Instead of chasing the market higher as it became extended, I sat back and watched. The nice part about having built a large lead on the market is that you don’t have to freak out [...]

• Market Thoughts
  Posted by Leigh Drogen on June 18th, 2010 at 10:48 am, Comments: 0

  A few thoughts here as we approach mid day.  I’m starting to see A LOT of good setups cross my screens, but a lot of stuff is also way too extended short term to jump in here, along with the market as a whole, I will not buy things en force while those oscillators and [...]

• Asleep At The Screen
  Posted by Leigh Drogen on June 16th, 2010 at 5:41 pm, Comments: 0

  If you’ve been keeping up with this blog on a daily basis the past few weeks, you should have made some pretty good coin on the long side.  Last Friday I outlines a laundry list of things that I wanted to see happen to get me bullish and in this market.  They were all achieved. [...]

• Overbought Oscillators and the Deflation Debate
  Posted by Leigh Drogen on June 15th, 2010 at 11:15 pm, Comments: 0

  I’ve completely missed the rally that’s gone on the past week or so off the bottom.  The setups were there, I didn’t take them.  In fact I actually lost a little bit of money today getting stopped out of my long in VVUS.  A lot of strong stocks are breaking out now, I like the [...]

• Patience….
  Posted by Leigh Drogen on June 14th, 2010 at 5:52 pm, Comments: 0

• Blood, Treasure, and Honor
  Posted by Leigh Drogen on June 14th, 2010 at 2:53 pm, Comments: 0

  Ahhhh, and the plot thickens in Afghanistan.  Readers of this blog know my stance on Afghanistan, I have written about it extensively here, so there is no need to rehash my views, go back and read them.  Let me just put a disclaimer out there before we get into this, because I think it’s important. [...]