DAYTRADING: THE Highs and the Woes
Doc Kronkite returned from his vacation. Shrinks usually take the entire month of August off. That's four weeks. Doc took seven weeks, and the gorgeous Thelma Tushbumper. Mmm.
"Doc," I cried as I entered his office Saturday morning, with my trading partner Dortmunder. Dorty was dressed of course in his three-piece Savile Row suit, his bumbershoot held firmly in his hand. It looked like a weapon.
"You went to the Caribbean. Where's your tan?" He just smirked.
"So how was your trading without me?" he demanded as I slumped onto his lumpy leather couch. "How many crises did you suffer? Dick Nixon only had SIX crises in his whole life. He was a patient of mine by the way. I straightened him out. I'm a specialist you know."
"I know doc," I said. "Actually my trading went rather well and I didn't have a single crisis." I beamed at him.
"Impossible!" he hollered.
]
"Nope. I had the best seven weeks I've ever had. I wonder
why."
He glared at Dortmunder. “He’s why. I know several camel traders who are better than you.”
Dortmunder, unflappable, smiled.
“Ten years you’ve been lying on my beautiful leather couch and you’re still a terrible trader.”
Dortmunder, who had an I.Q of 187 and was a real master trader now showed the beginnings of a scowl.
Dorty and the doc were not the best of friends. Actually they detested each other. I was sure they would come to blows.
“ Are you still buying the stocks that Mendelbaum the Fund Manager recommends?” asked Dorty in his clipped British accent.
Now the doc scowled.
“You remember Meldebaum of course; the fellow who put you into EMC at $55 and convinced you to average down to 10. “You’ll reduce your average cost,” he told you. “It’s a proven tactic that I invented,” he insisted.
”He did the same with YHOO, AMZN and a bucket of others, telling you that the bull market was just starting.”
The doc whipped a paperweight at Dorty. Missed by three feet. Dorty handed his bumbershoot to me. Slowly, calmly, he reached into his pocket, took out a banana. He peeled it properly and threw a Pedro Martinez-like fastball down the pipe. A 95 mph strike that hit the doc on the nose. Splat.
I thought the doc would strangle Dortmunder. Instead he calmly took his monogrammed hanky from his breast pocket and with dignity and much aplomb, cleared his face.
“I’ve been following Zeev’s thread,” he said. “Some interesting posts,” said the Doc.
“Indeed.” I replied.
“Yes,” said Kronkite, rather stridently. “Seems like we’re still in a bear market. Watch Out Below is my motto.
“So you’re shorting ‘em,” interjected Dortmunder.
“Short? What means short?” asked the doc.
Gee, we had a dialogue going. Maybe it wouldn’t come to a schoolyard brawl. My spirits soared.
“One shorts a stock if one feels it’s headed lower. Then he buys it back.”
“Impossible!” said the doc.
“Actually it’s quite possible,” said Dorty.
“When was this shorting thing invented?” asked the doc.
“It’s been around since stocks were first traded under the Buttonwood tree.”
“Never heard of a Buttonwood Tree,” the doc said.
“Could you teach me how do do this shorting thing?” he asked.
Dortmunder looked at me. This was the last thing he wanted to do. I shrugged, gave him a “please do it” look since the doc was my shrink and I was smitten with the lovely Miss Tushbumper.
“As a special favor to you and Kramer of course, I shall teach you how to go short when it’s appropriate,” Dorty said.
The doc beamed. “Now maybe I recover some of those losses that bum Mendelbaum the fund manager caused me.”
The door opened and the vivaciously endowed Miss Tushbumper entered. My heart raced, my knees shook.
“Your eight o’clock appointment is here doctor,” she said in that soft, whisky-throated voice.
I left, most reluctantly.
Lee Kramer
Copyright Sept. 28, 2003 |
