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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dealer who wrote (59479)	10/27/2003 4:52:51 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 65232

Hi Dealer, Sorry for the lengthy delay in responding. I've been away from SI for a spell. I actually got to spend a few days away from home last week too ;-) Regarding your question on Max Pain near expiration; I have not extensively tested it to draw any solid conclusions. I have found often enough that Max Pain at expiration (+/- 3 or 4 days) seems to not be a good indicator of price or direction for the following month to not pay close attention to it at that time. I've also not used Max Pain much in recent months as many stocks have gone far from Max Pain prices the week or two prior to expiration (mostly higher & against the trend of being drawn close to it). I'm not sure if this is an aberration from a long term trend, a divergence due to a rising market with too many bears looking for down, or a loss of predictability of Max Pain due to a growing number of folks using it's past trends & the market causing the most pain to the largest number of people (or some other possible reason). In any event, I'm not giving much weight to Max Pain at any point in time for now. I still look at certain equities & the QQQ's to see if any reliable trends seem to be forming again. I will keep a healthy skepticism about it as long as it remains a popular tool for a large number of traders, as I now do for any other popular trend followed by lots of folks. And thanks for the kind words. I think I'm less stoic about what's happening to me than my posts reveal. Going from a life of being a very active person, both at work & in my personal life to being nearly a cripple with chronic pain has been very hard to accept. Thankfully, there is an inner self that somehow seems to push aside the morose & anger filled disposition that frequently clouds my thoughts. Somehow I simply don't like to be sullen or filled with anger or self-pity. That inner self will work it's way in after a nap or a good night's sleep & I'll begin to feel like my old self even when a walk to the bathroom is an agonizing trip. For that I am grateful. The fact that I have a wonderful wife who has been my rock to lean on through all of this certainly has made this trying experience much easier to bear. I don't know what I would do without her. As an FYI, in the last hour I received the results of my MRI on my lower back. Although my Physiatrist has not seen the film, she gave the results of the report. It shows no problems with my disks or vertebrae in my lower back. I guess that's good news. The bad news is that I still have severe pain 24/7. She thinks that I may have muscle/tendon/soft tissue inflammation, which she indicated might be a non-degenerative arthritic condition. Or not. She simply does not know what it is with any confidence. Strange how this "condition" suddenly appeared approximately 14 hours after knee surgery. That just boggles my mind. My physiatrist has no explanation or diagnosis for my Achilles tendon problem. Sooooooo, I will have to go back to the orthopedic surgeon & see what he has to say. The lump is still there & I can't walk without pain precisely where the lump on the tendon is. Although I am less mobile now than before the knee surgery & I'm in considerably more pain, my knee is slowly improving. My knee rehab is way behind schedule since something so benign as walking is an excruciatingly painful event now. However, I still make it to the Y for my rehab that is 100% self care, self monitored & self paid. The walk from my car to the locker room, then to the pool is only a few hundred feet. By the time I get in the pool, the pain is so bad I can hardly take another step. Amazingly, after 45 minutes in the pool doing my thing, plus 15 minutes in the whirlpool I am almost pain free....... that usually lasts until I get back to my car or when I get home & make my way up the stairs...... but those precious few minutes free from pain make it worth the trip. I'm amazed that after surgery for a 3+ yr old extensive meniscus tear that resulted in crippling lower back pain immediately after surgery (add to that the Achilles tendon problem a month later, that most likely was a result of the severe limping from the surgery & lower back pain); that those pencil pushers who run our health insurance would approve only 4 weeks of physical therapy & absolutely nothing more. One would think that 4+ months after surgery with my physical condition worsening steadily, that they would realize that they were pounding a square peg over a round hole by now. Ahhh, but it's about money & profits after all..... not the health & well-being of human beings, isn't it? OOF