An e-mail from Arlen

An e-mail from Arlen Specter's campaign manager Thursday morning caught me off-guard: "fyi...we sent this to our press list last night..." What Christopher Nicholas was alluding to was my recent blog post about Rep. Joe Sestak's campaign payroll. A few hours later, the Philadelphia Inquirer and PoliticsPA.com had contacted me asking to elaborate on my post. I politely declined, saying I would let the blog speak for itself. This was not the way I planned to get publicity for a blog about unemployment.

Forwarding my post to the statewide media seems like typical political gamesmanship, but it doesn't change the fact millions of Americans are out of work. Although Sestak's payroll problem should be a part of the debate, it still diverts the discussion from more important issues.

About a year ago, Specter changed political parties as unfavorable poll numbers pounded him following his vote on the stimulus. He figured he could cruise to re-election as a Democrat with support from President Obama. Unfortunately, the rest of us living down here in the real world don't have the same connections to keep our jobs.

But can a leopard change his spots so quickly? After all, it was Specter who supported many of the disastrous decisions by the Bush Administration that led to this savage recession. From politicians to greedy CEOs, why is it that the people who make decisions that adversely affect the rest of us are never punished for poor judgment? It seems self-preservation is more important than principle.

The 15 million Americans without a job today did not have that same luxury as Specter to switch party registration to keep a job. Hopefully he'll realize that and focus on the millions of people struggling through this recession, even if it costs him his job in the end.

Shhhhhhhh Quiet!

Quietness ahead of Friday's numbers continues. There are great expectations for the numbers so I'm sure we'll be disappointed or surprised. I think this is a number not to trade through for Kiki and me. It has been said that the purpose of the market is to do as much damage as quickly as possible to the most traders. I don't know if I agree with that, but a look at all our trading plans on what to do in these circumstances is certainly worthwhile. There's an expression in the UK: "belts and braces" or "belts and suspenders" if you speak American English. Take double care is the translation. I am.

Trade 1 was one I'm not sure I would have taken without being able to look inside the bar with MarketDelta. These drifting markets can fake me out easily.

Trade 2 was a trade I would normally have taken 2 bars before. Belts and braces.

It was just a hit and run with taking full profits at what is usually the first scale.

You may see variations in my settings on charts. I fiddle with them while I trade to get another view and sometimes I don't set them back when I take the screenshot. The original settings are what I use to trade but have a closer look with lower settings from time to time.

Click to enlarge

New domain, same great site

The Bread Line Blog now has a new domain name. It might have been all the GoDaddy.com commercials with Danica Patrick (or maybe it was her DNF at Las Vegas) but this blog can now be found at www.thebreadlineblog.com. The original blogspot hyperlink will still work, but this should offer fewer taps at the keyboard.

I have been amazed by the positive -- and sometimes negative -- responses to this blog over the past eight months. It has offered me an opportunity to reach out to other unfortunate victims of this recession, while also receiving great advice from people who lost a job years ago. Thanks again for reading and responding to my often mindless rants.

Does Lower Volatility = Lower Earnings?

Today was another fairly quiet day. Volatility is a bit lower and I increased my usual size to fit the volatility to maintain my earnings. I look at how long it takes to form a range bar as a test of volatility. Other bar types can reveal this info by their ATR (average true range) but range bars need to be timed. Some packages have indicators floating around that do this. MarketDelta can be programmed to do the same but I haven't bothered as I have a sense of it.

Kiki is thinking how she will adjust to this lower volatility. If it only lasts for a short time it doesn't really matter. If it lasts longer, you will notice a drop in earnings if you keep the same size and are used to scaling out. Those who only want to take the first scale, all in and all out, will not notice except there may be fewer trades.

Trades for today:

 Click to enlarge

Practice what you preach

The Pennsylvania senate race is getting heated, especially after Sen. Arlen Specter lobbed a bomb at challenger Joe Sestak over how much he pays his staffers. Sestak, a congressman from suburban Philadelphia, fought to increase the minimum wage in 2007, yet story after story is coming out about how he paid 10 of his 16 campaign staffers less than the required $7.25 an hour. And I was one of them.

While spending only one month on the campaign, I was paid a total of $550. Hardly enough money for anyone to live on, but I figured it would be a good opportunity to broaden my skills and build my resume while looking for a job. Before accepting the offer, I calculated the hourly wage and found that I would earn $3.18 per hour. What's more, you rarely work just 40 hours per week in a campaign, so in actuality, I was making roughly $1.60 per hour. That's insanity. And it's partly the reason why many good political minds have left his campaign.

After that first month in October, the campaign wanted me to move east to work out of their Philadelphia headquarters. That would be nearly impossible with my life and a house rooted in suburban Pittsburgh. So I countered with a substantial, but fair, salary offer that I thought equaled my level of experience. They flatly rejected it. I flatly quit.

Some say Specter's claim shows he is bankrupt of good policy debates, but I think this argument is very important. How can the Democratic Party nominate a person like Sestak for U.S. Senate when he doesn't even abide by the laws he helped form? I don't have an ax to grind with Sestak, but I would advise him to pay his people what they're worth or expect a blowout in the May primary.

Today's Trades

 

 

Back in the Saddle

Re-entry day after not trading for a few is always a bit difficult as the focus does not come automatically and I have to keep kicking myself so my mind doesn't wander.

The trade of the day was the buy off the top of Friday's RTH Market Profile. Smarter men than I recognised it as the possible low of the day and are probably still long some contracts as I write. But that isn't my style or methodology.