Brandon Fredrickson

Our Mutual Friend Has Passed Away

2009-01-22T14:28:00.000-08:00

I've been recently made aware of the death of our mutual friend Common Sense. The wake, held in Minnesota, was not well attended because it turns out that a bus does not run well on gel.

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Minnesota now requires that all diesel run on a 2% biodeisel blend. This is a great idea except that it gets cold in Minnesota, and when it gets cold biodesil turns to GEL. Turns out, the engines on school buses wont run on gel, imagine that!

So because the buses wont run on gel when it gets cold in Minnesota several Minnesota school districts had to cancel classes. Can't start the buses, kids can't get to school if you can believe that. But, that's not actually the worst part. School nurses had to treat several children for hypothermia because they got stranded on buses who's heaters wouldn't run since the engines don't run on gel! Imagine that!

So the solution they have come up with in Minnesota is to let the buses idil. Yep, you know, run them 24/7 and use more of those evil fossil fuels that they are so bad for us that we should let our children become hypothermic and miss class.

The lawmakers in Minnesota think that this JEL is such a good idea, that they plan to eventually require all diesel sold in Minnesota to run on twnety percent blend! Yep, JENIOUS!!! With a friggin J!

Brandon

Please note that this blog will be shuttin down as I open up my new home to you all at www.ifiredwallstreet.com

New Blog

2009-01-22T09:08:00.000-08:00

Well I'm very excited and I have some great news to share with you all. I'm about to start a totally new chapter in my life, and I really can't wait.

If any of you who fought the cancer beast and beaten it, or have a family member who has, you know the effects the disease and the treatments of the disease has on your body.

In my own case I went a healthy 165lbs down to 118lbs at my worst point. I also lost a lot of hair (which is ok since I keep it short anyway), my teeth and my finger nails and toe nails fell off too. Pretty sick to look at really.

I also ended up getting flesh eating bacteria in my hip and leg as a complication of a surgery I had this summer. That was actually the closest that I ever came to dying, I was in the ICU and the doctors told my family that I was being kept as comfortable as possible but they did not have much hope for me over the next 24 hours.

Well, as both of my older brothers can attest to, I'm nothing if not fiesty and I beat that off too. Ended up spending 93 days in the hospital, all of it in Isolation because I was a danger to the other patients.

I never had my empathy for people in prison before, but I think now I can feel a little bit of the madness that such isolation causes..it aint good!

Well, some good did come out of it because the concept for my new site started to work out in my head during that time. I also did a lot of research to figure out what I need to do in order to get back on the net, help you make money, and do it right!

I'm real excited about the new site because I think that so much good can come out of it. All you need to do is look around and you can see that Wall Street and Washingon care a heck of a lot more about their own power and money then they do about us. There are a lot of surgeons I found who would cut a hole through your stomach to get to your wallet, and the guys on Wall Street and in DC are even worse!

If you want to have a secure future, your pretty much on your own to reach out and grab it! And that is where my new site, http://www.ifiredwallstreet.com is going to come in.

I've been helping traders out since 1998, and that help is needed now more then it's ever been needed before!

I Fired Wall Street though is not going to be just about making money and securing our own futures. A big part of the reason I started it was to help others who need our help.

With that in mind my goal with I fired Wall Street is going to be to raiase $100,000 over the next 18 months for St. Jude's Children's Hospital and the Wounded Warriors Project. I will do that by offering huge discounts to those of you who donate money to either of those groups. For example, my normal hourly rate for coaching and mentoring is $500, but right now if you donate $100 to either of these charities and send me the confirmation I will work with you for only $200.

That $200 will go along ways though, because not only do I gaurantee that you will mkae your investment back with a ONE YEAR MONEY BACK PROMISE, but I also will be donating $50 from each client to which ever charity, St Jude's or Wounded Warriors, that you would like me to donate it too. So, you will invest $300 in your own future, helping yourself in ways that you probably can not even imagine right now, and fully ONE HALF of that money will go to the Wounded Warriors.

In addition to offering you opportunities to save money by helping those in need I will donate $10 out of every $100 from I Fired Wall Street's Net Profits each month. You really can't go wrong since your going to be helping yourself and your family out by learning how to pull profits out of the stock market week after week, and your going to be helping those less fortunate who desperatly need the help.

Brandon

PS. Visit the new blog at http://ifiredwallstreet.blogspot.com/ and check out the new site too, http://www.ifiredwallstreet.com The site itself is not fully fuctional yet, but you can get a basic idea of what's going to be going on.

The Village Idiot

2009-01-13T10:04:00.000-08:00

Is it just me or is it starting to seem like the only people who go to Washtingon are those who had the application to be village idiot turned down? I mean seriously could there be a group of bigger floggin idiots?

Brandon

PS. I'm getting one of those fancy pants website things put up here over the next couple days and it's actually been a rather entertaining process.

Who's Gonna Bail America Out?

2009-01-10T22:13:00.001-08:00

The Jenious! of the Fed

2009-01-10T21:36:00.001-08:00

PLEASE Watch this

2009-01-10T21:28:00.000-08:00

I.O.U.S.A. – the 30-Minute Version from IOUSA the Movie on Vimeo.

AAPL Update

2009-01-02T03:43:00.000-08:00

AAPL continues to look very nice as a short, and I am considering adding to the position should it break below $84.50 per share. The stock continues to show relative weakness versus the overall market as there have been a lot of concerns about Steve Jobs. This is obviously something to keep an eye on as any news on Jobs is likely to have a huge impact on the stock. Over the last couple of days the volatility has just totally come out of this stock. Volatility always reverts to it's mean..simply what this means for us is that periods of very low volatility will be often followed by periods of high volatility, periods of very high volatility likewise will often be followed by periods of low volatility as the market works back to it's averages. This volatility cycle can be very profitable if you understand it, sadly most traders don't and they end up running around like my cat Nina when she's chasing her tail. In the end your tired and dizzy, but you did not get what you wanted.

In any event keep a close eye on AAPL. I currently have a small short position on that was opened last week, this will be an add on to that trade.

Here's to 2009!!

remote

2008-12-31T15:23:00.000-08:00

Kinda cool..This is the most remote but populated place on all of the earth. http://tinyurl.com/7k7amu

INSU, stock of the week

2008-12-29T06:21:00.000-08:00

The real secret

2008-12-29T06:14:00.000-08:00

The biggest secret that the guru's are hiding from you is simple: YOU DONT NEED THEM. I'd guess that seven out of ten time's you could eventually make money without them. You don't have to buy the latest indicator that will only be sold to 500 lucky souls for $1000, or the newest $15,000 one week mentoring program. In fact, the secret to your trading success is probably sitting on your desktop right now.

It's called a trading diary. If your not keeping one your not going to be successful. I'd venture a guess to say that 99% of people who do not keep a trading journal or log are not profitable, or if they are it is barely. Those who do manage to profit without one could see huge improvements in results simply by learning to keep one.

You see the biggest thing in trading is not learning this new thing or that new thing. It's about improvements. It's about doing the things that you do well, and staying away from those things that your not so good at. It's about making your strong points matter even more, and your weakest points matter even less. If you can simply do that, your going to make a lot of money. Let me give you a few examples.

Back when I was day trading every day I averaged about $1400. One evening I was looking very closely at all the data in my trading notebook and I made a very important discovery. I found that between 10:30am and 1:15pm CST, basically over lunch, on a typical day I would lose $350. Well, the solution to this problem was fairly simple, and the impact felt right away. I stopped trading between 10:30 and 1:15, and immediatly I was given a "raise". Three hundred and fifty dollars by itself might not sound like a huge number, but it adds up to a little over $85,000 per year. I actually got paid to do nothing! I never would have known that if I did not keep a log of my trades.

I also discovered that on days with a Fed announcement I lost, on average, about $3000. Again the solution was very simple: I stopped trading the Fed and almost immediatly was given a "raise" of about $12,000 per year. Pretty cool, I found two specific times that I should walk away and do nothing, and as a result I just "discovered" nearly $100,000 extra per year. I don't know about you, but to me that seems almost like free money.

These are just two examples out of many that I was able to use myself to increase my own success. I know for a fact that I would have never made it without my journal, and all it takes is a little effort in keeping it. I'll do another report later on exactly how to keep one.

Here are a couple more examples. A former student of mine Moe in Queens, NY discovered that in the first 15 minutes of the day, on average, he lost $500 and over the course of the rest of the day he made, on average, $350. Can you see how powerful of an impact not trading the first 15 minutes of the day had for Moe? It was the literal difference between success and failure, between paying the bills and keeping his "real job".

Again these are just a few examples, and I'm sure that many of you who do keep a trading diary can share your own. If I could point to one thing though that has been accountable for my success it would probably be a simple notebook. Start to keep that journal, because as I said I can state with near certainty that if your not keeping one, your not making money. If you are making money without keeping one, your not making nearly as much as you could be, I can say that with 100% positivity.

Good trading.

Things are different this time?

2008-12-27T14:23:00.000-08:00

Yep, they are! China is taking over the world, they have so many people they are obviously immune to the problems of global trade and slowdown. Do you remember just 6 to 9 months ago when that seemed to be the mantra of the "smart money"? Funny how things change. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7733499.stm

A critical life lesson

2008-12-26T10:08:00.001-08:00

I nearly had to die to learn this. One of the most terrible feelings in the world is to arrive at a long sought after financial goal and find that it pretty much doesnt mean anything. You go on the next day just as you had the day before. So many people think that they want the big house, the ferrari, the million $$ trading account and spare cash in the bank. They don't want any of those things in reality, rather they want the feelings they associate with those things. The thing is, if you can ID the feelings and find legit ways to generate them then the financial stuff comes pretty easily.

The Bernie Madoff Home Game is here!

2008-12-26T09:16:00.000-08:00

http://www.suitablyflip.com/suitably_flip/2008/12/the-bernie-madoff-home-game.html

$$$$ Days of Christmas

2008-12-25T20:03:00.000-08:00

As you might know I've been out of the trading educatioin world for some time due to illness. I wanted to come back wtih a splash and I think that the Christmas gift did just that. While the last is small (58members)the content is great. You would find any guru parting with anything even close for less then $1000, and that's assuming they have it. My best friend in the industry, a guy who's gut I usually trust told me it could easily have gone for $1000, but ohhhh no..father christmas put the funny sauce in my juice this morning and so I gave away a bunch of killer content for free. We will be keeping it up for the rest of the week and then it must be removed, but I hope you sure do enjoy it while its out there.

Little things big results

2008-12-23T09:09:00.000-08:00

Often it's small things that can have large effects on our bottom line. Here is an example which uses a trade I'm currently in. I shorted AAPL earlier this morning and stopped out, later it gave another entry and so I am now short AAPL again, this time from $86.80. My risk is $1.25 on this trade, and I see a strong area of support at $85 per share and then again around $80.00 per share. This type of setup has about a 50% chance (slightly less) of being profitable, but given the very favorable reward potential versus the risk potential this is a trade I would take all day long. My plan will be to take 25% of the gain off the table when/if AAPL reaches $85 per share, at that point I will adjust my stop out point to breakeven or better. The balance of the trade I will be taking off if it hits $80.00 per share. Lets look at how taking off some shares at $85 effects my outcome. I'm going to take 25% off if it hits that point. Assuming that the trade works out and goes to $80.00 I will make an average profit of $5.55 per share, or about 4 1/4 times more then my initial risk. Let's assume though that instead of taking off 25% at $85 my plan is to take 50% off. At that point making all of the same assumptions my average gain on the trade is reduced to $4.25 at closing, or about 3 1/4 times my initial risk. Still not bad, but not nearly as good.
The point of this post is not a discussion of "partialing", which is a subject half a book could be written about. It's not to suggest that you should take 1/2, 1/4, 1/3 or none off at these partialing areas, but simply to make you aware of the very real effect on your bottom line the choice you make has. Too many people do this randomly and decide in the heat of the moment how much to take off, this should not be done. Know in advance what your going to do.

wow

2008-12-23T04:47:00.000-08:00

http://tinyurl.com/a5amxh Investors in Madoff's fund who withdrew cash may be held liable for any gains or principle they removed and have to return it. This is very scare because it means if you had been a potential victim of a fraud, but for some reason had gotten your money out of there early you could now be held liable for that money. What happens if you have spent it? What if it's been put into another investment that has lost money? To me it does not look like the government cares (imagine that!). http://tinyurl.com/a5amxh A very scary story. Have a read.

Want a $1million + Net Worth? Watch this.

2008-12-22T08:20:00.000-08:00

http://www.hulu.com/watch/46487/the-david-susskind-show-how-to-become-a-millionaire#s-p1-so-i0

Dec 22nd Market Commentary

2008-12-22T04:26:00.001-08:00

So my sister got me one of those Easybuttons from Staples and I decided that I would give it a try this weekend. I decided that I was not going to do much, I'd rely on that Easybutton instead, and I'm sad to report nothing got done. Begads! Foiled again in my attempts to make something from while putting in nothing.

I wish there was an easy button, in the stock market and in life- but there just is not. So many traders, it seems, want to find that Easybutton were someone else does the work, but they keep the profits and can tell friends how much money they are taking "out of the market". These people tend to move from one expensive system to the next, from one newsletter to the next and one course to the next, always convinced that EasyMoney is just around the corner and that knowledge, experience and hard work in the stock market can be purchased for $5000, or $1000 or $500 or 3 easy installments of $19.95. Well, this weekend the easybutton didn't work for me, and even though its a nice fantasy to have, there is no easy button, either in life or the stock market. You simply have to put in the time to get the desired result.

Volume was much higher across the board on Friday with quadruple witching. The major indexes continued to have resistance in the area of the 50 day moving average on Friday as concerns about the rally build.
The amount of time that the indexes have spent under the moving average without being able to break higher is for me starting to be cause for concern. I have closed my long trade in the QQQQ and have now started to focus more on relative weakness setups instead of buying opportunities.

They were not very hard to find this weekend with a number of stocks showing poor strength over the last few weeks as the market rallied. Tip: Stocks that do not rally with the major indexes during a rally are often the names that see the largest declines when the market turns negative.

Names showing relative weakness include AAPL, MSFT, BA, BAC, IP, BNI and many others. On the upside about the only setup I found remotely interesting was in TSYS.

If you have any comments or questions please feel free to contact me.

A very good video

2008-12-21T21:16:00.000-08:00

http://thebullzandbearz.blogspot.com/

Do you want to become a millionare?

2008-12-20T21:36:00.001-08:00

This is a pretty interesting show, an episode from the David Susskind show on "How to become a millionare". This was back in 1983ish when a million dollars still was meaningful and the people who had a networth above $1million were pretty special, few and far between. Check it out. http://www.hulu.com/watch/46487/the...aire#s-p1-so-i0

The proof that they have been jacking off at the SEC all this time!

2008-12-20T08:00:00.001-08:00

Finally proof that those at the SEC have been jerking off on the job! http://tinyurl.com/4zljs5

This recession cant be real, I mean Web 2.0 is getting traffic...who needs profits????

2008-12-20T06:57:00.003-08:00

And who gives a damn if they can't make a profit no matter what. That's hardly the point, I mean the govt might just turn the printing presses on and do a Web 2.0 bailout. How can there be a recession when people keep going to free sites like crazy and those sites can't make any money! Obviously this is all fake. Guys like stocky have been right all along. What the hell are we thinking? Ok..well....maybe not.

Digg, one of the lead darlings of the Web 2.0 movement just released its financials. Horrible http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/12/diggs-miserable-business

I really don't know what the hell is up with these people that they can't turn a profit with all the traffic they have, and the new technology etc...but they obviously don't. Web 2.0 is not a fad, it is the future of the Web and anyone who has a business and is not using Web 2.0 is going to be left behind, but these companies seem to be run by a Jenious with a capital J.

wealth and happyness

2008-12-18T22:12:00.000-08:00

Wealth and happyness really have nothing to do with money. All the studies prove that once you have about 50K a year no amount of extra money will make you happier. Happyness and wealth is having that thing that you want.Why do you want money? a big house? etc? It represents something to you, a feeling..and thats what you want. That is wealth. I plan on pontificating much more on this point later. It's been the biggest lesson of cancer.

also, im going to remove this stupid pop under thing. It's driving me nuts, but i have to figure out how.

Very interesting take on web 2.0

2008-12-17T16:19:00.000-08:00

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/148141/Social-Networking-by-the-Billion?tickers=yhoo,ebay,%5Eixic,nws

Very interesting interview with one of the founders of Chinese Social Networking site FaceKoo about the future of social networking and how they are driving sales with Web 2.0

A new years message (early)

2008-12-17T09:02:00.000-08:00

Someone much wiser than me once said you can have anything you want in this life provided that you are truly willing to pay for it, but the price is rarely paid in dollars and cents.
With this being the New Year many people are taking stock of themselves and their lives. One of the things that I think everyone who wants to be successful should do is write down specifically what you would like to accomplish. Now you have to take it a few steps further. Identify how you are going to get their. What tools do you currently have at your disposal and how can you employ them to further yourself. What obstacles are standing in your way, and what must you do to overcome them? Very clearly in your minds eye see for yourself the success that you want to have, create it.
You will find this worth the effort.
For me it has been! When I was a young man dreaming of a better life for myself I could have never imagined the highs and lows I have gone through. But, along the way there have been losses along with the gains. I have lost friends because their lifestyles and goals did not mesh well with the ones I had for myself. I have lost social time with other friends and with my family. So, it is important for each person to look at what you truly want to become, and then honestly look at the price and decide if you can pay it. If you find that you can the journey will be long and hard, but in the end I think it is also wonderful. If you look at the cost of success in this business though and find that it is one you do not want to pay then I would urge you to stop. I know far too many people that look back on the time they spent trading and do not have happy memories, they look back on lost money, lost relationships and lost time. Time is something I have learned (the hard way) over the last few years is something very precious, it is one of very few resources that can never be replaced once lost.
I hope this post makes you think. Not just about your trading, but about life as we head into the new year. I plan to greatly expand upon it later, maybe even with a few videos. Taking this idea from start to finish has really been, for me, one of the most powerful things I have done for myself.