Dirty Work

Today's P&L: GBP 450.00

Today's Booze: One two litre bottle of dry cider

Today's Soundtrack: Random

More relatively listless trading. Made a quick buck shorting the S&P500 early in the morning and then couldn't really be bothered to trade more. I seem to have lost the greed element required to become a serious trader. If you think about it, making four hundred and fifty pounds after tax for one day isn't that bad a wage, ok it isn't like the good old days, but then I ultimately ended up losing everything when I overextended myself. I remember one day when I was living in Bangkok and I had called the market right, so I had booked a profit of about eight thousand US dollars in roughly an hour of London time trade. That's about nine pm Thai time So I sent a fax asking to transfer five thousand dollars to my bank account and decided to go out and spend the five thousand in one night. It proved a lot harder than I thought and I got back to my hotel two days later with about two thousand left.

I suppose I lived a rather gratuitous lifestyle then and really as someone who had already seen the worst of the slums in Asia, West Africa and South America I should have known better. I was a product of my environment however, and I earned the money i spent so recklessly. I haven't had a regular pay check since I was twenty seven, in my mind, I could have called the market wrong and lost ten thousand dollars just as easily. People like me inhabit a sort of murky, gray area where you take your chances to survive. You would be surprised how many people gamble for a living or end up in some shady cash in hand business. I could have just as easily ended up a thief or a leg-breaker. I suppose if I was female I could have ended up as a hooker or "exotic dancer". I just did what I knew how to do, I often think it would be nice though to have the security of a regular salary and a pension, to be able to obtain credit rather than having to buy things in cash. I have several credit cards but they are all pay as you go, I pay a premium to use them and fill them up to their five or ten thousand pound limits regularly but they do give me the illusion of respectability. Its easier paying for a first class flight to Singapore with a pay as you go Mastercard than in cash.

So, anyway, I am not giving the markets my full attention. I remain convinced that Euro has plenty of room to fall and have a target sell price of one point twenty four and would look to take profits around one twenty. As for the S&P500, I like trading this contract and think it is overvalued, I would like to see it drop to about nine hundred and fifty.

Today I was listening to Random pop music, the top five on my playlist:

Johnny Come Home - I love the Fine Young Cannibals, and this is one of their best. Obviously it means a lot to me because of the whole running away thing. "Johnny, we're sorry. Use the phone, call your mum - she's missing you badly, missing her son. Who do you know, where will you stay? Big city life is not what they say.Johnny we're sorry won't you come on home? . . ." Of course I didn't run from home - I didn't have a choice but I will never forget that cold morning in Tilbury Docks when we all agreed to separate for a while but, knew we would meet up again. And anyway, it didn't work out that bad, although I bet if you ask my parents they would wish I hadn't quite embraced my freedom so easily.

Echo Beach - Metro Music, could I be any more eighties? Where is Echo Beach? It is some kind of Shangri-La. We all hope it exists, sometimes we even think we have found it. This song holds out the hope for finding it but also reminds us of the banality of life. "From nine till five I have to spend my time at work, the job is very boring, I'm an office clerk, the only thing that helps pass the time away, is knowing I'll be back at Echo Beach some day".

Ready Or Not - The Fugees, anyone remember how big this record was when it first came out? I am not really one of these guys who pretends to be into the latest big thing. I am fairly Catholic on my tastes. Anyway I am still a victim of the eighties which was when I grew up, I do like a good song though and while I would lay odds you will never see me with dreadlocks, I have pretty diverse musical tastes.

White Flag - I am well aware that a straight male admitting to liking Dido may as well put on a dress and complain about period pains but I like this song. I like the video even more as the whole her and David Boreanaz missing each other as they come into contact reminds me of my relationship with the lunatic ex. Also the lyrics "I understand if you can't talk to me again.And if you live by the rules of "it's over"
then I'm sure that that makes sense". And "when we meet, Which I'm sure we will. All that was there,will be there still. I'll let it pass and hold my tongue and you will think that I've moved on..."Exactly the way her and I feel about each other.

Gloria - Laura Brannigan, this song seems a bit paranoid to me, I love Brannigans voice but would like to have heard Tina Turner do a version of this as well. I am guessing this song is about lost innocence, which I suppose ties into my earlier rant about my work.

In case I don't see 'ya...good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight!