Forced short covering...again...odds and sods

I have been dabbling in stocks again. Trying out another service. I'm a sucker for trying these new services but, like I have mentioned before, only of they come with a money back trial period.

The reason I liked the look of this particular service, besides being associated with a reputable group, it does not stick with one trading vehicle. Trades are all between days and weeks to a few months so there is no long term plan and no concentration on really short term trades. It also trades stocks long and short, some options and ETFs.


The issue arises with the short again. I had a very small short position in one stock, 15 shares, and I got the call today that it was going to have to be covered by 1500h due to a lack of inventory. The broker was going to see about borrowing more to enable me to keep my short. I hadn't heard back so I covered for a small loss at 1500h only to come home to a message on my machine stating that I could keep the position... Seeing as I got this call once I expect that I would get it again so this stock is off of my short list... literally.


My Optioneer trades are going along fine. I just had my account balance transferred to the new account so I can trade freely again..it was tied up for the transfer period after last week's expiry.


Overall my account is up, by exactly how much I will know better tomorrow, but the February loosing trades have taken their toll. All in all I am down about a month's worth of profits less the adjustment spreads. It seems larger than it needs to as I was increasing my account with cash deposits and the past profits were based on slightly different rules. I did not have as many trades on the go. One month's profits today is more than last month's which was larger than the month before that.

I am up to 7.5 trade capability now and it is all available in one account and I can trade the Eminis to use up the odd amounts as well. Placing additional call spreads on the fly will, over time, recoup the last losses. Given the expectation of very few losses and having no expectation of being able to place extra above margin call spreads I suspect that the two will cancel each other out at worst, at best I can boost my returns with these spreads.

All in all I am satisfied with where I am in trading right now...although I am going to add a bit of daytrading back into my toolbox next week. I've added some cash to my margin account to boost the buying power up to $20K or so. I am planning on up to 5 trades in the first hour of trading. Sort of trying out an old idea of trading off the start while taking advantage of some data input form a new source. We'll see where that takes me.

Jeff.