FairTax.org is launching the Online Tax Revolt: March for America that merges digital advocacy with grassroots activists who physically travel to Washington, D.C. for a tax protest on April 15th. For more information and sign up go to Online Tax Revolt.

Last week I started to take a look at the QM or Mini Crude Oil contract as an alternative to trading the CL or full size Crude Oil contract.  I am primarily a scalper/very short term trader and set out to trade the QM on Friday before the news as can be seen by the following trades.

My biggest concern trading the QM was execution speed and overall liquidity. The QM or mini contract represents 500 barrels of versus the 1000 barrels of oil in the full size CL contract. I was a bit more difficult to get fills when I would try to scratch a position. The CL contract although more leveraged still provides more “stopping places” with 100 ticks per point versus 40 in the QM. At the end of the day IMO the QM contract lacks liquidity and is only a more viable instrument for those trading small accounts and need a less leveraged contract in order to trade more contracts. For more information regarding contract specifics see:

Regular CL:

Light Sweet Crude Oil

E mini QM:

E mini Light Sweet Crude Oil

Rep. Clay Cox introduced H.B. 168 in the legislative session to modernize the telecom industry and put tighter restrictions and end the Universal Access Fund. This bill would end the phone bill subsidies for rural customers in large metropolitan areas. The rural customers often paid much less for their services than customers in urban areas. The subsidy was hidden on the phone bills.

I have recently subscribed to StockTkr journaling software in hopes of finding a trade journal software that meets my needs. My challenge is that I take several hundred trades a week now scalping across three brokers and really need a somewhat automated method for inputting trades. Stocktickr is very robust and has many features. I have been able to export trades in .csv format from all three brokers to input. The only real problem so far is that I can only export Infinity trades from the AT platform and that is limited to trades within that session. That sounds simple enough just download you trades for the day at the end of the day. The problem is that the AT platform resets itself for different instruments at different times of the day. I have found this to be too cumbersome for my needs. I contacted Infinity and they explained that they are working on a solution. I assume it will be a web based solution provided by TransAct as that is where customers currently find reports. I have had several asking me about this so I will post an update as I receive more information.

I am giving another long overdue update. January is finally over and I have been very busy with other non-trading business tasks as I am setting up a website and marketing material for our vacation rental business. Check back later at www.Cabinsof BlueRidge.net for updates. January was my third solid profitable month at 9.8%, lower than November and slightly higher than December. I am having difficulty compiling so many trades from three different brokers to extract needed statistical information. I have slowed trading equities futures and now almost solely trade the currency pair futures 6A, 6B, 6C, 6E, and 6J. I will occasionally trade NQ and rarely trade ES. This has been a pretty dramatic change and has been reflected in my results positively.

I have finished the Market Profile studies part of Joe Mertes mentoring program but still need to complete other aspects like refining my business and trading plans and completing detailed strength/weakness analysis. I am planning on spending another trading day with Joe live sometime over the next few weeks. I will post later on my progress with some thoughts on the use of Market Profile in general.