Bloomberg

You might be thinking this is a political post. Not at all - we will be getting our first Bloomberg financial terminal within a month. If you are a financial newbie and don't know what that is, maybe you will understand this analogy. No Bloomberg:Bloomberg::abacus:Cray supercomputer. While it probably won't change our thought process at all, it will save us a great deal of time and effort. At that time we can crank up our strategy into full-throttle mode. We can definitely make money without a Bloomberg, but it is a lot easier and faster to make money with it. Our initial positions are working out well. Normally I don't like to do short-term trades (less than a month), but in this case it absolutely makes sense. Starting off the year up while the market is getting its ass kicked can only help us. Soon we will unleash the power of this fully armed and operational Death Star - wait, bad analogy, the Empire lost in the end. Never mind. Let's just say we are optimistic about our prospects this year.

A random rant: I freak out every morning when I look at our position reports. Even though we are perfectly hedged, I always see a small loss in the mornings. Why? Because options market makers remove their bids/asks after trading ends for the day. So I see things like: Bid = $.05, Ask = $6.70 every morning on the options positions, and of course we are always seeing the worst case when the positions are "marked to market", which in this case is really "marked to insanity". Once trading starts, things brighten up and the true value is reflected and I am happy again. Using the last price of the day is a good idea; using a spread that Evel Knievel couldn't clear on a 600hp Harley is not.