二二八

Since it was my first time in Taiwan on 2/28, and likely will be my only time in Taiwan on this day, I decided to make a trip to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall / National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall, as well as the 228 Peace Park. I wish I had really gotten up earlier as I believe I missed seeing a sit-in outside of the " ?? " Memorial Hall, in the shape of 228.

Anyways, I made it out to the " ?? " Memorial Hall just before 4:00PM, so I had missed a substantial part of the events. I believe the event that I saw when I got there started at 2:28PM and was to end at 4:30PM. There was an orchestra playing for the event, called "Concert for 228 Justice & Peace." It was overall quite an upbeat atmosphere, and I had an easy time making conversation with random people due to my ability to only speak Taiwanese and English. Here comes the pictures!


Entering the many-names Memorial Hall


The main stage of today's events in the middle of Liberty Square. Aligned on the sides of the stage (the white/green tents), you can see vendors selling various merchandise (books, t-shirts, hats, random items) that in general, is pro DPP, pro Taiwan, or anti-Ma.


This stand (with the flags on it), was handing out World Taiwanese Congress flags to wave, as well as "Taiwan water" and some pins that say 護台灣 (protect Taiwan). After conversing with the lady at this stand for a bit after getting a flag, I was given the location of a cafe where apparently a lot of pro-Taiwan people go to just leisure and hang-out. Located in Shi-da... I will find a time to check it out, apparently Freddy (the Taiwan Freddy) frequents that place, along with one of A-bian's old cabinet member or some ranking official?


Cleaning up the stage... at this point it was well past 4:30PM, probably a quarter past 5:00PM.


On my way out of the " ?? " Memorial Hall, decided to snap a picture with the flag.


Now at the 228 Memorial Park, almost night fall, and the people were cleaning up the stage just behind the monument seen here.


Writings, can't read/understand all of it- but I'm pretty sure it is about what 228 is.


A lady just finished paying respects to her ancestors (I assume).


Looking down the interesting waterfall-like well inside the monument.


Another angle of the monument.


The pathway into the center of the monument. For some reason, I felt like the pathway wasn't very stable-- I felt like I was going to fall into the water or mis-step.


A local Taiwanese girl reads the writings.


The National Taiwan Museum, which was closed by the time I got there. I guess another time will have to do.

It was a meaningful day... it definitely gave me a strong desire to support Taiwan. One of the people I talked to who was also giving out DPP flags (and wanted me to take a bunch of them to give to my friends) consistenly said that we need to let others know about Taiwan, and what our situation is. As long as we do not give up, she says, Taiwan will have a future. We must never forget this day.

And as Taiwanese, how pitiful are we if we do not know the history behind this day. It was sort of sad to hear some of my friends who aren't Taiwanese, know nothing about what happened during those years of White Terror, and what happened on 228 and the ensuing massacres and suppresion of the local Taiwanese. Everyone knows about the Holcaust and Hitler, and we must also remember that. But now, in Taiwan, where the liklihood of something like this occuring once more is much higher than that in Europe, is it not more important for people to know what happened in Taiwan? I spent the day visiting various 228 events, and was given the chance to briefly explain what 228 is about to a few people-- and, not so much a sense of accomplishment that I feel, rather, simply a sense of obligation to let people know what happened.

Let us not forget Taiwan's Holocaust.

Finally Some Mainstream News Against Obama's Plan

Rick Santelli's video has been circulating the internet the past day or two. If you haven't seen it, check it out below. He brings up a good point, why don't the white house put up a referendum about whether we the people actually care for bailing out the fail-outs. If this is so-called change, then I think we need to redefine the definition of change.

Can Ma Dodge A Shoe Like Bush?

Apparently there's plans/rumors of people planning on throwing a shoe/shoes at Ma Ying-Jeou on the 228 Memorial Day. See the original idea about throwing shoes at presidents below (Bush), and then see the Taiwan coverage here.

While the idea of throwing a shoe at Ma is quite entertaining, like I said when the Bush-shoe incident happened, regardless of how hated or not respected you are, simply said, a president of a country should not have shoes thrown at him- or anything else for that matter. There should be other ways to express your protest and anger at a president then doing so.

But, it is pretty discouraging to see the KMT continue to attempt to get rid of some of the small positives that the DPP did. All this with Ma Ying-Jeou just stepping aside and again, not being heard from. While having it a day as a vacation day or not isn't really a big deal, the whole idea of reducing these three DPP created holidays to holidays without being able to take the day off, is just mocking what the previous administration did. How will there ever be stability in a country if the opposing parties merely renege on each other's laws and mandates. I suppose if democracy in Taiwan truly worked to perfection, there wouldn't be this need for going back on prevoius laws that the previous opposing administration/party initiated. Such as the not so legal way the DPP changed the name of CKS Memorial Hall- that I can understand going back on. But if things are done in the proper channels, should not they be honored unless they were some significant problems that occured from them?

Anyways, since this is my first time in Taiwan for 228, I may try to make it out to the memorial that day. I've never even been there during other months. Perhaps I can catch a video of Ma attemping to dodge a shoe. :)

Bush dodging shoes:

Complaints Against Pro-Green TV Shows

The NCC of Taiwan, which I think it some sort of regulatory agent of TV and Broadcasting Programs in Taiwan, has come out with a report saying that numerous "Pro-Green" shows have received complaints about being 'sensational.'

Interestingly enough, there are no details of what the actual complaints are, nor of what the actual 'sensationalist' content are on Da Hua News. I picked up some Da Hua News last night with my Grandma and Mom, and Cheng Hong-Yi was also asking everyone, what exactly did they do wrong as there was no evidence to support the mysterious complaints?

This reminds me of movies/TV shows where the workers at super-markets/stores stuff the Suggestion/Comment box with their own falsified comments of praise so that their boss will get off their backs and see how "well" they are doing. Or in the opposite case, filling the box with complaints as to get the supervisor fired or what not.

Taiwan news, which I've never really watched much of until these past few days, seems to be enthralled with these three things, which usually appear everyday in one way or another:

1) Pandas
2) Daily footage of A-bian's daily excercise in jail
5) Daily footage of Ma's "generosity" in visiting areas of Taiwan and giving out Red Envelopes

Good strategy by the KMT. Pummel the image of A-bian to the ground, and glamorize Ma.

Quick Poll

Poll on Obama's Fix-All stimulus plan:

http://money.cnn.com/POLLSERVER/results/44770.html

Someone tell me why this is going to pass the Senate and Obama is signing this again? Don't we vote these people into office to represent us?

Some New Ideas

First off, review of my charts from last week...

LDK: Last week was looking for a breakout to the upside, but apparently it was a fakeout. Everything looked good for a move up but I guess it wasn't the time. From failed moves come fast moves (as indicated by the highlighted area)- the next day you see one big long red candle. Really don't know where to go with this one as the chart looks broken now. It seems to be just trading in this 12.50-15.50 range for the past months, so perhaps playing the channel would be okay until it breaks down or breaks out.



RL: Dropped below that support I had indicated previously, and I entered APR 35 Puts today for $3.00. A nice doji for today and a bounce off the prior support. A tight stop would be right above the 41.74 line, and that will likely be my stop. Although they are April puts, I could probably reload if it gets to the prior high and stalls there.


BBY: Dropped below the resistance line as planned, but today had a very good up day relative to other stocks. I will stay away from shorting here, and will see how it responds to the descending line at 30.5-31.


WLP: The biggest mover of the ones I mentioned last week. I missed the opportunity on this one as I was waiting for a better entry. But, it just sold off hard from the start of the week. A failed backtest of 43.84 could be a great short.


Some new shorts:

GES - Guess Inc. - Highlighted is where I would try out an early short, but it may proceed to ride the line upwards if the general markets continue higher next week. Obama hype? :) Pretty defendable position just above that area.


PALM - Palm Inc. - The ones who make the palm pilots, handsets, etc. This chart is incredibly run-up in a short time. Really no news on it, so I'm guessing just a short squeeze. I bought Feb 7.5 Puts on this today for 0.80, we should know pretty fast next week whether it will continue higher through this resistance, or retrace a good amount. The end of day on PALM showed some weakness, so my position is already ITM. Target is probably 5.2 for a first possible profit taking level, followed by the gap fill level of 4.50.


MYL - Mylan Inc. - It looks like it's coming into critical area as it's been riding the lower trendline since the October lows and now meeting resistance at around 11. I would wait on this one until it breaks eitherway.


DV - Devry - This one could be real interesting. It's entering the area where it's found resistance since late 2007. This area is also it's all-time highs. Not sure why the education stocks are so strong, maybe because a gloomy economy results in people going for cheap and quick technical colleges? Anyways, I only mention this because I've noticed ESI, also on my watchlist, being relatively strong. This seems like an easy short- enter short when it gets close to the resistance above, set stop above all-time highs. You could also say that there's a inverted H&S in there, but that will have to be confirmed. From the looks of the chart, it looks like one of those stocks that just never gets down, so I'd be careful with this one.


One long:

GLW - Corning Inc. - Target is 11 on the upside. It could be a decent buy on Tuesday if it doesn't gap up hard or anything. Safer would be to just wait for a pullback again, but may miss it altogether. Also of notice is that it's catching some support off the flattening 50DMA.


That's all folks. If I have time before I leave, I really want to do a post on today's /NQ futures trading that I did as it was extremely profitable and what I was thinking when I made the trades. Today was likely my last full day in front of the computer for the trading hours for the next couple weeks as I am headed out of the country (Taiwan). As I will have no computer access for the first couple weeks, I believe I will be limited to i-Cafe's. So, I'm going to have to do some careful advanced orders to position my portfolio for not-much-hurt while I'm away. Will need to place some carefully chosen OCO orders on most of the positions I opened today, with a stop and a target limit price to cover/sell at. Lord help me. :)

Edit: Alrite, /NQ trades today. I caught 27.5 points I believe, if my calculations are correct. That would be 27.5 x $20 per point (also known as handles in futures jargon). So that came out to around $550 today just from trading the /NQ. But, gotta take out the comissions, so that leaves $550 - 28 = $522.

See below for short entries and where I covered:


I think the biggest two things to take away from this are:
1) When we're trending, just let it trend until the trend changes! If I had kept my first short of the day and let it go until the downward channel broke (about when I covered one of my later shorts at 1173), I would have caught 24 handles on that one move. Add in the long trade, and it would have given me 40+ handles for today, you do the math! As you can see, instead I got in and out of shorts all throughout the morning. For the most part, it was because I was anticipating a, rip-your-face-off rally due to OpEx all day, and so I set in tight stops. So on every retracement, I'd get stopped out... which gets me to my second point...
2) Trade price action, not your emotions! Setting looser stops today would have been my friend today. Although this is all hindset, it did not really make any sense for me to set really tight stops. As I mentioned, it was because of my anticipation of future price action that caused me to do so. Resultingly, that let me ride the reversal all the way pretty much. But, had I got rid of that notion of, rip-your-face-off OpEx rally, I may have been more inclined to just set a stop above the previous highs, and tighten them just above every following lower high (which is what I did on the way up- raising the stop to just under the next higher low).

To my surprise, trading /NQ has been the most profitable for me since the start of this year. My other option trades have been 50/50, and I've left a lot of profit on the tables, as well as making a stupid mistake (again based on emotions) by buying OTM Jan 87 SPY calls earlier this week. They expired worthless. :)

Looking For Jobs... in China?

While perusing our university's job website, where employers can list openings for us students, I came across a listing by The Princeton Review - Taiwan. See the location for this opening:


I can't tell whether it's our university's job site that allows employers to select "Taiwan, Province of China" as an option for location, or whether The Princeton Review was given a blank box to write it in. Regardless, times are tough for a Taiwan that is recognized as separate from China. Today's top story in the TaipeiTimes points towards calendars being distributed in Taiwan, as having "added/extra" holidays. Holidays that you would not celebrate, unless you are Chinese.

So much for Ma Ying-Jeou's promises of "633" economic prosperity and claims of protecting Taiwan's sovereingty and doing what the people of Taiwan want. Even the most pro-KMT and conservative polls give Ma Ying-Jeou at best, a 30% approval rating. Hmm, just about what outgoing President Bush has, except Ma did what President Bush took 8 years to do, and perfected it in just 7 months. Obviously there's a disconnect between the people and President Ma. If he can't recognize a sagging approval rating as a sign that where he's taking the country is not what the people want, well then Taiwan is obviously screwed.