My old boss used to give me random, unrelated assignments. When asked how he would like each objective to be achieved, the answer would always be, “That’s what you get paid the big bucks for…”

Each time the mission was accomplished, he would rush into the office and say, “This must be wrong!”, to which I replied, “It’s right. I’ve checked it over and over. Besides, you told me to just do it.”

And that’s when he always said, “But not like that!!!”

This went on for nine years. It appears that the shoe is now on the other foot.

I know I’ve written extensively about security and time frame selection, but from the feedback I get, it seems like the message is not getting across. That’s OK, but for the office, the symbol universe is the result of a rigorous and methodical scanning procedure. The list is traded with complete discipline according to a certain protocol.

Professional traders don’t trade just anything. In fact, trading at the firm is broken down into two broad categories: agency and principal. The specialties are market making, liability, arbitrage, hedging, etc. Pure directional trading, that is, capitalizing on a trend, is rarely done as a principal trade. It is the province of agency trading, that is, for clients and most often, by clients.

The ex-floor traders I worked with only entered a directional play when they knew they had a distinct advantage. By that, they meant stocks that the public was known to be “piling” into: the momo-puppies. They liked shooting fish in a barrel.

Nothing has changed in the last 20 years. Momo-puppies, tulips bulbs, bubbles. Whatever you wish to call them, they are still with us, perhaps even more so now. And that is what GOOG, CROX, WYNN and JAVA have in common.

I’ve created a histogram that shows you when the stock is “hot” and when it’s “not”. Note that the indicator is scaled so that you can compare various symbols directly.

As exciting as GOOG was for reporters today, it was hotter a few months ago.

CROX has been a huge momo puppy, but the power of plastic is waning of late. Will this one grow up to be … a dog?

How long will the WYNNing streak continue?

Will JAVABeans produce enough gas to levitate the stock price?

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