As of March 22, 2026, name, number of accounts:
Interactive Brokers, 334,400
WeBull, 265,200
TradeStation, 130,000
moomoo, 77,400
Alpaca, 19,800
tastytrade, 17,400
Tradier Brokerage, 4,900
TradeZero, 3,600
Cobra Trading, 17
Dollar Volume By Exchange in CIIT Short Squeeze
They launched another 6,500% squeeze this morning … scary.
$1,272,986, NYSE Arca, Inc.
$892,657, FINRA Alternative Display Facility
$493,940, Members Exchange
$403,410, Cboe EDGX
$351,515, Nasdaq
$281,490, MIAX Pearl
$10,833, NYSE National, Inc.
$8,935, Cboe BZX
$7,172, New York Stock Exchange
$2,890, Cboe BYX
$1,941, Cboe EDGA
$1,000, 24X National Exchange LLC
$920, Nasdaq Philadelphia Exchange LLC
$576, NYSE American, LLC
$262, Investors Exchange
$86, Nasdaq OMX BX, Inc.
Otto Penzler's 101 Greatest Movies of Mystery and Suspense
Sorted chronologically:
Bulldog Drummond, 1929
Little Caesar, 1930
The Public Enemy, 1931
Freaks, 1932
Scarface, 1932
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, 1932
The Kennel Murder Case, 1933
The Thin Man, 1934
The 39 Steps, 1935
Charlie Chan at the Opera, 1936
The Petrified Forest, 1936
Dead End, 1937
The Lady Vanishes, 1938
The Hound of the Baskervilles, 1939
Foreign Correspondent, 1940
Rebecca, 1940
High Sierra, 1941
I Wake Up Screaming, 1941
Suspicion, 1941
The Maltese Falcon, 1941
The Glass Key, 1942
The Gun for Hire, 1942
Shadow of a Doubt, 1943
The Woman in the Window, 1944
To Have and Have Not, 1944
Murder, My Sweet, 1944
Double Indemnity, 1944
Laura, 1944
Spellbound, 1945
And Then There Were None, 1945
The Blue Dahlia, 1946
Notorious, 1946
The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1946
The Big Sleep, 1946
The Killers, 1946
Crossfire, 1947
Kiss of Death, 1947
Out of the Past, 1947
The Fallen Idol, 1948
Key Largo, 1948
Criss Cross, 1949
White Heat, 1949
The Third Man, 1949
In a Lonely Place, 1950
The Asphalt Jungle, 1950
D.O.A., 1950
Sunset Boulevard, 1950
Strangers on a Train, 1951
Detective Story, 1951
The Big Heat, 1953
Rear Window, 1954
Kiss Me Deadly, 1955
The Night of the Hunter, 1955
The Killing, 1956
The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1956
Witness for the Prosecution, 1957
Vertigo, 1958
Touch of Evil, 1958
Anatomy of a Murder, 1959
North by Northwest, 1959
Psycho, 1960
To Kill a Mockingbird, 1962
The Manchurian Candidate, 1962
Charade, 1963
A Shot in the Dark, 1964
Topkapi, 1964
Goldfinger, 1964
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, 1965
The Ipcress File, 1965
Harper, 1966
In Cold Blood, 1967
In the Heat of the Night, 1967
Bonnie and Clyde, 1967
Bullitt, 1968
Dirty Harry, 1971
The French Connection, 1971
Sleuth, 1972
The Godfather, 1972
Mean Streets, 1973
The Day of the Jackal, 1973
The Sting, 1973
Murder on the Orient Express, 1974
The Conversation, 1974
The Godfather Part II, 1974
Chinatown, 1974
Taxi Driver, 1976
Body Heat, 1981
Blade Runner, 1982
Fatal Attraction, 1987
The Untouchables, 1987
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, 1988
The Grifters, 1990
GoodFellas, 1990
Silence of the Lambs, 1991
Reservoir Dogs, 1992
In the Line of Fire, 1993
The Fugitive, 1993
The Last Seduction, 1994
The Usual Suspects, 1995
Fargo, 1996
L.A. Confidential, 1997
My Monthly Expenses for February 2026
Here are my expenses for February 2026. As always, I may update it as I find more things I haven’t recorded. Check out the January 2026 expenses post here.
Apparel
pajama pants and school musical t-shirt: $114.87
Charity
$1,010
Education
housing: $1,177.49
tuition: $26,119.00
Energy
gasoline: $146.50
propane: $1,047.27
Food
coffee beans: $333.89
eating out: $73.50
groceries: $2,104.69
Gifts
Valentine’s Day: $119.88
to me from me: $856.45
Healthcare
psychologist: $280
Household
light bulb and floor mat: $66.51
Services
car and house cleaning: $370.80
credit card annual fee (Chase): $795.00
annual online storage (Google) : $21.59
haircuts: $63.00
lawn mowing (late bill from lawn boy): $388.80
movie recommendations (John): $1.99
music service (Spotify): $21.99 (formerly $19.99)
parking (on street): $3.75
printer ink subscription (HP): $8.63
water (town): $82.01
Trading-related
book, consulting, data, software: $295.48
Utilities
cellphone: $83.36 (formerly $74.29)
electricity: $265.40
internet: $120 (formerly $110)
Movies Watched in February 2026
I now think the goal of watching 60 movies a month is a little crazy so I’m dropping it to a more manageable 50 a month. Check out the January 2026 list here.
Here is what I watched in February, listed alphabetically:
Alien, 1979
All Quiet on the Western Front, 1930
Bonjour Tristesse, 2024
Charade, 1963
Cries and Whispers, 1972
Diary of a Chambermaid, 1946
Elevator to the Gallows, 1958
Fanny and Alexander, 1982
Fiend Without a Face, 1958
Fitzcarraldo, 1982
Forbidden Games, 1952
Foreign Correspondent, 1940
Germany Year Zero, 1948
Ghostbusters, 1984
Green for Danger, 1946
Heaven Can Wait, 1940
I Know Where I'm Going, 1945
Japon, 2002
Journey to Italy, 1954
Kiss Me Deadly, 1955
La piscine, 1969
La ronde, 1950
Last Holiday, 1950
Last Year at Marienbad, 1961
L'avventura, 1960
Le corbeau, 1943
Le jour se leve, 1939
Mad Max, 1979
Make Way for Tomorrow, 1937
Miss Julie, 1951
My Man Godfrey, 1936
Pickpocket, 1959
Red River, 1948
Sawdust and Tinsel, 1953
Scarface, 1932
Secret Honor, 1984
She's Gotta Have It, 1986
Shoot the Piano Player, 1960
Stolen Kisses, 1968
The Browning Version, 1951
The Innocents, 1961
The Lovers, 1958
The Most Dangerous Game, 1932
The Virgin Spring, 1960
Tootsie, 1982
Touchez pas au grisbi, 1954
Trouble in Paradise, 1932
Two or Three Things I Know About Her, 1967
Videodrome, 1983
Viridiana, 1961
White Mane, 1952
Youth of the Beast, 1963
The movies that I consider must-see among these are listed below:
Alien, 1979
Charade, 1963
Germany Year Zero, 1948
La ronde, 1950
Sawdust and Tinsel, 1953
The Lovers, 1958
I’m still on the fence about Cries and Whispers (1972) and Last Holiday (1950).
Maoxian's One a Day Playlist for February 2026
Here’s the wildly anticipated February playlist. The songs are sorted chronologically, latest to earliest. If you don’t like a song, skip to the next. Don’t forget to check out January’s playlist.
Kendra Morris, In My House
Jeanines, To Fail
Warhaus (feat. Sylvie Kreusch), Popcorn
Joe Yorke, Man
Gabi Hartmann, Maladie d'amour
Gabriels, Blame
Drugdealer (feat. Kate Bollinger), Pictures of You
Celeste, Love is Back
Ian Pooley, Venasque
Suzanne Vega, Caramel
Cesaria Evora, Sodade
Tom Tom Club, Genius of Love
Waylon Jennings, Amanda
George McCrae, Rock Your Baby
Phil Upchurch, Sitar Soul
Donny Hathaway, Love, Love, Love
Charlie Rich, Behind Closed Doors
The Beginning of the End, Funky Nassau, Pt. 1
Shuggie Otis, The Hawks
Roberta Flack, Do What You Gotta Do
Elton John, Your Song
Bobby Womack, California Dreamin'
The Youngbloods, All Over the World (La-La)
Jacqueline Taieb, Le Coeur au bout des doigts
Percy Sledge, When a Man Loves a Woman
Buffalo Springfield, For What It's Worth
Irma Thomas, Anyone Who Knows What Love Is
Ricky Nelson, Travelin' Man
Worst Adverse Excursions in February 2026
February was an amazing month for the blind shorts, with next to no outlier losses and hundreds and hundreds of winning trades. There was one extreme outlier, PLYX, that we’ll look closer at below.
Don’t forget to look at the outlier moves in October 2025 (23), November 2025 (5), December 2025 (6), and January 2026 (10).
February 2: ROMA (Hong Kong) … note lucky number $8.88 high … the scammers know that they can act with impunity under the current US administration, so they have some fun manipulating to precise prices.
February 3: NPT (China)
February 11: NCI (Hong Kong)
February 13: RIME (USA)
February 17: OLB (USA), OBAI (USA), PLYX (USA)
PLYX hit a pre-market high of $66 after “dinging” at $3 or $4. The ~1,500% move took ten seconds. This was a disaster for anyone whose bot employs aggressive chase logic to exit in the pre-market.
Below is the one second price chart for PLYX. Unfortunately I was at the screens when this happened and saw it squeeze in real time, which was not good for my pulmonary pig valve. PLYX closed the day at $4.02.
February 26: AEHL (China)
Bertz & Fischer 100 Greatest Directors List
A meta-list from zee German gentlemen:
Alfred Hitchcock
Stanley Kubrick
Steven Spielberg
Francis Ford Coppola
Martin Scorsese
Billy Wilder
Ridley Scott
Quentin Tarantino
Orson Welles
Akira Kurosawa
Charles Chaplin
Sergio Leone
Ingmar Bergman
James Cameron
David Lean
Federico Fellini
Roman Polanski
Howard Hawks
Victor Fleming
Jean-Luc Godard
John Ford
Fritz Lang
Joel and Ethan Coen
Michael Curtiz
Christopher Nolan
Frank Capra
Jean Renoir
John Huston
Woody Allen
George Lucas
Francois Truffaut
Milos Forman
David Fincher
Robert Zemeckis
Stanley Donen
Michelangelo Antonioni
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau
Andrei Tarkovsky
George Cukor
Robert Altman
Robert Bresson
Carl Thedor Dreyer
David Lynch
Elia Kazan
Luis Bunuel
Peter Jackson
Yasujiro Ozu
Carol Reed
Rob Reiner
Clint Eastwood
Sam Peckinpah
Frank Darabont
Buster Keaton
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Sidney Lumet
Sergei Eisenstein
William Wyler
Vittoria De Sica
Krzysztof Kieslowski
Andy and Larry Wachowski
Terry Jones
Jonathan Demme
Wong Kar-wai
Irvin Kershner
Satyajit Ray
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Brian De Palma
Roberto Rossellini
Mike Nichols
Robert Wise
Jacques Tati
Ernst Lubitsch
Kenji Mizoguchi
Charles Laughton
Pedro Almodovar
Hayao Miyazaki
D.W. Griffith
Terrence Malick
Marcel Carne
John Lasseter
Curtis Hanson
Ang Lee
Michael Cimino
George Roy Hill
William Friedkin
Bernardo Bertolucci
John McTiernan
Vincente Minnelli
Leo McCarey
Fernando Meirelles
Luc Besson
Darren Aronofsky
Michael Powell
Terry Gilliam
Wim Wenders
Max Ophuls
John Carpenter
Nicholas Ray
Jean Vigo
Danny Boyle
Pauline Kael Hits Nail on the Scorsese Head
“The filmmaking process becomes the subject of the movie. All you want to talk about is the glorious whizzing camera, the freeze-frames and jump cuts. That may be why young film enthusiasts are so turned on by Scorsese’s work: they don’t just respond to his films, they want to be him.”
…
“Scorsese the arousal junkie makes you feel you’d like to hang out with him and listen to him tell how he brought off the effects; he’s a master. But this picture [Goodfellas] doesn’t have the juice and richness that come with major performances. It has no arc, and doesn’t climax; it just comes to a stop. Conceivably the abruptness could work, but I don’t think it does. Will the lift of the moviemaking still carry some people aloft? Maybe, because watching the movie is like getting strung out on pure sensation. That’s Scorsese’s idea of a hood’s life. It’s also a young film enthusiast’s dream of a director’s life, and in Scorsese’s case it’s not too far from the truth.”
Bertz & Fischer 100 Greatest Movies List
Two German gentlemen, Bertz & Fischer, came up with a “list to end all lists” of the 100 greatest movies. It’s just another meta-list, but it’s worth recording anyway:
The Gold Rush, Chaplin, 1925
Battleship Potemkin, Eisenstein, 1925
The General, Keaton, 1926
Metropolis, Lang, 1927
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, Murnau, 1927
The Passion of Joan of Arc, Dreyer, 1928
City Lights, Chaplin, 1931
M, Lang, 1931
Modern Times, Chaplin, 1936
Grand Illusion, Renoir, 1937
Bringing Up Baby, Hawks, 1938
The Rules of the Game, Renoir, 1939
The Wizard of Oz, Fleming, 1939
Gone with the Wind, Fleming, 1939
Citizen Kane, Welles, 1941
The Maltese Falcon, Huston, 1941
Casablanca, Curtiz, 1943
Double Indemnity, Wilder, 1944
Children of Paradise, Carne, 1945
It’s a Wonderful Life, Capra, 1946
Bicycle Thieves, De Sica, 1948
The Third Man, Reed, 1949
Sunset Blvd., Wilder, 1950
Rashomon, Kurosawa, 1950
All About Eve, Mankiewicz, 1950
Singin’ in the Rain, Donen, 1952
Tokyo Story, Ozu, 1953
Seven Samurai, Kurosawa, 1954
On the Waterfront, Kazan, 1954
Rear Window, Hitchcock, 1954
The Night of the Hunter, Laughton, 1955
The Searchers, Ford, 1956
The Seventh Seal, Bergman, 1957
Touch of Evil, Welles, 1958
Vertigo, Hitchcock, 1958
Some Like It Hot, Wilder, 1959
The 400 Blows, Truffaut, 1959
North by Northwest, Hitchcock, 1959
La Dolce Vita, Fellini, 1960
Breathless, Godard, 1960
L’avventura, Antonioni, 1960
The Apartment, Wilder, 1960
Psycho, Hitchcock, 1960
Lawrence of Arabia, Lean, 1962
8 1/2, Fellini, 1963
The Leopard, Visconti, 1963
Dr. Strangelove, Kubrick, 1964
Persona, Bergman, 1966
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Leone, 1966
Bonnie and Clyde, Penn, 1967
2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick, 1968
Once Upon a Time in the West, Leone, 1968
Andrei Rublev, Tarkovsky, 1969
The Wild Bunch, Peckinpah, 1969
A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick, 1971
The Godfather, Coppola, 1972
Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Herzog, 1972
Chinatown, Polanski, 1974
The Godfather: Part II, Coppola, 1974
Nashville, Altman, 1975
Jaws, Spielberg, 1976
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Forman, 1975
Taxi Driver, Scorsese, 1976
Annie Hall, Allen, 1977
Star Wars, Lucas, 1977
The Deer Hunter, Cimino, 1978
Apocalypse Now, Coppola, 1979
Alien, Scott, 1979
The Empire Strikes Back, Kershner, 1980
The Shining, Kubrick, 1980
Raging Bull, Scorsese, 1980
Raiders of the Lost Ark, Speilberg, 1981
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Spielberg, 1982
Blade Runner, Scott, 1982
Fanny and Alexander, Bergman, 1982
Once Upon a Time in America, Leone, 1984
Back to the Future, Zemeckis, 1985
Blue Velvet, Lynch, 1986
Die Hard, McTiernan, 1988
GoodFellas, Scorsese, 1990
The Silence of the Lambs, Demme, 1991
Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Cameron, 1991
Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino, 1992
Schindler’s List, Spielberg, 1993
Pulp Fiction, Tarantino, 1994
Forrest Gump, Zemeckis, 1994
The Shawshank Redemption, Darabont, 1994
The Usual Suspects, Singer, 1995
Fargo, Coen, 1996
L.A. Confidential, Hanson, 1997
The Big Lebowski, Coen, 1998
Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg, 1998
The Matrix, Wachowski, 1999
American Beauty, Mendes, 1999
Fight Club, Fincher, 1999
Gladiator, Scott, 2000
Amelie, Jeunet, 2001
The Lord of the Rings, Jackson, 2001
City of God, Meirelles, 2002
The Dark Knight, Nolan, 2008