Who is living in the UK? Haven't lived in that grey & dismal place for more than 20 years. Are you honestly nit-picking Brent vs WTI?
I understand you are running a teaching business and you invested a lot time and money in your products and all that but please stop using the KLM AIR FRANCE hedging as an example. It's OTC, done outside publicly traded commodity futures contracts, doesn't show up anywhere, and makes you sound like a fool.
On the contrary, the KLM, RyanAir/Lufthansa is the most relatable, understandable current example of 'big trades gone bad'. Obviously, it's not for the anally retentive. The point made is simply that institutional positions are much larger than many people can imagine. We both know airlines use different methods to hedge fuel, including WTI. Regardless - everything shows up somewhere. It's ludicrous to say otherwise. Let's say an oil company is a counterparty in a jet fuel hedge. Then prices look to be taking a massive dive - they are hardly going be there for you to you unwind, are they? They are in a winning position that is looking to get even bigger. We also both know that in times of crisis, there might not be a good supply of counterparties in illiquid markets & that a reduction in exposure does not have to involve unwinding the position you are in. It might necessitate an opposing position in a more liquid market with a better supply of counterparties. Like Crude... You could argue this to death - we could discuss correlations and arb keeping the markets in line. Bottom line is - when large positions get unwound - it hits the markets.
For me the most interesting thing was a comment Peter made about gut feeling and how this "sixth sense" (my wording, not his) is more relevant if you use it as a signal to stay out of the market than to actually fire and place trades. I think I understand why this happens but I lack the qualifications to share my view about this in a public forum where I'm subject to strict scrutiny from professionals of every field.
In indigenous cultures, intuition is used to realign yourself and to perceive danger. I strongly believe that self empowerment is a strong tool to manage discretionary trading and mechanical trading. wrbtrader
I watched it from start to finish. I didn't catch any "rules." Here are some points I remember: 1. Discretionary trading is a skill like playing tennis or driving. 2. At first you suck, but through repetition your brain learns and you get progressively better. 3. The progression (quoting a person who wrote about market profile) is from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence to conscious competence to unconscious competence. This took over an hour to present. Perhaps the presenter had to fill up an hour. For me the hour spent watching was not worthwhile. My viewpoint is, I don't see discretionary trading as having rules. Rules ought not to be broken. Discretionary trading is about breaking rules that a trader unfailingly followed to protect himself in the market while learning to become operational. Eventually as knowledge and skills increase, the trader sees that these rules limit taking more of the market's offer. A discretionary trader uses guidelines, or if he has rules he is breaking them without remorse.
I totally relate - and don't even get me started on that Star Wars . Some young guy learns to fight, makes some friends, some of who are electronic and one is his hot sister he nearly shtumps. They have a fall out with a dude in a black helmet and blow up his fake planet. Two hours and one minute for that? Could have squashed it all into the trailer and saved me the popcorn money. I truly believe you should not discuss anything about trading without discussing "why". There's a million "what's" out there but ain't too many "whys". Plus I love the sound of my Midlands accent, it's bostin.
This has always been the problem with this site. Everybody has a friggin' opinion (too many damn ADHDs) that has nothing do with what the OP asked or stated. It's not even funny anymore. Stay on topic, folks! (or get some help.)