Or also that a lot of traders "in the know" are too busy trading in the moment, and don't have time to be feeding their egos =p I find it really helpful though when I know a good trader is on the same side with me and thinking the same thing, which gives me greater conviction on the trade.
With options, especially those that I'm long that are near worthless into the close - I always hold them til either the very end or until I just can't stand it and have to take the profit. I had nothing on today, but I can tell you with certainty if I did - that I would have closed them a very long time before they reached their peak profitability.
Nice to know i was looking at the exact same thing as you, once it put in that triple bottom it was impossible NOT to go long with a risk below that number, Generally i dont look for other peoples opinions on trades cause it fucks me up, but im in a room with a couple pretty skilled guys (who are miles ahead of me) during the trading day, and as soon as i heard them all say they were seeing the same thing i knew it was a no brainer trade cause everyone with money saw the same thing. Then once we cleared out the first high at 1906 it was party time, i still dumped the goddamn thing 20 points too early cause i thought we were topping at 1925, and i got stung by fake rallies way too many times this month, but hard to complain about a 30 point trade with very little risk, should have known it would be a weekend short squeeze though, they love juicing the market into the close on fridays, especially in a down market.
The funniest were the experts on CNBC. In the first 2 hours they were explaining why the job numbers caused this and that, and by the end of day, all those explanations were invalid...
I think we will close the gap at 1960, but after that we could go lower, much lower. There is a gap at 1872 too....
They are a joke during the trading day, is it anywonder why ma and pa get fleeced in the market year in and year out, when CNBC goes into depression mode anytime there is a gap down, plus when it is a really bad gap down they just go into deer in the headlights mode, anyone tuning into them with limited market knowledge is just getting led off the plank. Hell ive even noticed in hindsight that i allowed the talking heads on CNBC to get me way to overly bearish on a down day, only to get crushed on the snapback rally. Then they get to switch anchors mid day, and all of a sudden its party time with the two new anchors when the market flips from red to green on the day and things arent all that bad.
That's what you will realize, and learn, early on in trading...that alot of opinions out there...are like assholes...everyone has one. and everything is crystal clear in hindsight. You have to develop your own inner voice/skill in trading -- that's all that matters. 99% of the so-called traders/investors out there are mindless sheep.
Yep. If you listen/watch CNBC (I don't) you basically have to treat it as a levelling game where you judge both the veracity of the given speaker/host combined with the most likely reactions of their typical audience - knowing that the market always likes to punish the majority. The main problem is being very patient, balancing your own contra-bias with the street bias, and being open minded enough to allow the charts to prove you wrong when it turns out you are.