Since those March lows, the market is now up roughly 22%. How much have you returned (%)? I'll be the first to admit that it caught me off guard and I left the party way to early. And as I've been shorting some recently, its even eating into those profits slowly. Tough market...
Keep leaning short, waiting for this market to show it's just the Emperor without any clothes!! But, I'm the one losing my shirt!!
Caught the entire move finally..started to make sales at my price tgt of 985, today. (made BTW in early April...that was for Jessie J.!!) Seriously, got crushed in the prior six, by shorting too early, and vowed to myself I would get this one right. Feels good, after f&%^%king it up 6 times. "wall street is littered with the bodies of those who were right to early" Don't I know it. Best to you..and good trading David
I'm up more than 22%, but that's in spite of not participating in much long side action at all. I made it all doing various arbitrage trades, and some good shorts on select days. I basically feel like I've missed out on some great opportunity, but realize that my trading style just doesn't match with what we've gotten over the last couple months.
I did a damn good job of anticipating this rally, but my confidence was too shaken to do much with it. Been trading very cautiously. But at least a small profit is better than the zilch I was making before. Technical analysis is actually working for me again! But of course it will stop working as soon as the rally ends.
My investments and swings are doing (or did) alot better then my daily ES trades. (I have stocks like holding YHOO from 10$... AMZN from 18$ mostly holding from Oct lows, and never looked back) They now consist roughly 58% of all my trading income. ES Daytrades seem to play a small part now.
ES, stocks, options. I think my biggest foe recently has been sentiment. It has worked well since Feb 2000, but for some reason, this market is defying sentiment. People are way too bullish for the market to make significant gains (you would think), but the market plows higher. This market is being manipulated higher and good luck to those propping it up. Insider selling is the highest now since the bear market (read this somewhere) and this story has been the same of 2nd half growth in the economy. Same old, same old, but this time we actually managed to take out important highs. And volume & breadth have been impressive. If this were a bull market, so many people wouldn't be frustrated!?! Only a bear market wears people out like this market has been doing!
"The market acts to frustrate the greatest number of traders" Also check out the COT report on the ES... unbefreakinleavable.. the small spec is 87% bullish with open interest doubling since mid March. I would say the fuel is in the air, we're set up for a big pullback, don't hold your breath waiting for it though. Just another indicator. http://www.commitmentoftraders.com/
The nonreportable are the retail traders? What has been amazing about this move is, if the reports floating around are correct, how many professionals have missed this move. The so called smart money in hedge funds apprarently haven't fully participated. I'm waiting for a blow off rally with a spike in implied vols on a move to upside. If this happens, it has always been a signal of a top in the market. I can't really remember a market topping out in June, so it will probably happen next month. In many ways, this market reminds me of the spring rally in 1997. The market bottomed in April and slowly climbed up each day with only a sporadic down day thrown in. Go look at a chart from that time frame. It was set up in a similar fashion with earnings coming in better than expected. A difference is that the dollar had a massive rally during that run. A second comparison could be made to the late 94 through 95 rally. If you look at that, it also doesn't seem to have had many down days. During that time, the dollar had fallen quite precipitously.