I thought to start this thread on how to trade a top for maximum profit at the least amount of risk. The idea came to mind because I believe a stock I looked at might be around a top. In case this would help with option strategies, the stock has options chains, 5 dollar increments, and is currently close to strike 1185.
What I did so far is find a weaker stock that rose with it in sympathy, and went to the short side of the weak stock.
How long did it take you to triple your money? How much was the size in dollars Which strike and expiration was it?
You can't trade a "top" because quite frankly no person walking planet earth knows what is going to happen five minutes from now - much less five days or five weeks or five months or five years from now. Market timing has no consistency. Every broken trader I've met or heard about or from was trying to time a market bottom or a market top. You are going to endure pain no matter what you do, so my advice is to let the deep pockets turn the market for you.
I believe that NoD saw my models nailing tops and bottoms, the latest were the QQQ syesterday and the 1185 today. My models could be of use to people with high balances who need or choose to require longer time to get in and out. However such people usually have been educated to seek information from established big companies only.
Whether one does it consciously or not, all traders attempt to buy bottoms and sell tops. The difference among them is in the meaning of a top (bottom), which changes from trader to trader and from time frame to time frame. I do not like to short tops or long bottoms, but it is for a different reason than what you cited. In addition, I did some calculations that lead me to conclude that if one one does not trade close enough to tops and bottoms (particularly in shorter time frames) , one is left in the crowd of negative sum game, and therefore would more likely be among the losing crowd. One may note that investor have a higher time frame and trade with "no stops" and no leverage, and are therefore less subject to this law.