A weekly progress update, if you will. Finished the week up around 6% overall, which officially brings me out of drawdown. Also, that means i essentially closed out Q1 up about 25% on the year. As good as that is, i suffered extreme volatility in getting there due to sheer idiocy. I suffered two 25% drawdowns during the period, either of which could just have easily probably become 30% - 40%. So, as I enter Q2 sitting in a pretty good position, I plan to focus on a lower risk approach. My goal for Q2 is a more modest one -- I would like to bring in around 15%. Plan is to continue running automated strategies on CL and ES, and look for opportune market turning points to take swing positions (i'm having a REALLY hard time finding any of those recently).
Go back to shaming yourself, cold. We all know you haven't been able to trade for years, but you think you can talk to aliens.
Isn't it a wee bit early to be hitting the sauce that hard bro? Or are you just getting a jump on celebrating Easter? Anyway, I'll go back to shaming myself when the situation calls for it, which it no doubt will. Just haven't had the need for it during March.
Quick mid-week update- This morning I opened several speculative short positions, as follows: - SDS - SKF - FXP - SCO (already closed) I also opened a couple of small short positions in WYNN and HOG. These will be short swing trades, based primarily on three or four factors: 1) Pressure to raise interest rates is rising precipitously. 2) Debt problems are spinning out of control, both in certain US states and in Greece and other piigs in particular 3) The markets, nearly every market, is extremely overbought and facing resistance. 4) China is about to monkey around with its exchange rate Long story short, I like the risk/reward here that something could happen to spook the market and cause some much needed profit taking. I will close most of these trades on a 10% gain, if possible. Hate to short a market that seems completely unwilling to go down, but it can't go on at this pace forever, and there is a stench in the air. cheers, HB
I already took a bunch of profit on these trades. Nowhere near my target, but they moved to the downside so quickly today right after i initiated them that i couldn't resist. Every dip has been so relentlessly bought that i couldn't pass up a quick 2-3% profit. I closed my SCO position in its entirety (too soon, it turned out), closed 2/3 of my SKF position, and closed 1/3 of my SDS position. The only full position left open is FXP and that was more or less because my order to take profit didn't get hit before the market turned. We'll see if this was a typical case of not letting my winners run, but i figure i'll take the bird in hand here given how the market has acted lately. Not to mention i still have partial positions on so I'll benefit moderately from a further move down.
Reentered all of these short positions except SCO at the close today after taking profits EOD yesterday and pre-open today. I figure the market is either going to sell off prior to earnings or possibly after Alcoa. Either way, I'll only take a 4% max portfolio loss across all the trades.
I had a so-so week, I am in an approximate 4% drawdown from peak and up 20%+ for the year. This week was more or less a wash, but a long put USO position I had in a secondary account took more of a beating than I had realized. Just to keep things simple i've closed that account and will be consolidating. Too much of a pain in the arse switching back and forth between brokers, and it cost me a full 3%. Anyway, as of close today I am 150% short the market via: FXP SDS SKF I've hedged each of these positions, but nevertheless, given the leverage, if they move against me I will take some serious pain. Max potential loss across the entire portfolio, if all positions are losers and the hedges close in the money at opex in May, will be approximately 9%. It's a high risk bet that is certainly counterintuitive and countertrend at this stage. It seems everyone thinks earnings are going to get beat, and complacency is widespread. I myself am not too comfortable with it, but then again that is where i often make the most money. My plan is to ride these positions out until, at minimum, OpEx in May (when my hedges expire). However, if we should get a 3%+ market dip near term I will take profits. Not looking for a market crash here, just a dip or a bit more. In order to further reduce potential losses associated with these positions i will do the following: 1) I have several intraday ES strategies that I will run in long only mode. If the market has a long bias, I should do ok on these strategies and offset some of the losses from my swing positions (unless its all overnight gaps!) 2) If things seem like they are getting egregiously bullish, i will open some swing long ES positions to try to catch major moves. I think the story will be told by the close of business Friday two weeks from now. I dont expect next week to be decisive, given Opex and the companies who are reporting. Cheers, HB
Looks like these bastards are going to try to deliver some immediate punishment to me in the form of a "weak-dollar" inspired rally caused by the Greek bailout (which everyone knew was coming). I'm going to pick up a significant long ES hedge at open tonight just to take the edge off the pain. My assumption is they will run it up overnight and most likely sell off around 10AM. I'll try to follow suit and limit the damage to my overall account. The only caveat is, if ES opens up more than 3 or 4 points tonight, i'll probably just pass.
ES up 4+ at the open, i'll pass. That's four in addition to the points at the close on Friday, all because of Greece. Pretty laughable.
A quick mid-week update as I substantially changed direction since my most recent post (much to my benefit). I went into Tuesday morning short 150%, but I began making boatloads of profit on short intraday futures trades. Mostly in CL but a good bit in ES as well. At one point mid-day Tuesday I was up about 8% on my total portfolio value, which brought me out of drawdown and to new highs for the year by about 4% (up around 30% total). Given my good fortune with those trades, and the fact that at that point in the day my short trades were profitable, i decided to close everything and go conservative. Thank god I did, because obviously the market reversed and is going to more than melt up today. Instead, I gave back about 2% of my profits yesterday, ending the day up 6% overall and +28% on the year (and, more importantly, finally out of drawdown). Currently completely flat, except for some FXP puts that were hedging my short position. Should be able to close those out for a nice profit today. I'll be looking for an opportune moment to place some trades, but less aggressively so as I want to preserve profits and try to stay out of drawdown (where I was all of March, essentially). cheers HB