P&D If I may critique your trading by what I hear you saying alot on this thread and other posts. #1.) Learn to protect your capital at all costs. This is your #1 priority. #2.) Stop trying to pick tops and bottoms and reversals. you will not succeed, you will lose the rest of your money. Whether it is stock or market bottoms and tops. You should really stop trading for a while, ....you made the right decision there. If you ever give it a go again only trade 5% of your portfolio on any position and limit your loss to 2% of your portfolio value. Good Luck
Load up on calls next week.. Red or Black then let it roll...lol This market is tough MR MARKET wants us to go down to 12,600 that means the number is in everyones head we are going their.. Just like oil going to 100. This is symbolic bull shit that can wipe you out fast.. In all my years I have never seen a market take 1300 point swings every 2 weeks or so. Its like everyone now days just follows the charts. the chart "says" we go to 12,600 .. then what back to 14.300 of course you know then people trade because the "FED" will save the market - then he doesn't cut and we go back to 12,600 ... Funny I keep telling my self when we market makes a new high sell that week.. wait a month and go back.......
P & D You strike me as someone with a whole lot of preset beliefs about the markets. Your last post shows that your losses haven't changed your basic problem in the markets. I revise my advice - get out for a while.
my advice pumpanddumper and it'll probably go against most of the traders here: Your positions that you are "holding", I wouldn't worry too much about them. Basically, I would keep the long positions as long as they are decent companies and the stock is over $7. Liquidating your stocks at this point would most likely be pointless and you'll probably miss good gains in the next bounce. If the stocks have been beaten down, chances are they are good value buys and the next wave of the market will probably reward the value traders pretty nicely. If you want to hedge short still, go ahead, but keep a smaller ratio of shorts, and make sure your shorts aren't "value" stocks at this point, because they could bounce. I would keep any technology shorts that you have. If you still feel the desire to swing trade on a daily or weekly basis, discipline yourself to use a defined and small percentage of your portfolio. Take like 10% and trade that, but keep the rest as investments. If you blow out the 10%, wait until you accumulate enough to create a new 10% basis, so that you're not just beating your portfolio down by constantly taking another 10% out. Be discliplined about this. Take a step back, take a deep breath and go in a new direction. That doesn't mean that you can't still "gamble" *wink* on trading, but just make sure that your "gambling" won't destroy your potential to grow your portfolio. Learn some discliplined medium term "investing" strategies and you'll be a millionaire by the time your 40. Keep the gambling as a hobby, but focus on fundemental and technical analysis for longer positions.
Yeah, P&D, you seem to think trading is about being RIGHT about something, I don't think so, not for the small guys like me at least, it's about seeing what the bigger guys are doing, not before they do it, but while they do it, and getting on their coat tails and riding for a while, with no regard as to why they are doing anything. I see lots of really small traders trying to think like Warren Buffett and predicting things and having opinions on things market related... what's the point? WB has to be right about things, his positions are huge and he holds them for years, I don't even need a subscription to the Wall Street Journal, just market data and maybe a heads up on when numbers will be released....
Yeah, maybe I'm just a contrarian and like to go against the grain and public. When the "crowd" says sell when good companies are beaten up, I buy and vice versa. It's tough man. I should of stuck with the index trading than get involved stock trading bottom line. I will sit on my positions in my trading account. As for my ROTH IRA, its sitting on cash. My 401k from old job, in a money market account. My trading Ameritrade account at 75k will take a breather. My positions will stay. My short ETF's(DXD) will stay. We will bounce next week into expiration Friday. The leg down from 13.4k DOW when everyone thinks we are in the clear to 14k DOW will not happen! December will come. Everyone will think Santa Clause rally, sorry just like sell in May go away didn't work and reversed against the bears. FED may cut .25 or not. Sure, rally off that and think clear sailing. The Dollar will come in focus and rally and equities will correct more. We are finishing the tear at 12,500, right where we started. We will look at 2007 as the roller coaster of a year and go down as the most volatile trading year in recent memory. You will wake up one night to a China Contagion like 98'. All indexes are gonna correct globally. Sorry, credit bubbles end! Hell, an unforseeable crisis can happen and plague the markets. Now guess when I will put my money to work again long term long? When no one is buying! Like 5 years ago when no one gave a shit about investing in stocks. People are saying now to invest at oil $100! Gold at these levels? Sorry, that won't be a "safe haven" either. Buy the stuff beaten up. Shit, I'm ready to buy the dollar! Also, the next time you get a tip from a multi-millionaire options derivative specialist who has a seat on the exchange, don't ask questions and take his tip. Don't burn your bridges either and let money get to your head too. And also invest in silver (not gold) if it ever dips again.
Exactly man. I am holding my positions. If I was REALLY short on cash, I would liquidate. I have my reserves but that doesn't mean to be lazy. Have to get a job still. Being self-employed for the last 5 years has been great though. New direction, new leafs to turn, and onward! Millionaire by 40 has always been my goal. $900,000 from the first one. If I do make a million in the future in the market, it will be on an inside tip that comes every few years. You know, the sure thing. That call or put option perhaps before that deal goes down. Trading/gambling is just what it is mostly.
You definitely come across as a "big picture" trader. The adages, "Santa Clause "rally, China, Gold, Silver, the public sentiment. It might not hurt to apply the macros to a more bite sized sector and define a specialty and work your way up and out the specialty.
Market is a tough call BECAUSE YOU CANT TRUST WHAT THEY ARE TELLING US. The Fed is full of shit, the CEO's lie trough their teeth. If the game is rigged we will all fail. I was at Merrill 2-3 months back when the CEO sent out an internal memo. STAN ONEAL.. I will make it short - the scum bag that he fuckin is said we have no exposer to sub prime merrill's assets are over sea's. He also said he has learned from the 90's when he was the CFO during the banking problems back them... Well do you know how many people put the a majority of there 401 K into merill stock because that scum bag was playing a game?? I didn't buy the shitty company's stock but -- case and point.. I dont care what type of trader you are when this shit comes out after hours your screwed say good bye to you 10 percent stop loss if your levered with options- if this happens a few times this will turn you upside down. As I said beware. With the presidential race coming up - information coming to us may be slanted also.. The media (politically) are also trying to scare the people because are trying to make the case for the democrats make REP look like they did a shitty job on wall street of the Now that said.. I think the market is healthy the money is to be made over seas.