And then, after an hour, I'll move it to chit chat. This month sucked. I know some of you did very well, and I salute you. I, however, did not. It was a shitty month, and I'm glad it's over.
I don't know what the big deal is. Voltaility is a non issue to those who seek it and those who experienced it. Those that only day trade index futures and then get shocked when the market starts to move by 500pts a piece need to trade regular securities for change. The stock I am in (AMGN) moved crazily today but I stayed there. The next few days should be more promising.
That's funny mate! I had my best month in over 10 years, and that's saying something as i've had many good months and very few bad ones. Maybe if you had actually followed my prediction that the S&P would fall by -20% as was spelled out in the thread I started and you DELETED, maybe you could have done better. But heck, what do I know? I'm just a guy who gets banned. I certainly cannot be an anonymous legendary short trader.
I am sorry that you did not do as well as you liked. Perhaps November will bring you a month of profits large enough for two months! I had a great month, once I finished my system to exploit the new price action. The increased volatility and whipsaw of September had my old system reeling and my head spinning, but October is my most profitable month to date due to the increased profit targets brought on by the volatility. Dear God, all I want for Christmas is another year of October profitability!
That is funny ! "Trading - Prediction..." Says it all what you are- noob! Some guys can't get it past their thick skulls, trading has nothing to do with prediction, but then, you'll still argue this point. And when you finally learn, will bring it back into your trading style as old habits die hard.
I'd like to clarify something here. For some traders, i include myself, the problem is not volatility per se, we like a volatile market, but it is lack of sufficient order volume surrounding the last price and large spreads between bid and ask. This leads to nearly instantaneous, and unpredictable, large price swings. In my case i am noticing this in the Russell futures which i have traded for two years exclusively, but now find not very satisfactory on ICE as symbol TF. These problems may resolve themselves with time. I do hope so. It seems that there must be many sitting on the sidelines now, and this is not a happy situation for trading. I agree with you, by the way. I should find something else to trade.
I had a great first half of October and a bad second half. I was on track for my best month ever and then erased all my profits ending up with zero. I barely payed for commish. Like I always do, I blame myself for the bad 2nd half of October. I lost discipline and started to be sloppy with my trading, neglecting key rules of my trading plan and eventually getting burned. I've never traded such a volatile market before, it's the first time for me. Something I noticed is this: 1) Technical patterns tend to appear less and fail more often. 2) The market seems eager to swing from one extreme to another, crushing anything in between. I guess this is typical of panicking markets where sentiment tends to shift from extremely bearish to extremely bullish in a matter of minutes or hours. 3) Price action moves fast, really fast. Key price areas aren't tested for long, they either hold or get crushed. This takes away precious time for decision making. I remember one trade I took 2 weeks ago when I had a runner left for a nice short - I trade YM - was over 200pts in the money, went to take a piss and by the time I was back, my breakeven trailing stop got hit. 4) Patience and discipline is required more now than ever before. This market doesn't take any prisoners, if you make a mistake you pay dearly for it. It's not like the 2006 market where you could afford to make a mistake and with the market not really going anywhere, even getting away with a small loss or small profit. 5) Intraday price action is really stressful, I feel extremely burned out at the end of the day. YM average daily range today equals its average monthly range in 2006. Basically, every day I am trading a whole 2006 month move!!! 6) I don't want to sound repetitive, but patience - pick your spots and be selective - and discipline are key in this market. Good weekend all.