Check the video again - by the rules of the game, it was holding. As for whether it was holding if you consider the spirit of the game, it is debatable. You can't blame ref calls for losing a game, no matter how bad they are. That interception sure hurt.
Oh yes I can. i know what I saw. The whole country saw the same thing. 15 penalties against Baltimore set the stage for the phantom penalty. Some of these penalties at the most sensitive times. If YOU see the replay of the phantom holding call you'll see the guy that was whistled barely touched anyone. Pure and simple a disgrace. Makes me sick of the NFL, and i'm just getting over the crooked NBA referee who coincidentally whistled Amare Stoudemire for 3 quick fouls in game #3 against San Antonio (SA beat Phoenix 108-101 to take a 2-1 lead), forever altering the prospective outcome of the NBA championship. And now we have it fixed for the patsies to go undefeated. What's happened to sports??
I think it's all about ominous signs Pabst. Just like when grandmothers started flipping condos in Miami, for those paying attention it was a clear signal of a real estate market top. Now you hear rappers, models, Chavez and Ahmedijenad trashing the USD around the same time. Sometimes market signs are just that obvious...
I forgot to update. A lot's happened. Like a lucky bastid I covered my ES puts on yesterday's close. It wasn't so much that I was bullish as much as I knew these puts are going to be zero if the break doesn't come. Like in September I see stocks keeping a bid until the Fed. That doesn't mean you can't break on payroll but in general I see little to get me beared up on the lower end of value. I was stopped on my Euro short but put them back out at 147.69 and slept on it. Today I covered my short futures and converted them into various put spreads. I traded pit options in EUR and was very pleased with the fills. All market orders.
Regarding dollar/Euro sentiment. A sentiment extreme is something that builds up for months or more. Just 1-2 ago there were huge sentiment extremes in the dollar and oil. That sentiment still exists to a large extent. Just because someone on TV says the dollar might rally does not mean it's the mainstream view or position. If you watch CNBC or Bloomberg etc long enough you will always see bears at tops and bulls at bottoms. 2 weeks ago a guy was calling for $70 oil. That's pretty much my exact view. Does that mean I should cover? No of course not. 1 guy on TV does not make a consensus. The fact is that speculative money is still massively long oil - that's the consensus. It's the same with the dollar - most money is short, or underweight the greenback. How could it not be after a 65 handle move from 0.83? That's an epic multi-year trend and anyone who is ever going to be a dollar bear has already gotten short. You need to analyse sentiment by judging the *overall* tone in the conventional wisdom. If George Soros or Julian Robertson came on CNBC and says buy the dollar, that is not a consensus to fade just because it's on bubblevision. Instead, ask your accountant, financial advisor, or dentist what he thinks about the dollar - *that* is the conventional wisdom. Are these guys dollar bulls? No frickin way. Just a few weeks ago there was an article about Gisele Bundchen (random model) getting bearish on the dollar, for crying out loud. Dollar rallying to say 1.30 is very much a variant perception, maybe 1 guy in 100 on the street thinks this is gonna happen. As Michael Steinhardt said, any time you have a view which is in the minority, and your view turns out to be correct, you are pretty much guaranteed to make money. If you are wrong, odds are you won't lose much. Another point to consider - the all-time high in the Euro is only 2.5% away. This trade has a close, clear stop and thus limited risk; it also has good profit potential if you are right. You should not be jumping in and out of a trade like this every time someone talks on TV or the price blips 70 pips on random noise. With this kind of trade you have to sit on your hands and say either the Euro breaks 1.50 and I was wrong, or I am right, in which case it is going down 15-20 handles from the high. Go for the big swings on this one, not the noise. My recommendation? Go 100% short the Euro, place a stop at 1.51, a buy order at 1.33, then go on holiday for the next 2 months. I guarantee you will make more money than if you sit watching the price every day. If you follow every blip, every comment in the news, you will almost certainly talk yourself into covering. Being right is one thing, but being right and being able to sit on a position for a major move is far more difficult. But as traders we make it more difficult by focusing too much on the noise. As you said a month or two ago with the S&P, sometimes we have to stop trading a position and instead just sit on it and let the big move play out. One final note - we are just above support around 1.45. Obviously that needs to break if we are gonna get a big move down. It is not really your position now that is important, but rather what you do if the price goes through 1.44, 1.43, 1.42 etc. If a big move is on, most of your profit will come from the move from 1.45 to 1.35, 1.30, or however low it goes, not from whether you shorted at 1.47 or 1.46. Instead of freaking out about exact entry price, spend the time and mental energy on planning what to do if the Euro really does go down like a lead zeppelin.
Great post Cutten. Might I add that another factor that leads to being easily scared out of a position, is when you're trading too much size for your personal comfort level. For me cutting down my size after a few rough weeks recently has really helped me.
Agree, well said Cutten. I used this strategy with the Yen earlier this year by buying Calls on the futures. Gives you time for not very much money and defines your risk.
There is a guy who runs a fund in Germany with ~150MM or so. He started six years ago trading exotic option bets on the DAX. He went 22/22 and parlayed each bet. Took his $1MM to $110MM in ~6-month's time.