Trading earnings are a complete gamble, as No Doji pretty much said herself. A lot of people trade earnings in hope of fast money of a gap up or strong rally the day after. The problem though wasnt ISRG earnings, it was when he kept trading dispite his the 5k loss limit.
Weekly Update for week 15/50 ended 04/24/2010 Nice week, up 12K (5.3%). Lots of activity on the automated front with the stream of earnings in play. Got a decent sum there, plus some nice option plays buying SPY on the dip. Next week should be active well as earnings season peaks. Code: Opening Balance: 222,682 Net gain for the week 11,768 ------------------------------------------------ Net Balance: 234,450 Number of Trades 30 Number of Profitable Trades 14 Since Inception of Thread 01/10/2010 - 04/24/2010 Opening Balance: 410,000 Net loss(Less Margin Interest) 175,550 (Down 43%) ------------------------------------------------ Net Balance 234,450 Number of Trades 501 Number of Profitable Trades 242
I will never understand the mindset of a trader who *supposedly* is trading real money posting their trades on some Internet trading board. It's almost a set up for failure because of the ego factor. I also cannot fanthom how any real trader could lose over 40% of their trading capital amid one of the greatest bull runs of all time.
1. because you don't believe people can help each other on internet. I appreciate Neke's effort. 2. Guess you never short a market. As a matter of fact, the market is way overdue for a major correction. The FED has pumped too much money in the market and the market is so distorted now. If you can't believe people can lose money in a bull market, guess you don't believe people can make money in a bear market either. You only trade one direction of the market.
A non sensical response above. I probably should have said bull market or bear market anyone with a six figure account who drops over 40% of their trading capital in less than four months has some serious, very serious money management issues. And money management is the name of the trading game.
Why so? I short the market too and for the past 12 months only shorted it twice or three times, on July 2009, October 09 and last February. There is simply no reason to short the market, and why a trader keeps insisting on it is beyond me. No matter how rigged, how manipulated or how much money is being pumped up, the fact is the market has been going up, and I better stay on the right side, since ranting about how rigged or manipulated this is won't be doin' much help to me or is it?
Well shorting in itself is not wrong, even during the occasional fall out during those past weeks' runup. I made a nice stash on Thursday when all the indexes sold off and the euro got crushed. Its about when to take profit when being right and run as fast as you can, knowing we are still in a strong uptrend or to cut losses immediately when things dont work out. I would never get into a position without initial confirmation and strong catalyst. On Thursday it was the Greek budget deficit surprise, a Fitch report on Japanese government debt. But I waited with my short until initial support levels were broken and the market clearly started selling off because of the same reasons that I saw. I was lucky enough to cover at the almost precise low. I did not expect the market would rebound as fast as it did so that was a lucky exit. (evidence available upon PM request). Why I say that is because I simply do not see catalysts or confirmations in some of the names Neke shorts or longs other than something ran up too much or sold off too much, which in my book is no explanation nor reason to ever get into any position. Maybe Neke can comment a little more on those discretionary positons and why he exactly took them but I still claim he did not reflect enough on his past mistakes to have made the best out of this learning lesson.
Experiences from 10 years ago are not relevant to today's market. 2 years even doesn't explain each market as there is no constant rate of volatility across time periods. This is essentially what gives rise to the Random Walk. Mathematically, all it says is that a time series appears very erratic when it is not continuous. Compartmentalized trading of prices limited to only 0.01 is not the same percentage wise for all securities. 0.01 is not the same on a $10 stock as on a $100 stock, and this basic decimalization problem has been helped considerably in the past few years through more frequent trading and hypercompetitive trading algorithms arbitraging less than 1 penny between the bid and ask to guarantee a sale of security when liquidity is required to be provided and instantaneous profits through price improvement mechanisms promote liquidity by increasing the frequency of the trading. Is there something wrong with making a half cent on 10000 shares whenever you want? Well, if you're going to do 10000 shares why don't we do 100000 shares? Or 1000000 shares? Essentially these algorithms work well b/c they have some element of private information, but not private enough to be considered material as these companies had to develop their software over time and with considerable expense in order to provide the liquidity and continuous pricing investors desire. What were we talking about? Ah, yes, expecting large amounts of incompetent newbies to do nothing but buy the market is not a very good long term plan to bet the farm on.
he, good laugh. But equally applicable....countless wannabe quants who believe the world yields to the same statistical properties they observed in the past, rejecting that even those properties change dynamically. Niederhoffer is a great example of someone committing such sin over and over. Bwolinsky seems to think a good programmer or a good ATS makes an automatic money machine. If it really is true I always wondered why he had to advertise his services on the shadiest websites there are. It does not exactly help your reputation but I guess to everyone his own... ;-)