Waiting for the spreads to widen...at 13:45 or later (every once in a while it is much later)...then off to the gym. Michael B.
How can you guys be doing so bad? The market has been tanking the past few days. Are you guys looking on the buy side only? I find that this market is very good if you are short. If you want to make good money, you have to play both the long and short side. Shorting has been very good for my group. Everyone in my group is making a killing shorting. I don't know what you guys are doing out there.
It is tougher trading in bear markets than in bull markets. You have to be nimble, and you have to be quick grasping profits. Or else they will be gone. Just like that. Opening-range breakouts do not do as well on the short side than on the long side. Breakouts from pivot points do not do as well short than on the long. Bear market conditions: false breakouts to the downside, followed by false breakouts to the upside. More traps to ensnare trend traders. When you decide to ride the trend down by placing big stops, the market climbs to touch your stop, and then goes back down like a rock (you have to be nimble enough to get back short). The only thing I like about bear markets are the spectacular short covering rallies that get snuffed out. Key is getting out in end-of-day day or within the next day or two. I made money this week, but the last two days have been grueling, as I have had to fight for every dollar. And I have been SHORT for the most part. I can see why William O'Neill suggests to sit bear markets out.
If you go short..you can lose money so fast when the market reverses. All it takes is the nasdaq popping .35 % and BOOM instant loss..stocks surge. You have to cover. It is very risky to short in these conditions. Its not like 2000-2002 when everything as very overpriced and the trend had clearly reversed.
plus in a bull market, if you're leveraged, your leverage increases overnight with gains - not so with shorts. I got railed at the end of Jan when I was short EPEX, NGS and REDF(after the cramer lemmings pumped it). The ebb-and-flow called my margin and I had to cover. In retrospect I should have had more conviction and consolidated my other longs to have enough capital to ride out the shorts. Would have had a 5 bagger with the bunch of shorts as opposed to loosing 20k. Lesson learned: don't short on margin.
shortly after my, 'define your uncle point thread" ...I dropped 8k.... I am down, but not out... This sucks..what an ugly piker I am.
All of August has been a tight-range, low-volume crap market and i for one will not be sorry to see it go.... now let all the posters who trade 100k shares a day, running after a couple cents on each trade, and post their 5k a day blotters come and tell me what a piker i am and how i should be able to make money every day....
i should add-- one thing i have done which has helped a bit is to switch from mainly swingtrading to mainly daytrading-- and to take profits faster. seems to be that kind of market....
ror, 100k shares a day aint nothin', that's what i do on my very busy days and am an intraday position trader....those who regularly bank that kinda profits usually do 1mln minimum of shares per day.
ES -- I've always found that the bigger the gains prior, the bigger the hits that would follow, and the better the lesson learned after all. Just don't rush the comeback.