My last post on Niro's thread was made before last Sunday. I believe more than a week before last sunday, and before Japan problems.
It noticed that we closed today within easy striking distance of closing the gap at this morning's open. Depending I suppose on what happens tonight, I won't be at all surprised to see us close the gap tomorrow. We have expiration coming up. Did someone say "UP"?
nikkei drops 10% in 1 night, es down 30 pts overnight and we end the day flat on ewj and 15 pt drop on spx. Is there anything bencopter cannot do? /salute
I found the 15 minutes starting at 10:52AM today beautiful. A fast fall followed by a fast rise. A market timer's dream. What was the reason (given to explain it)?
That would be the reason, scary to think how the market will react in the short term if the catastrophe happens : BRUSSELS (Dow Jones)--Catastrophic events in Japan cannot be excluded in the next hours because the situation at a nuclear plant there is out of control, the European Union's energy chief said Wednesday. "The site is effectively out of control," Guenther Oettinger, commissioner for energy, told a European Parliament committee. "In the coming hours there could be further catastrophic events which could pose a threat to the lives of people on the island." Oettinger also said the statements of the utility operating the distressed plant and those of the Japanese government were starting to differ.
TJ, let me help you out here. When a spread blows out and makes 15% in 2 days, you sell it. There is no reason to be in that spread now. When I said that spread was a good trade, it was before the Nikkei crashed. I of course had no idea the Nikkei would crash. My thought at the time was that the situation was bad over there but not dire. I felt going forward that spread would be a good way to express a point of view on volatility that Japan would be more volatile then our markets and that over time that spread would widen. What ended up happening is the Nikkei crashed. It dropped 20% in 2 days. I would have thought that it would have taken months for that to happen but it happened in 2 days. When a spread blows out like that, you sell it. Another way to look at it is this, if you did not have the spread on, would you put it on now? And the answer is no, I would not. In fact, now that Japan has crashed I would probably reverse the spread although I think it's still pretty risky getting long Japan now. You see TJ, the reason guys spread is to express a point of view that isolates exactly what they want to express and to exclude everything else. That spread will continue to come in because Japan is more volatile then our markets. If you would start looking at relationships in the market you would be a better trader instead of asking people if they are bullish or bearish. Everything in the market is relative.