Thanks CB, its been a fun ride and while its a large loss I also learned a lot from the trade and I am sure that I will be able to more than make it up on what I learned. Have a good weekend!! Bob
The shock of LEH has passed and doing damage control today was priority one. last night after the market closed I was thinking of an exit to this mess that may work. I thought I would take a look at options. I have used options in the past to work my way out of messes and upon checking I found the IV to be sky high. The $4 and the $5 both looked like they could work well. The big question is do I close out today or hold on with options over the weekend. I think the chances are better than 50/50 that LEH will be worth more than 2.55 per share next Friday and the options where priced high enough to risk it. I currently have 7314 shares of LEH with an effective cost basis of 2.54 after factoring in the $4 sept calls that I wrote for 1.19 each. ideally I want LEH to go above and stay above $4 next week which will maximize the gain from the options. I scapled LEH most of the day which allowed me to lower my cost basis. Not enough to cover the fall but helped - 11069 I did have a couple of signals today GM + 876 S:H I scalped FTO + 380 Closed out of some of IBKR + 50 - 9761 for the day - 33847 for the week - 23856 for the month
I posted this in another thread but I thought it belonged in my thread as well to provide a better view of my thinking and thought process. To be clear I do NOT think this is the case or that it will happen but think about this for a while. you want to buy LEH (pick the bank of your choise here) but Paulson says no to govt money. How can you find financing to cover possible losses?? You hold off on coming to an agreement and start buying YM / ES contracts Then SPI and HSI contracts (Tokyo, Singaopore etc.. also)as they are down big (ES is down about 36 points and the dow is down about 290 as of this post) You spend five or six hours buying so that you don't show your hand. Next you announce the deal for LEH and the markets Jump on the news and you make a pile of money. Not sure how much money can be made overall in the world markets but if the ES is down 35-40 points and the deal sends it to positive 15-20 points along with the rest of the world indexes in similar fashion you could make a lot of money. If the deal with the feds was that they would not provide money but would turn a blind eye so that all could save face you may have something interesting. Nothing more than just some baseless Sunday night thoughts as I watch the markets and the news.
Hard to get my head around the losses in the last three trading sessions. Actually was at a high point of the year early last week to a low point for the year today. Watching bloom yesterday really sent home the message that being long is overall a lot more dangerous than being short. I traded for a while after my loss with UAUA with an unwillingness to be long almost all my losses have been due to being long. I am going to once again try to quantify my risk going forward with carrying overnight. Still long IBKR, RICK and GE. quotes have been down all day so I am going to hold off on closing these out (all a loser as of this post) LEH - 25699 LEH options + 8471 - 17228 for the day / week - 41084 for the month 7300 shares for the day 669247 shares / mth
In this market 1reason but in a bull you don't want to go out short. I am very sorry about your loss this month. My biggest rips are from shorts in my career a little over 100,000 was my worst with more than a few over 20,000 a couple at 50ish. This builds our character as a trader. Some traders gamble others just get caught. Your work had caught my eye but even more your humility. One common factor i have seen in traders who fail is they know everything are smarter than everyone can't be wrong and in all the traders(100's) they leave the game next to broke if not leave it in huge debt. You seem to have none of these attributes. Maybe you can get out of everything reflect on what happened then moved forward.Best of luck to you
And just to jump on the wagon..... I have total faith in your continual journey. Your systems work so well sometimes they are scary. Don't doubt in the dark what you have seen in the light. You have doubted your long signals before. Yet again a long has failed you. I don't even think you entered this on your "systems", so it could even be chalked to a "wild hair trade"....... All that said, I would bet money that this launches you into that next level, your discipline grows, and you never look back......... Thanks for the journal, it has taught me more then the literally hundreds of trading books I have scoured........... Jegnyr