"did you catch much of this ramp?"
I was on top of it at the bottom, as I had been touting my "prorgam trading begins at 50 VIX theory" but, strangely enough I have not made loads of money. Why? Because I've been intraday trading mostly, with little overnighting, and the vast bulk of this rally has been on gaps, with the rest of the days somewhat rangebound (except yesterday).
Why intraday trading? Because of all the big names we've had report this week: GE, C, INTC, IBM, JPM, etc. I remember clearly in March when GE reported and had light revs, and down the chute they went. So before close I sold the GE and other longs I bought Thursday morning. It was the safe thing to do in light of all their recent downgrades and that mid day conference they had a few weeks ago that sent investors running to the exits and analysts pushing their downgrade buttons. People who held overnight might have forgotten about that, or those that claim they were "expecting follow through" the day after the rally's beginning were really saying that they were "expecting follow through if the market blows off any potential bad news from GE before open."
I think whether people realize it or not they were not so much playing a rally after Monday; they were instead playing "earnings plays" and maybe doing so somewhat unwittingly. In the past when I've played "earnings plays" I've got a record of being only about 40% correct, so I generally avoid them. |
