OT - Regarding your comments and questions...
"Seriously, in the past you've always been rescued by weak labor data. But that's on Thursday. The main problem is you have to get through Wednesday first - without doing a panic cover. That's a tough one."
No doubt about it, I've had more than my share of news related luck, allowin' me to weasel out of some truly ugly monsta plays, but I've been caught a few times as well. For example, I recall bookin' a -$16K hit in January and an -$8K hit in April that both shook my confidence. I've stated many a time that I would be rocked with a major loss sooner or later - it's an expected element of the game. I believe it's important to understand this and prepare for its eventuality. The combination of tradin' with funds I can afford to lose coupled with having built up a significant amount of insurance gains has me in a position to absorb such a loss. I guess my point here is that while I'm not expectin' ta get whacked with my current dark-side play, I have effectively removed an element of fear from my trading that allows me to more comfortably ride out many of my ill-timed ST moves, rather than feelin' forced ta bail with a certain hit. (Then again, in a few hours I'll probably freak at the market open and cover at the high of the day!)
"What possessed you to do that last press, anyway? That was just plain bravado. Very much a no-no in trading."
I watch a zillion little potential indicators throughout the day. One of those that fooled me today was when AMAT (she had been outperforming INTC all morning) crossed over and began underperforming. I was confused by Intel's strength and wasn't paying enough attention to the SOX (AMAT traded relatively in line with the SOX all day). If ya ain't buyin' inta dat explanation, then yeah, ya got me, "just plain bravado!"
"But really SERIOUSLY now. I DO MEAN SERIOUSLY !!!!!! The market is going up AD. The economy will improve. Chip demand will rise. Why bother with pennies from the short side, when there are dollars on the long side ????
Pennies? Well let's see... reviewin' just the real-time trades posted here on SI (FD thread and old AMAT thread), and if memory serves, I booked net gains of about $150K in 2001, $210K in 2002 and $67K thus far in 2003. That's about $427K worth of dem copper coins. I could easily account for enough additional tradin' accounts gains over that same time frame to tip that number well over half a mil. It's hard ta say what my return is, but I guess for most of that time I capped my tradin' funds at about $750K (a respectable ROI IMO). $40K of this year's gains were booked in April and May (my best months at +$20K each) when the market moved up significantly. What I'm getting at here is that although it has always been my intention to move the bulk of my recent trading gains into a LT Portfolio in order to ride the bull, it's also very hard for me to do justify the risk when I can produce decent gains continuing with the ST plays. You might recall I did in fact establish LT Portfolios twice over the past year or so (once in July-02 and again in March-03). If I had kept them through today, the July-02 portfolio would be up 12% and the March-03 portfolio would be up 16%. Looking back, it's easy to create scenarios where I could be up huge sums today if I had only done this or that, but the bottom line is that I can't go back. Looking ahead, I'm not convinced the market is going higher regardless of whether the economy continues to improve according to current indications. It's made a huge move already and valuations remain too high IMO. I believe I've already missed the heart of the market run and at this point in time I feel the best risk/reward ratio for me is to continue with what has been working. In any case, it's just not as much fun when da law is on your side!
" Even more seriously, did you see the current Barrons? There's an article by Gene Epstein on the labor stats. He convinced me that the labor data might come up much stronger than anyone expects. Because of some statistical adjustment that is scheduled for this month."
Haven't read it, but there appears to be a number of recent indications of improving labor stats (like less layoffs in tech). I don't doubt it could be strong this month. One month is not a trend however.
"Well, enough about me. How was lunch ?"
Ya heard about da Six-Dollar-Burger? Well I had da Four-Thousand-Dollar-Ham-and-Cheese-Sandwhich! Gotta run now and make room in my desk drawer for the beer I'm gonna havta move outa da cooler tomorrow!
AdvocateDevil |
