Sergio, due primarly to two lucky "sell all" calls (one the day before the mini-crash, and one Thursday) I am actually UP almost 15% since before the "crash". And this is all on long trades! Hedge, schmedge, just stay off the freeway except when you have to be there. :)
(Except for a 401-K that has been fully-invested in mutual funds throughout the whole thing - haven't even looked to assess the damage. Presumably, Merrill Lynch and Seligman know what they are doing, and I am still up for the year...)
(Actually, I just snuck a peek at my funds on Stockmaster, and boy am I surprised! They really have done very well, and have survived nicely. FWIW, the funds I'm holding are are Merrill Lynch Growth, Seligman Henderson Global Small Companies, Seligman Frontier, and Seligman Communications. Forget the exact allocations, but the global fund is the smallest allocation, the Merrill Lynch Growth the largest.)
I don't think this market is really that hard to read. It is giving plenty of warning. The Asian situation was already being discussed before that 500+ point day, and the market was just ignoring it, for the most part. It was not ignorable.
I kicked myself for not buying Intel warrants around 50 the second day near the open. But there was still plenty of opportunity for profit after things settled-down. By Thursday, it was just, let's say, too much of a good thing, though.
I have to admit that my latest "sell all" was helped-along by a glitch with my one of my broker's online trading, which got me pissed-off enough to sell everything in perperation for closing the account. Otherwise, I may not have sold-off my IRA account. (My regular account is more often cash than not lately, anyway.) At the same time, I didn't feel I'd be missing much by sitting it out, either, so it was not a tough decision to make. One stock (JTAX) had reached my objective, another (QNTM) was looking short-term topped-out technically and had given a sell signal, and the others were heading that way, and probably would have been sold one-by-one as they signaled anyway.
Nothing wrong with your hedging and spread strategies, I just don't have the patience. Never have been able to hold a covered call for the term - always wind-up losing money, and would have made money had I stood pat. :) |
