re: << RE: Shane, were you smart enough to avoid all this nastiness of the
last couple months?
If that pertains to VLSI - a small yes. If that pertains to my
entire portfolio - a huge no! >>
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Up until July I'd made money on vlsi positions 6 times long and 5
short. With this, my other trading, and a core holding of msft I was up over 50%. Starting in August I stopped trying to trade and was planning
on building positions for next year. I don't get into something unless
I'm fundamentally into it and I plan, on average, to buy 3 times, with
the third being the 'absolute bottom'. Oh yeah, and I DO use margin.
I tend to think like you and refuse to sell at these absurd prices. But
I'm now a couple of bad days away from a margin call and trying to
evaluate a) if I should hold on as long as I can and b) if not, what kind
of exit strategy to add to the way I trade.
**also, I've given back all my gains and am recently slightly in the red for the year.
all of my 3-buy positions are well below the 3rd buy.
As a caveat, I did try to short against the box on vlsi ~12ish, but
Schwab didn't have the shares to loan.
There's one side of me saying my strategy is ok, and that I'm still doing
better than a lot, if not most. The other side is wishing I had a DanZ
style of bailing when the chart breaks down. My main problem with
TA is that so many people know about and trade on similar assumptions
that it seems like an easy way to get manipulated, though I'm pretty
much feeling that way now anyway!
Clinton is calling this the worst global financial situation since ww-II,
and I just saw a guy on cnbc saying that in 30 years in the biz, this
is the second worst time since the early 70's (73 and 74??) he's seen.
(Jim Awad).
Bonds have become a major momentum play, surprsingly. My perception
is that there are still quite a few people similar to myself who keep getting
margin calls. (I'm not there yet, but could be any day now)
LTCM has two nobel prize winning economists that developed and maintained
their hedging strategy/model and they crashed and burned a while
ago now -- had to get bailed out. Am I deluding myself that with a
couple tweeks of my system, limiting the downside, I can beat these
type of folks? Am I a fool to make a major allowance for market
conditions that rarely exist?
I could go on...., In short, I'm in a 're-evaluting' stage and am trying
to see what's to be learned from recent events.
apologies for the length. I guess while vlsi news is slow I'd like to
invite a bit of trading philosophy discussion.
thanks,
-Kevin |
