Tuesday Trades
Briefly traded KR and C on the long side. Overnight, holding:
Long
- HUN (Huntsman)
- SSO (UltraLong SPX)
- KGC (Kinross Gold) — new addition
- SDS (UltraShort SPX) — new addition
Short
- AAPL (Apple)
- FSLR (First Solar)
- AZO (AutoZone)
Briefly traded KR and C on the long side. Overnight, holding:
Long
Short
While I’m sitting on hands right now, I like your short book – aapl was at the top of my list, but it never hit my trigger value.
I’m not so crazy about your longs.
How does the overall hedge strategy play out? Biased to the short or long side? I’m also not a fan of the ultras; I believe them to be garbage and to crazy to trade in a market experiencing historic volatility.
Do you ever go 100% cash?
Have a good trading day.
T
Hi T,
sold SDS in pre-market (+2%), just sold KGC (+1.75%), not getting greedy, these little points add up.
I would never hold any Ultra after my massive EEV fiasco. They’re good for a quick trade.
– SDS has been very very good, I understand its behavior
– SSO doesn’t trade well, may go back to shorting SDS to go long
But I will keep HUN as a spec play, I’m waiting for a 100% move in a month or less. My position is tiny, would not hurt at all if it went to zero. Lottery tickets are fun, and this is not even the craziest of them all.
Is there a term for a play based on “oversold on over-reaction”? HUN was punished way too hard.
Overall, I’m short-biased. My longs are usually very short-term, they feel like hot potatoes 🙂
I haven’t been 100% cash since about …. 2005 or so. Spring 2007 was when I really got into stocks, penny-stocks first aaaah! Huge loss. Then became sensible in spring of this year, and even more seriously in August of this year.
What’s your position at the moment – in, out? If in – what?
Good day to you, too!
“Sitting on my hands” – as in still 100% cash? Completely out, in all accounts? Wow, what restraint!
I went with the herd on this one – op-ex week, upside bias, generally -> threw on some longs.
100% cash. I’m sitting on hands and I have closed out my year. Unless I see some real leaders set up, move out and hold their gains will I jump back in.
You should really, really read Darvas. Him along with Livermore, O’Neil, Baruch stress on the benefits of being out of the market in cash and only trading when you have the wind at your back.
Trust me on this. I was up 50% for the year and gave back almost half of that in ‘fast trades’ where I thought I could pick up a quick buck. Death by 1,000 cuts if you will.
Those trades, after review, made me go back and remember what got me to the dance.
>> benefits of being out of the market in cash and only trading when you have the wind at your back
I’ve been wanting to get out for awhile now, but get mired in this and that.
Now that I lost so much on a single trade, I’m motivated to get it all back (of course), though it’s a recipe for more losses. However, I reduced position sizes to “ridiculously small” and goose-stepping it.
We call it revenge trading – been there done that. The trade is done, the money is lost, forget about it and move on. You’re not alone…
IMHO, concentrate on finding stocks that show leadership qualities (fundamentally & technically strong) and wait for the market to confirm the general upward move. AIPC, ACM,THOR – great stocks showing strength. If the market looks strong coming into the new year, those will probably be the stocks I look to get into on any pullback.
Right now stocks are having trouble making new highs, which means to me, that this move comes from stocks moving off the bottom. I have very little desire to play them – been burned too many times in the past.
AAPL should dive pretty soon. $60 range is what I expect before mid-January, probably sooner. Something’s up and it’s bigger than Steve’s health or the MacWorld.
I’m going to take 2-3 weeks off soon.
Now that it’s time to swing-trade again, I’ll work on a watch list, thanks for the picks. THOR and AIPC look very good.