You can never be too rich, but you can be too thin.
I have been mentioning that this market feels thin for some days and today it showed a bit of that svelteness. The set-ups that were working did not last long and the new set-ups had no desire to make anything of themselves.
I felt it early in the trading day and my instinct was to lighten up and wait for a better entry. I had no intention of selling out as I am not one to get caught selling with the masses in a panic, but I saw no reason to stay in set-ups that were on the weak side. Anyone who reads my blogs knows I am a bull for 2011, but as I brought up my concern to fellow traders this morning, they pushed back and I took pause.
To make matters worse, my new trading platform with TradeKing crashed. At 10:30 AM, I found myself posting the following in the Pelican room: “
Woa!!! How fucked up is this? My Trade King window just went to: ” Our website is temporarily unavailable due to technical issues. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Please contact us at 877.495.5464 (Available 8am – 6pm ET, Monday – Friday) for assistance. ”
As such, I am looking to change brokers again for the second time this month/year and consequently, I did very little to lighten up, negating my strong instincts. Fate seemed to be in charge.
I had commitments mid-day.
By the time I returned to the market, it had turned for the worse. I cautioned myself not to get caught in panic selling but I saw no reason to just sit back and take it. Some names were definitely breaking down, while a few were not. I held strong, for example, in $RTN, $PH and $NILE (thank you Sir Fly).
The RUT looked nasty. I bought some $TZA for a quick scalp of .21cents. This helped, all in all, to keep my balance at a reasonable level. I sold all but 30% of it before the end of day because I am smart enough to know that it can reverse quickly in either direction and I never hold piece of shit inverse ETF‘s for any length of time…always a short leash. Maybe you have seen my rants about the evil that is $VXX in The PPT. This is one I will not touch, but $TZA for a short term scalp, I will play. I also preserved some profits by doing some selling in names that were not doing as I bade them to. As a result, I was down only 1% on the day. I have heard other traders speak of being down 3-4% on the day.
The moral of the story:
Don‘t let the losers get you down. If you have a losing trade, Get The Fuck Out Early!
OR…
ALWAYS TRUST TheWife’s INSTINCTS!
Good job wife!
Sorry. missed this until now. So true in hindsight, as these markets chun and whipsaw.