Thursday, August 16, 2007

This Looks Like Panic To Me

Picked up 100 GS @ $160.86 and 100 QLD @ $83.15

Wow. That was quick. Stopped out on both QLD @ 81.75 and GS @ 158.09.

***Update*** That really hurts. Those stop outs had me miss a 10 point move in GS and a 3 point move in QLD. Ouch.

***Update*** Well I got back in the office to find the indexes trying to go green. I jumped back in GS 100 @ $169.17 and QLD 100 @ $84.97.

I'm holding both of them overnight. I'm about ready to throttle myself for setting my damn stops so tight on the earlier trades.

I'm expecting a bounce here. Nothing more. I think, as I've said for two weeks now, that this type of sell-off is not going to V-bottom back into new 52 weeks highs. There is likely more downside, and at the very least, consolidation, before any kind of sustained move upward. The fact that I didn't short this down on the last bounce has really pissed me off, as that was what I had planned to do, and didn't. I'm going to try and catch a bounce here or sacrifice another 500 bucks or so trying.

8 comments:

matte351 said...

You had the right idea but the wrong stop with the current market volatility. I sold a few trades at the bottom thinking this was going to be another -400 day. Oh well, live and learn.

Jeff said...

Yeah, I set the stops that way in case it was a 400 point day.

If I can catch at least a small bounce tomorrow, I'll recoup my losses.

Chris said...

I have found that setting stops on those leveraged ETfs is a difficult thing. You really have to be ready to endure a painful unrealized loss. I'm still have trouble myself. Got long on the leveraged ETFs near the close as well.

Fantom said...

I was stopped out as well with the headfake drop at the end of the day, having bought 10000 mvis at 4.54. a dime was all I could endure. Perhaps a bit too heavy a purchase.

AnotherBrian said...

Why not go without a stop and set up a close profit taking stop that will probably get hit with the volatility. Use daily and weekly pivot points.

Broker A said...

Can't really blame you. However, with such a small share amount, you should leave some more room.

Jeff said...

Yeah, all good suggestions.

What messes me up is trading at work. When I initially put on the trade, I'd had all of like 2 minutes to look at quotes. So I see what looks like panic, and want to buy, but I also know that I may not be able to get back to the computer for a couple of hours. I should have taken more time to really think about what level of risk I was willing to accept, and how much farther the markets could conceivably fall after falling so far already. Instead I was thinking about pivot points and the LODs.

Broker A said...

You should invest for longer periods of time then, utilizing dollar cost averaging.

Also, you can write calls against your positions, in order to generate income.