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Connecticut
Posts: 26 since Dec 2010
Thanks Given: 16
Thanks Received: 27
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I have another business (not trading related) besides trading and three of my clients in that business are professional traders. One for an I-bank and 2 own their own hedge fund. Between them they have almost 70 years of trading experience. They have been unspeakably valuable to me in learning how to trade. I was talking to one of them the other day when Egypt melted down and the equity market sold off. I have gotten a lot from these forums so I thought I would pass on this conversation and a screen shot and you can take from it what you want.
First off bear in mind these are extremely wealthy traders with many hundreds of millions of dollars in capital so they trade quite differently from probably most people (myself included) on this site but here goes:
Selling 3 contracts with 2 profit targets and a runner is not a "pro" way of trading. In fact they do exactly the opposite, they get bigger and bigger on trending days. So here was the plan.
Egypt is melting down and there is a systemic risk in the form of the Suez Canal and contagion risk. We knew that the market was at a very very low level of hedge... VIX is exceeding low, complacency is very high. Fundamentally, we believe that moderate to severe downward pressure could result in an outsized move down in equities because we are at nosebleed levels and there are no shorts in the market. Weak longs could get shaken out so we are looking to get short.
We get short and see the low get taken out. Egypt continues to move up in the news and the situation is providing a lot of uncertainty. The news coming out of Egypt is unreliable because internet and social media is shut down. This means that it is hard to get a clear picture of what exactly is happening. This uncertainty, if not corrected, will make rallying very difficult. It is going to be a down day.
As the market continues to drop there are no buyers out there. There is no one willing to step up and call the bottom. Lows continue to get taken out. Selling volume in times of strength is broad. We want to really hammer this day so we want to look to broaden our position.
A bottom looks to be forming and we have made a lot of money today. The picture is still bad but holding short positions in this market has been a tough trade because the rally remains strong overall. We want to look to take a lot of money off the table and hold a small overnight position going into the next day.
We cover most of the short but continue to be short because we know it will be hard to get back in after such a strong downward day.
***Please note the chart is mine not theirs and so are the arrows. I use range charts they use 30 minute charts typically. These traders all rely very heavily on fundamental analysis. I put the VMA and the CurrentOHLC in.Also these are NQ3-11 futures not ES which obviously they trade.
Anyway, that was it. That is what I aspire to and so I like to collect these charts and thoughts so I can one day refer back to them. Daydream accordingly.
Good luck folks.
P.S. I'll periodically dig this thread up and add to it when I have other memorable conversations.
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