Often times people end up either losing their minds, or their money, before a market finally turns their way. — from trial and error, I have learned and for now figured out, how to avoid both of those extremes.
*That being said, I continue to learn more about the market each and every time I trade, even when I am losing, or winning, I get humbled, and I learn.
When I first started trading, although I was more focused on individual equities and then later on stock options. — for the last 5+ years, I have been focused on futures markets both professionally and on a retail level, this is where I choose to manage my risk.
If you have been reading my blogs, you know- maybe my style or perspective on certain market issues and trades. As I continue to let the Crude Oil trade marinate, I look to turkey day to benchmark some significant upside in CL. *Trading futures, (although conscious of the days PnL and margins) — I am almost always thinking about tomorrow, next week, next month! Futures go out for months, quarters, and years for a reason, to manage risk, with the ability to speculate in all kinds of durations.
This morning as the stocks sold off, (ES for me), I was frustrated for the “lack of bid” in the safe haven Gold GC… I am in the Gold bug camp that feels; considering all things right now, a lot of these set ups give me no place to “hide” but in the old Yellow Metal. That being said, the reason Gold must have never bid, was that there was no real fear today, as the stock bulls came out at the close to bring the ES up 30 handles. Yesterday, I blogged about “Where do you hide?” when EVERY market is in the red, to me, even tho Gold hadn’t rallied, while OIL was dropping 3% (before a epic recovery to the green and new intraday HOD), and stocks were coming off this morning, I could hide in Gold GC as it barely dropped — but it never came back and there was missed opportunity had I just sat in Gold and waited. Gold will matter when it does, for now can’t force it to move, just need to play defense.
While most were panicking in the short term on CL (I had friends calling me regarding their USO or OIL positions, or energy stocks)– , I was positioning myself for a hopeful comeback, I wish I covered more puts on the lows or did some different things, I always feel like that, but, luckily, Crude came back into the green despite all the price pessimism, and I stayed long deltas, as I will continue to do so.
As I constantly go back to questions like: “Who came first?, who leads?, who follows?”.. as I riffle through not only charts, but all the tweets and headlines and data. — it constantly changes, and all we can do to survive in the futures business is think — where is it going? So that’s how my brain constantly thinks, and then once I try and figure out where I think something is going, I try to figure out — Well, how can I get long (or short) for the best risk/reward or “best way to put position on”.
Lastly, I learned a lesson the hard way today — READ YOUR TICKETS, don’t be in a rush to put in a trade, be wiling to miss a trade to ensure it is correct. — I can’t remember the last time when I rushed to put a trade on, and I really couldn’t have waited one more second (although it happens lol), better to be safe than sorry (or broke). Anyways– I am long ES, and I go to buy some protection in Wk 2 options, and instead of buying 1 lot of a certain put, I must have had a 10 lot loaded up — I noticed within 1min and 30seconds, and even that was enough to teach me a $400 lesson in less than 2 min) by the time I noticed and went to cover 9 of accidental 10 purchased. Again, this was a hedge, and luckily I caught a great rally by defending my position in ES today (finally), but I learn a lesson and pay taxes to the market makers for my errors/mistakes. Lesson: Attention to detail is everything, although… now I want to make that $ back :). *READ YOUR TICKETS!
Realistically, as my approach in Futures is pretty consistent swing/position trading, or at least every trade is pretty much held for longer than one session (besides managing risk intraday), there is no reason to “rush” and have fat finger errors, my horizon is much longer than the next 10 seconds… but in futures, as you will experience… those 10 seconds, DO MATTER! Good luck all!
Let’s try again tomorrow. – Happy Trading.
-Bret Rosenthal