In Case of Panic...Go Short

Originally I didn't plan on trading much Friday. I came in planning on turning on my autotrader and watching the blinking lights to see just what the little black box could do. We also had a speaker from LIM so I wasn't exactly paying attention. At some point Ryan pokes me in the side and points at his Reuter's and says check that out. The news caption said, "FED not done raising rates." I flipped over to my P/L to see that I was very quickly 10,000 dollars down thanks to autotrader's unfailing ability to step in front of quickly moving trains. I didn't really care though considering I didn't put much effort in so I closed out my position and went short on everything, put in some stops and left the computer for several hours.

As I sat down to lunch I noticed that the Nasdaq was down almost 50 points! I though, man, I really oughta go see how much money that made me. I turned on my machine and saw I had made a cool 27,000. From 10,000 down, that's quite a substantial move.

I'd say I was smart but then I'd be lying. This was a lucky day, and I didn't put in much effort. I had been losing so much the last few days though it was really good for my confidence to get a big number like that. It's funny though, as I trade more and more I actually see that my "luck" or "ability" as some might call it, waxes and wanes. I need to remember that there will be times that I can't seem to turn a dollar into 4 quarters, but in time I'll do better. Also while you are in those little "funks" minimize losses!

So, new records of 16,000 in the e-mini S&P and 14,000 in the Nasdaq 100. Definitely a hard number to beat. I would like to think though that if we had another crash like in '29 that I'd of been smart enough to go short and take everyone's money. Trading is a brutal game.