Dealing with it...
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Zab, I gave up on the stock market a couple of years ago, but was drawn back in. Last year, I lost a great deal of money foolishly betting on double or triple short and long ETFs like TZA, UVXY, and TVIX. Man, I'll never buy any of that stuff again, no matter how strong my "feeling" is.
This year, I've been trading natural gas, with these two ETNs, UGAZ (triple long) and DGAZ (triple short). Somehow, the natgas market seems much more understandable. It's more weather and supply/demand related.
If you follow it for a while, you can spot trends, pretty much. I'm usually very early getting and out on either side, but I'm getting better.
You should check it out!
Whew! That about covers it!
Some people live their lives knowing that the truthfulness of anything in this world is immaterial compared to whether you can figure out a way to profit from it.
Or, if they really don't care, to profit from lies.
The best we can do is to try to sort the truth from the lies and discover as many truths as we can.
What we do with either is everyone's choice.
At least we have that choice.
This board has been abandoned.
Plash, you're right, the stock is not the company. Something I keep forgetting.
I guess I need to really stop thinking about a company being worthwhile, and looking more at its chart, like newly said. For example, I've been looking at some Chinese stock charts, besides SOL. Stocks like LIWA, APWR, and GSI all have charts that show obvious down trends.
Those charts show that I could have said that almost each day in the past month was the bottom, and I'd have been wrong. They just keep going lower. Glad I seemed to have had enough self-control not to buy them.
I saw something on some blog tonight that said to never hold a stock overnight. I know some people do this kind of trading, but it really shows a total lack of trust in the market. As much as I hope it never comes to this, the market is becoming so volatile that maybe that might be a good policy. At least, everyone's losses would be smaller (maybe).
Plash, I looked at solars as a plausible way to create electricity. Somehow, I bought in. I guess because I really do surf and see the degradation of water quality (sometimes air) up close and, well, you know...
Financially, I guess I always tried to believe that a company's reports were to be believed. With P/Es of 3 or 4, most Chinese solars seemed ridiculously undervalued Yet, their profits were always judged on a different scale. An unfair scale, unless there is some truth to the rumors...
Never considered that solar energy stocks were, collectively, at a low point and that POMO would float even these boats.
I do believe that there is no interest in solars, right now. Yet, in the very short term, all of these stocks are oversold, technically. Still, no telling which way they go.
Personally, I don't believe that the Republicans are smart enough to back off and all the debt-ceiling to rise before, well, really, several days before August 2nd. They want something very extreme that would destroy, not only the stock and bond markets, but almost our entire economy. After six months it would, anyway.
Hey SOLman, uh, I mean Plash, LDK reports pretty good earnings but warns on Q2 revenue, and the whole sector (if you can call Chinese solars a sector) goes to hell. SOL seems to like to take it right on the chin and after it gets hit really hard, right where it counts, it holds it back up and says, "I double-dare ya'!"
Man, I thought I'd owned some losers before, but this one deserves first place with a tiara and a sash! I did sell about two-thirds of my solars on that last little bounce a couple of weeks ago, so, at least I kind of worked some of the loss out.
Anyway, do you think, maybe, that Chinese solars have been inflated in price (yet their P/Es are less than 3, in most cases) by over exuberant investors (including hedge funds) and now they're just going back to their appropriate values?
Or, do you think there is some sort of clandestine financial warfare going on against Chinese stocks of all sorts, partly due to the fraudulent ones, partly due to some anticipated benefit to US stocks due to the downfall of Chinese stocks (zero sum game)?
Or, sorry to task you this way, do you think that everything is just going down the drain (double-dip) and that Chinese solars are just the canary in the silicon mine?
I really haven't lost that much, and if I sell now, I'm still positive for the year (good thing I made some money on other stocks). But, you know, it's getting pretty bleak.
After initially following someone else's trades a couple of times (and not getting out at the peak, thinking whatever it was would go much higher), I started to use other people's trades as just pointers to stocks that I normally wouldn't have heard about. So, I kind of learned that lesson.
Suppose my biggest trading problem is that sometimes I'll get in at what I think is a low and then begin to really like what the company does, prove to myself that the stock is undervalued, and hang on through bitter dips until I totally lose faith that the stock will ever come back. Don't do this as often as I used to, but I still treat certain stocks this way, or maybe those stocks treat me this way. Can't figure it out. Ha!
Naw, no worries! But, you're right, I can read something that someone wrote on a message board, someone who for whatever reason I've decided to believe is credible, and occasionally, I act on what they've said. I've lost this way as often as I've won, well, maybe I've lost a little more.
I guess my biggest problem is that, once I get into a stock, for whatever reason, I don't set stops. I used to and inevitably my stock would spike low, trip my stop, my shares would be gone, and then fly back up. Man, that used to make me feel like a fool!
Since then, though, I've gone for some sad rides downward, smokin' the hopium all the way. Ugh.
Poor_user, I don't blame anyone for the trades I get into. I learned that early on. Yet, sometimes, maybe due to my desire to invest in companies that might do some good for the world (solar = less fossil fuel usage), I buy into things whose time will not come for, well, jeez, many years?
Then, again, I bought tons of that UPDA a few years ago, and I admit, I wasn't trying to do anyone any good except me. We know how that worked out.
I should have bought some JAMN.OB and even JCOF.PK on dips. But, ever since I lost a ton on UPDA.OB and before that OPBL.OB, I've been hesitant to invest in OBs and PKs, but in the past month, those stocks rocket and then crash. I can't watch 'em because I have to work. But, damn, if I could figure out the rhythm of those two, I'd make up for my losses in SOL and, well, I'll admit it, JASO.
Yeah, ENER pulled down the whole solar sector when they reported poor earnings and layoffs, I think, last month. It's like any bad news by any solar-related company just cuts more of the life out of all of the other solar energy stocks.
Somehow, though, the past two days have been good for solars. Still, I've been selling at each new high, this week.
There's a lot of conjecture that the markets won't "swoon" this June, or even this summer, but I just can't believe that. I think you might be right that the Fed, or whoever, can hold off a multi-week fall in the markets until a certain date. That date might be the end of June, but then, that might be like that Camping guy who predicted the rapture last weekend.
It really sucks, having the Fed/Gov't involved in the markets. None of the normal rules apply.
Thanks for your thoughts! I just couldn't let go of this one and I still haven't. Maybe if it goes up to $7.30 or so, I will. I've got a $9.3 cost basis, though.
So, given that you believe that oil is going to drop, how do you feel about buying some SCO and holding for a month?
Since it's a double-short, the decay isn't quite as bad as say TZA.
Hey plash, it's obvious that you don't like SOL, but really, don't you think it's been beaten down enough? Don't you think that soon, like in a week or two, the trend will change, the shorts will cover, and SOL as well as JASO, CSIQ, YGE, and maybe some others might start to trend back up?
Truthfully, I wish I would have listened to you a month ago, when you saw this down trend starting. I held like a fool, not a whole lot, but it still bugs me.
Anyway, do you have any hope for SOL?
Or, do you foresee the overall market heading down (end of QE2, summer doldrums, etc.) and taking SOL with it?
Solar: Japan ‘Sunrise’ Targets Panel Expansion
Nice bit of news for solar energy technology vendors: Japan’s prime minister Naoto Kan is expected at this week’s meeting in France of the Group of Eight leaders to unveil the “Sunrise Plan” to extend installation of solar panels to all of Japan’s rooftops, for eligible buildings and homes, according to a report today by Kyodo News. The time frame is by 2030, the report says.
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2011/05/23/solar-japan-sunrise-targets-panel-expansion/?mod=yahoobarrons
fabian, that was one of the wisest posts I've ever read.
In my case, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that I'm not cut out to make a living in the market. At one time, this was my hope/dream. Yet, after choosing to be on the wrong sides of the market several times in the past year, I'm turning out to be a greater fool than I ever imagined. I'm short when everyone is long, then I'm long when the short side is the only way to go.
Maybe it's the strange nature of these markets. It goes up for more than two months (September, October, part of November), retreats for a couple of weeks, and now it's back to the races (maybe). All the while, I'm positioned wrongly for each trend.
I just can't read the market's indicators, no matter how many charts I look at or whose advice I follow.
I'm pretty well finished with trading, I guess.
Mmmm, an inside joke.
OK
So I'm "None"?
Wow! That's the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. Too bad it's all so true.
Thanks!
You know, brightness, I think that's the first thing you've written that I actually agree with. I think because it was fairly direct, maybe. I don't know, but thank you for putting that together.
WTF are you sayin'?
Man, as soon as someone with any sense comes along and sets a record straight, someone like you either revises history or changes the subject.
No wonder this country is doomed.
Fact is, it's true elitists like you who have destroyed this country. Milked it frickin' dry. And now, people like you want everyone to "man up" so that you can milk everyone left for what ever IS left.
By the way, I did live "in the ghetto" and I worked my way out. I hold five degrees, now, and I'm working on a sixth. Don't tell me about hard times, MFer. Don't even go there.
"oh for goodness sakes"?
Really? Have you ever driven into a poor part of town. Ever been shot at, mugged, or pushed around? Living as a great right-wing trader in your bedroom doesn't mean that the rest of the world is also living in such safety and freedom, with so much choice.
Take a look around (like more than ten miles away from your comfort zone). Try to find a wealthy Republican in "those" parts of town.
Then, come back and tell us how many hundreds of thousands of dollars those people think they were born with.
I dare you.
Concessions... that's all we'll be able to expect from the powers that be.
There will be no change, none that makes any difference, because even the slightest move toward austerity would be so unpopular to the majority that it would never stand.
Change will only come after a complete default on our debt, on our way of life, and on many of our actual lives.
Then, we'll see change. But, only then.
Bravo, basserdan, for posting this!
Anyone that says that POMO isn't a factor in this market isn't paying attention.
Please read this for more on POMO:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/tomorrows-pomo-priced
http://www.cnbc.com/id/39852824
After reading this article, I'm starting to wonder whether we're in for a little correction after 2:15 p.m. on November 3rd. Obviously, the stock market is going to be supported for the next six months or so. A "crash" is not in the cards.
The Fed is walking a tight rope between condemnable failure and some small degree of success. The best the Fed can hope for is that more businesses can take out loans and more buyers can actually get mortgages for homes. Unemployment probably won't improve, either way.
So, given the run that stocks have been on, do they actually have room to run after 2:15 p.m. Nov. 3rd?
That was a great analogy, fabian. So many knowledgeable technical traders have been unable to predict the reversal of this rally. A lot of people who follow and believe in technical analysis have been proven so very wrong, in the past two months or so.
I guess that's what happens when the government intervenes in the markets.
SM, I know what you mean about holding shorts in this market. I lost half my year's take on TZA and BGZ a couple of weeks ago. Stayed out, ever since.
A few possibilities came up in my "board readings" this weekend:
ABK (very speculative), AGO, and MBI.
The story is that since all 50 attorneys general suspended foreclosures, that banks will have to repay these monoline insurers, due to the potentially fraudulent ways in which the banks packaged CDOs. I don't really understand it any more than that, but it makes sense.
MBI hit its 52-week high on Thursday, AGO is close, and ABK rose from the ashes, starting last Wednesday (60 or 70 cents to over a dollar). I'm going with ABK!
BTW, it looked like that kid was going to die from that pepper!
In the post I'm replying to, you question why anyone would buy QQQQ based on Google's earnings, yet in the next message, you show the chart of the Qs with the comment, "Wow!".
I don't understand how you can insinuate that it's a mistake to buy the Qs after a good GOOG ER, and then tout how much the Qs went up the next day.
Can you explain?
If I may ask, did you short individual stocks, buy puts, or buy inverse ETFs?
Sold all of my triple-shorts last week (TZA and BGZ). Ugh, what a loss. So, finally, I've turned bullish... sort of.
Has anyone noticed the steep rises in volume, and price, too, for GRO and GSI?
GRO (Agria) is a Chinese company that sells sheep, sheep sperm (no kidding), and probably sheep and goat food (whatever that is).
You all know what GSI does (Chinese steel).
The volume for GRO today was about 8X normal. The price went up 16% (today). The volume for GSI was about twice normal, and the price went up 9%.
Anyone think these have more room to run in the next week or two?
The NY Fed pumped in $2.2 billion today:
http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/pomo/display/index.cfm
I give up! I placed sell orders for yesterday's closing prices on TZA and BGZ. Hopefully, things will rebound to that point, at some point today or tomorrow. Today being a POMO day, I probably won't be that lucky, but Friday and Monday aren't so maybe I can get out then.
I just can't take the constant losses, day after day.
House Passes Legislation To Somehow Revalue Chinese Yuan
Just because somehow it is the Yuan's fault that America has exported its entire manufacturing industry over the past 30 years to lower cost countries, our idiot leaders have decided to take the next big step toward an all out trade war. The House of Idiot Representatives has approved legislation designed to combat the manipulation of currency by China that results in unfavorable trade conditions for the United States. As CNN reports, the legislation, which authorizes the Commerce Department to impose duties on imports from countries with undervalued currencies, passed by a vote of 348 to 79. Somehow, because it was framed as a "jobs issue", everyone in Congress went full retard and confirmed they have not the first clue about how Economics actually works. But yes, please revalue the Yuan: the next thing will be exploding prices at Wal Mart, which have so far successfully masked the fact that the US has been exporting staple product inflation. We wonder how those same "workers" on whose behalf this law was allegedly passed will feel when their bill anywhere is double what it used to be... Not to mention that their currently unemployed status will certainly not have changed.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/house-passes-legislation-revalue-chinese-yuan
Anybody think this will make the stock market go down?
Last one (tonight), I promise:
by carlosschw
on Tue, 09/28/2010 - 21:25
#611750
We should all just stop whining, suck it up and take our drawdowns like men. Seriously, though, I think it is becoming more obvious with each passing day of declining volume even with POMO and HFT, that the Fed has become the market. Just like all the one-sided Keynesian bullshit, this too will fail. We are approaching the point of realization where the cognition issues are no longer helping us. The Fed is not larger than the world economy. In fact it is a small and rapidly depleting subset of the also shrinking US economy. When everyone realizes that the superior troops and creative spirit are all that we will have going for us...as long as we can continue to afford the troops.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/only-reason-stocks-have-rallied-month
(towards the end)
A very important message from Graham Summers:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/only-reason-stocks-have-rallied-month
Please read this one!
Hmmm, makes sense, Mossy, except that that ZeroHedge article might be wrong. The story might be that the Fed only had set aside $550 million to destroy/deploy today.
I haven't actually totaled up all of the NY Fed's throwaway dollars from the past month, but I sure hope it's possible that they spent it all, as of today.
I guess we find out on Thursday.
Ugh.
Me too, Mossy, me too.
Yeah, I just saw that. So the NY Fed spent all the money for this POMO period. Does that mean that Thursday's, next Tuesday's, and next Wednesday's POMO injections are off, since there's no money?
Wow, I'm gonna party like it's 1999!
I hope so. This "rally" has gone far too far, in the face of very negative macro economic indicators. The "Better Than Expected (BTE)" crap is played out, at least, I hope.
But, of course, it's backed by the NY Fed's POMO, which is supposed to go to borrowers (loan applicants), but, instead, it goes into stock market purchases (AAPL, NFLX, FFIV, etc.).
Wish I had the savvy to have picked out those issues.
MRVLReader, I hope he's right. If you pick the middle, $32, even though that would be a loss for me, it'd be a whole lot less than the loss I'd take now.
Thanks for letting me know.