Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[thrasher]

tonysolomon,

Hang in there lad. It's unfortunate that some recent posts to you haven't been as constructive as they might've been. Most of these posts are by people who genuinely mean well (judging by their past posts) and do contain some useful insights.

For example, this is options expiration week (and I think also triple witching week as well - expiry of Sept options, futures, and options on futures). So this leads to very high volatility as the bigger traders try to shake out both weak longs and weak shorts by blowing just past obvious stops. For them, the easiest money to make is the panic sellers/short coverers -- no sabotage, they're just doing their job using all available tools. To continue the example, once the (say) panic selling starts, the big guys are already buying increasingly larger amounts until things turn around, short term. Panic in the opposite direction becomes the next objective, etc. You get the idea.

All us little guys can do (besides dreaming of someday being a big guy) is either get out of the way or watch for hints of this kind of behavior and join in on the lower-risk moves (ie. with the prevailing trend).

best of luck,
thrash