HMB

finally shorting this mother of all ponzis. whole freakin' world struggling with finding answers to climate change, and the world's richest owner of a company that wouldn't be profitable without selling carbon credits, and TARP-rescued BNYM, got nothing better to do then to fire up this to-the-scale-of-a-mid-sized-country energy-consuming bubble in a pseudo-replacement of the global payment system? as if bank transfers were the issue of our financial architecture...? there's a bit too much fantasy priced into this bitc(h) of a rip(ple)-off after recent run for my taste. and maybe resistance forming in high fourty thousands (FOURTY THOUSAND - JEEZ...!) wish I had the **** for a larger position and a wider stop. will buy Tesla-short shorts and some tulips from the profits..

thanks. yes, that was probably the reason

What are you guys doing these days for hedging long risk exposures...? listening to Druckenmiller, Grantham, etc., kinda scared me. ok, there's Shiller, with his ECY highlighting equities are relatively attractive (compared to bonds), but that's about the only fundamental metric I know not screamingly suggesting to sell... plus long yields are rising... still, all recent dips got bought quickly and followed by new ATHs... and some are talking confidently about (more) liquidity-driven melt-up... And technically: maybe this week was it with consolidation for now, but I have no idea where global equities might be on Monday. So, in the absence of any clue, I reduced exposure before the weekend, but want to keep some long equity positions open Therefore bought Feb 2840 SPX puts for a bit above 8 - with a roughly 2% global equity drop on Monday they should rise by about 20, reducing my total loss by two thirds or so. Any better ideas? There were days when Tbonds would have helped, but with this strong bear-steepening trend those might not work so well anymore or eat too much into the p/l in non-crash scenarios. Long VIX may also hurt, if call buying slows. And I don't want to rely on gold - that kinda disappointed last March...

Hi, it seems that the direct (private) messaging function in the IG Community has disappeared - is this correct? Please let us/me know. Best

Hi, yesterday I opened a long position in a forward on the Direxion Moonshot Innovators ETF (ticker: MOON). Today I tried to add an additional long position in this ETF. A message was displayed, stating that "the instrument is not available for leveraged trading". That seems to be a new restriction? Will it be permanent or only temporary? Will my position still be rolled at expiry? Please let me/us know. Best

If you use the futures and not the DFBs, you have no overnight funding fees. However futures get rolled at expiry, when you pay the spread. The way I understand this is that for example for SPX it's 1 point - four times a year, or roughly 0.1% of your exposure in total, but please confirm with IG client services, there may be an additional spread (like they have when you let contracts expire - see https://www.ig.com/uk/help-and-support/spread-betting-and-cfds/fees-and-charges/what-are-igs-indices-spread-bet-product-details, note 4 ii). If you're a retail client, you'll have to maintain 20% margin for indices, I think, even with a guaranteed stop. keep that in mind. so when it goes against you, even before the roll you'll have to put up capital for every dollar unrealized loss. Regarding "amplifying" - guess you're referring to leverage, then of course the question is how much, and correspondingly how much the market needs to tank to wipe you out... As unlikely as it may seem, but there is no certainty that SPX will not drop 100%... but let's say you rule out anything worse than -50%, then ok, you would need only 70 for an exposure of 100... ...but would be broke and exposure-free with a drop of 50.01%...

good question - footnote 11 here gives (only) a high-level answer: https://www.ig.com/uk/help-and-support/spread-betting-and-cfds/fees-and-charges/what-are-igs-indices-spread-bet-product-details ...it refers to their commodity pricing method - which I think is described here: https://www.ig.com/uk/help-and-support/spread-betting-and-cfds/fees-and-charges/how-are-spot-commodities-priced--and-how-is-my-overnight-funding ...which would be consistent with what you said - some kind of average between 1st and 2nd nearest contract price

...short... Texas hedge for long RTY...

small long RTY - with GME, AMC etc. weights in the index now back to more reasonable levels, it might attract less speculative money again..

It seems the ECB made impact with the PEPP launched in March, but although its envelope was more than doubled in June, aggregate MFI balance of loans to NFCs didn't move much in Q3: Obviously this confirms the point in the dailyfx piece you refer to regarding importance of fiscal stimulus. Would hence be nice to read an update on status of Next Generation EU ratification. It looks like the PEPP and fiscal emergency measures may have stabilized growth of consumer credit, which accelerated in December, though: ....in spite of tightening lending standards (ECB Q3 bank lending review published Tuesday). PEPP likely supported EZ equities since March, and Lagarde's apparent determination yesterday may have served for the following DAX rebound (250 points, then faded completely). However that PEPP - and all other fiscal and monetary policy measures so far for that matter - were not nearly enough to compensate for the pandemic's impact on the real economy also became obvious in the ECB's "Euro area economic and financial developments by institutional sector: second quarter of 2020" released yesterday: ...DAX today again with 250 points rebound (a bit slower this time): The 2nd virus wave (which was fully anticipated publicly by leading virologists since q1 but for some reason speculators managed to engineer 75% or more retracements across the board and some new ATHs first....), election risk, delays of fiscal stimulus in US and Europe, and stellar Tech valuations will likely be dominating Lagarde's determination: So that yesterday was enough to prevent DAX re-entering the area which it had left so smoothly after the legendary Merkel/Macron announcement is highly doubtful IMHO - and before around 11000 I haven't managed to find significant technical support (the May/June move was just to linear...): Sufficient progress on Next Generation EU ratification I think is highly unlikely this year, maybe summer 2021. All in all expecting more US/Europe selloff before election until focus turns more on stimulus again To come back to the dailyfx piece - this risk-off scenario would be somewhat bullish for USD - until China and others start fearing USD hyper-inflation (improbable). highly interested in counter arguments

Agree. It could go up or down. Or maybe sideways. Depending on circumstances.

ok

You mean a system of precisely defined conditions based on observable, quantitative data (for example a purely technical trading system)? Did you not just earlier (rightly) point out that one needs to be careful around news events? And does this not involve a subjective component (judgment) that involves thinking and can only be tested within limits?

sure, you are right, maybe I should consider trading only demo for years to come. Or just let it be and live with the (colossal) failure. Been thinking about that, and will keep doing so - and trading with small size for a while might actually convince me to stop. I see value in using trading to develop self-control and other more general skills, though, which may be worth a regular small loss. But there may of course be better ways, or I'm wrong with this completely - haven't made up my mind about that, either, yet. Regarding systems - I think I'm just too far away from that - be it personality, skills or interests. I have a hard time to imagine that I could come up with a set of so clearly defined rules when to enter trades that leave any judgment out of the equation, and then still be profitable. I think if something like that existed, it would have been found by others already and should stop working soon - in particular nowadays with kinda unlimited computing power and AI. And I don't have the skills to compete in that area. For now I'm trying to just avoid mistakes (in particular stick to loss limits) and also be more conscious about what I'm doing (e.g. formulate reasons for entry and targets) - for any system development I guess these would also be very early steps. Monthly loss limit just got hit - back with a new trade in four weeks..!

I'm back to live trading, but with small sizes. I need to learn to deal with emotions better, which doesn't work that well in demo (it does a bit though). But now facing having my loss limit almost reached and then having to be able to stop trading for a month, although I think there might be nice opportunities, is an experience I didn't get in demo. Think you are very right regarding continuations vs. reversals, in particular if the short-term trend is down and we are at medium term important levels (or through them) like DAX 12000... Similarly useful assessment I heard, is some prefer trading the middle of the trend, not the beginning or end. need to deeply, emotionally redefine what I perceive as opportunity. I am too contrarian in the short term. Very often too early. But I guess this kind of "behavior re-modelling" will require receiving a few more punches - target for now is to keep them smaller, no matter what. Maybe I move to ETFs for now - wider spreads, but a bit smaller minimum opening sizes.

stop hit again... the strategy with betting on short-term pre-market rebounds with tight stops at weak support levels just doesn't work. likely it's gonna rebound on some point, but if that's from -2% or -2.8% I definitely don't know another lesson (which I'll again try to learn...) ...it's really about avoiding bad habits, isn't it. amazing how unable to do that I seem to be

..there you go..

ok - thanks

no new on low (yet...) on the Europe lockdown news..:

ok, last try - using my own post above as counter indicator...::

stop hit again of course. guess one to let play out for now.

mean... drop just below the overnight low on bar closing news... stop hit, re-opened, as move seemed to halt..:

FT story on Apple building own search engine due to antitrust issues serving as trigger for overdue rebound ahead of more FANG earnings..? https://on.ft.com/2HGpulG (gift link, can be used thrice, you're welcome... )

...11% or so below post-outbreak high... support around 12300-12350 couldn't stop the SAP move... then high below that... however complete undoing of overnight move to 12050 (or even 12200) and it would still be well in a pretty fast down-trend... some signs of bottoming at current levels... expecting slight rebound around the open, if that happens, and no more significant up move then, will likely close the trade at wherever it stabilizes in the very short term... also maybe useful to keep the composition in mind from time to time...:

"Intel move" 100% retraced...