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Going into 2008, most people expected US to enter a mild recession this year. That has resulted in a stock market fall in January and only the intervention by FED stopped what would have been one of the terrible months for the stock market. Ever since the market has been down 4 days and up 2 days. Most of the stocks have lost 20 to 50% of their value. That explains why most of the portfolios here are down so much. Only the metals and ultra shorts are shining.
I have started my portfolio with a mixture of ultra shorts and some stocks that i felt are safe bets. As a result the portfolio used to be stable and my portfolio used to be in the black till the end of February. My rank used to be move between 30 and 50. Then i have decided to trade aggressively in order to move into the top 10 and i did a few mis steps. I bought too many stocks (long positions) and when the market went down for 2 or 3 days my portfolio turned red for the first time. I was disappointed with that and again sold all the long positions and increased my ultra short holdings. Then the market started going up and my portfolio went down further. I was frustrated and unloaded my ultra shorts. Then the market went down and i missed a golden chance. Oh God, what a mess. I felt ashamed of my trading skills. I have never done so bad. In a matter of 1 week, i did so many bad moves that my portfolio went from +2.0 to -5.0. The market is very volatile and unpredictable. The big players are completely manipulating the market. Their strategy seem to be simple. The big players want to force every one into capitulation. These capitulated souls like me then start betting in the direction of the market only to see the market reversing its course. Hats off big men! I am giving up trading in my personal portfolio. As for here, yes i will keep fighting for the honors. After all i am no different from most of the folks here. Since there is no real risk of losing money, the game will go on here. I have learnt my lessons about trading in bear market and i will play the game. But let me warn you all! Be careful about trading in your personal portfolios.
Though i feel extremely bearish about this market, i lack the conviction because of the volatility and unpredictedability i have seen thus far. Personally i am expecting a crash very soon. But i can't trust the big players. They might keep intervening and change the direction of the market once in a while causing heavy losses to short sellers. The only way i can think of making money in this market is by playing a range bound disciplined trading. That's what i will be doing from now. The most important thing to remember in this situation is to keep abundant cash. That's one position that can't go down. As for leadership board, i don't even look at who is at the top of the list. When the finish line comes, we will have entirely different set of people there. I have seen it in the last round. Only dishwasher has managed to stay in the top till the end. The rest were not there in top 10 for the first 3 to 4 months of the game.
Are we heading for a major crash or mild crash or contiued volatility ? Are there going to be hedge fund blow ups ? I think so. Can our financial system survive this storm ? I doubt.
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