Friday, May 7, 2010

Shameful

Just one example of how the markets broke down yesterday.  Below, a daily chart of TYP, the 3X inverse ETF for the Russell 1000 Technology Index.  I've owned TYP since it's Buy Signal on April 30th @ $7.31.  Yesterday, while the market was down over 900 points, TYP traded as high as $9.50 and as low as $0.15.



Since it's in my portfolio and on my screen all day, I watched with equal emotional highs and lows.  When it broke below $1.50, my hand hovered above the "Buy" button.  But I knew it was erroneous, would be canceled, perhaps tying up my account and generally be a real mess to deal with. So I passed on "averaging down."

Speaks loudly to shameful failure of the system, as well as avoiding hard stops and instead, using mental stops, or better yet, options to hedge and protect.

Emphasis on shameful.

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