The Coolest Guy in the RoomQ: What was your best trade ever?
A: You know, it’s odd because it happened this summer. We had
particularly volatile markets in June and July. We had a market that
was just screaming “Up” on news. I couldn’t even tell you what it
was, and I faded that market, and it took a little while but I made
$69,000 on that trade.
Q: Because the market retraced the whole up move?
A: The whole up move, yes.
Q: So that was sweet. The converse of that—what was the worst
trade that you can remember?
A: It was this summer when Bernanke opened his mouth and
started talking about the easing of interest rate rises and the market
started creeping up, and then it jumped. I was already in a trade,
and I got stubborn when, in reality, I should have just taken the hit
at the first time. But that stubbornness made me have a bad, bad
trade.
Q: Did you average into the position before you threw in the
towel?
A: Unfortunately, in that case, I was already in the position when
he said it. I was short 200 contracts for the ER, and as soon as he
said it, you know it automatically just spiked up four points, and
that’s pretty costly. Typically, when you get a spike like that, you
hope it will retrace 50 percent and you’re going to get out. In this
case it just continued to go up. And all you have to do is shake those
off and come in the next day and make good trades. I just don’t
want it to turn into a life-changing situation. I bailed. I walked away
from the market that day and came back the next day.