Well, the markets dropped another 1% after I took those long positions. I’m starting to feel a Fool for trying to swim against an obviously bearish current.
As as for stating in this thread I closed short positions,I meant the collections of puts I was still holding on the indexes as the market opened. I sold to close all those positions when the market was down about 2% today. That was obviously a mistake, as the markets continued to tumble downward. On the puts I netted only about 25% gain across the positions because profits were diluted by a loss on two of them (QQQ JAN08 42, and QQQ JAN08 44) which I bought waaaay too early. (Of course, those two could still slide “in the money” if the markets drop “merely” another 5% to 7% in the next THREE days!) Fat chance.
You recall I shorted oil. You better get your jabs and insults in quick on that, because the market is moving fast in my favor now. Oil inventories are rising, as I expected, because we’re heading into a global recession. Oil has come down off the $100/bbl peak. However, I’ve got a ways to go because I shorted it at $83/bbl, clearly not one of my smarter moves.
