In an uptrend, shorting can turn profit into a loss in just 9 seconds. I’ve gotten used to this back-and-forth.
Today’s DASH trade: I opened two short orders at 68.79 and 68.84, with an approximately 200k U notional position. Not long after I entered, the unrealized profit quickly climbed to more than a thousand dollars. I trimmed part of it first, and then kept the rest waiting for a pullback.
Then suddenly there was a sharp rally. In just 9 seconds, the remaining position flipped from unrealized gains to unrealized losses—I could see on my screen that I was down six or seven hundred dollars. I wasn’t too panicked, though. In an uptrend, shorting like this really can produce this kind of volatility all the time.
Later, the price returned to around my cost basis. As it kept moving downward, I bought back in batches. I didn’t insist on catching the entire move. In the end, I closed everything out. Realized profit: 2,089.97 U. Time taken: 17 minutes and 29 seconds.
What I did was buy during a retracement within the upward move—not the kind of short where I assume that once I open a position, the market is definitely going to turn bearish. When the bulls are strong, pullbacks can still provide profit, but a single wave of buying can just as quickly wipe out that unrealized gain. That’s why taking profits in batches is so important to me.
This trade is remembered not only for making a little over 2,000 U, but also for those 9 seconds. Getting used to volatility doesn’t mean risk disappears; just because this time the pullback came back doesn’t mean it will happen again next time. #dash
Today’s DASH trade: I opened two short orders at 68.79 and 68.84, with an approximately 200k U notional position. Not long after I entered, the unrealized profit quickly climbed to more than a thousand dollars. I trimmed part of it first, and then kept the rest waiting for a pullback.
Then suddenly there was a sharp rally. In just 9 seconds, the remaining position flipped from unrealized gains to unrealized losses—I could see on my screen that I was down six or seven hundred dollars. I wasn’t too panicked, though. In an uptrend, shorting like this really can produce this kind of volatility all the time.
Later, the price returned to around my cost basis. As it kept moving downward, I bought back in batches. I didn’t insist on catching the entire move. In the end, I closed everything out. Realized profit: 2,089.97 U. Time taken: 17 minutes and 29 seconds.
What I did was buy during a retracement within the upward move—not the kind of short where I assume that once I open a position, the market is definitely going to turn bearish. When the bulls are strong, pullbacks can still provide profit, but a single wave of buying can just as quickly wipe out that unrealized gain. That’s why taking profits in batches is so important to me.
This trade is remembered not only for making a little over 2,000 U, but also for those 9 seconds. Getting used to volatility doesn’t mean risk disappears; just because this time the pullback came back doesn’t mean it will happen again next time. #dash