another thing i just realized i dont understand who we are playing against as retail traders and what are their moves. I get hustled alot by sudden moves against my positions and i have no idea what caused it In short heres what i understand as retail traders we make up a small fraction of total traded volume and we dont have access to same level data as institutions and other big bois. So we are mostly reacting to whats happening Institutional traders. Banks? Hedges? And who else? They have much more capital and access to data that we dont have. And they can manipulate the market in their favor most of the time(even with wsb making waves) the institutions were still mostly in control The CEOs of companies seem to not like retail traders and try to manipulate stock to squeeze them out (especially shorts) to make it more beneficial to those who want to hodl (invest long term) I ve noticed few times where ceo would try to shake off the shorts and traders by releasing some bs news that would make the stock go in certain direction i dont know how much of what i said is true or not. Thats just what i gathered from youtube lol besides this forum its my main source of info
The CEOs of companies want to return maximum value to their shareholders. I do not think they give a damn about who they are...Retail OR institutional. It makes no logical sense for it to be otherwise. Find a different source for your "info" besides YouTube, lol!
You're trading vs yourself. Big money doesn't care what retail traders do, nobody is intentionally trying to shake anyone out.... it's random noise.
I think it depends on the timeframe, no? Also, you don’t have to trade “against”, you can trade “with “ as well.
As someone who has been on the other side working for a large investment bank you're over thinking it, they're not sitting there trying to screw you over, there more concerned with hiding their true intentions so front-running HFTs don't catch wind of what they're doing. A sharp move against you is just one or more market participants filling a large order and having to chew a few bids/offers to get it done, they're not trying to scare you out of a position. Most of the time you're playing against yourself as we're limited by our own beliefs and actions. As a retail trader your only advantage over larger market participants is your size, you can trade instruments they can't, you can get in and out easier and quicker than they can with less slippage so you need to work with that. In regards to company management, yes when their stocks are in a downtrend they know that and will pull out all the stops to try and reverse that with a new announcement, that's a big reason shorting stocks is hard. Look at $DLTR as an example lately, stock was being whacked then BOOM in late Sep management come out and announce their jacking product prices up 25% and the stock is up over 50% since, that's their job and what they're incentivized to do not because they're trying to screw over retail traders who are short, that's just a by product.
Thoes who moveset against you need you to accumulate Chip. You are not the only who hide there. There where much more who read the same books. You should know when you invited to the party.. to stick in line to soon.
How can you tell what is causing the moves though? I get my ass handed to me all the time by all kinds of random sht happening I buy when market in uptrend the stock gets shorted I buy when stock is in up trend the market goes down covid virus news etc . I feel like im always running behind
Its almost impossible to tell what is causing the moves, the market is made up of millions of participants, it's like the wind and you may be getting fooled by randomness, think like a casino that offers blackjack which gives a house edge around 2%, just looking at a handful of bets will appear random results, but over time it will work out in favor of the house, as a trader you've got to do the same, lot's of small trades with a edge is key. Even in random data there will be lot's of losing and winning streaks, doesn't have to have meaning behind it.