The collision of global markets and social mood

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Positioning Is Everything

In my ad days, I lived by a single premise.

Great advertising is 90% positioning.

The same is true in trading. And no one said it better than Tony Saliba in Market Wizards. He was always positioned for anything . . . up, down, or sideways . . . long term, short term, intermediate term.

It made him millions. It made a big impression on me.

One of his favorite tactics was building an "explosion position" using OTM options. And one day back in 1987, the market exploded. Black Monday. 23 years ago today.

This is why am I so keen on buying the VXX. I use it as an explosion position as well as a hedge against my long position from late Feb/early March 2009, of which I still have 33%. I have used this strategy since January and April of this year, and am pleased with it. I trade extremes. On big up days, I'm nibbling at VXX. On big down days, I might scale out of the VXX or buy cheap calls against it.

I'll explain more in future posts.

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