Stats given cover closed trades for the 22nd October - 28th October
My total realized loss from the past week is -1.27% Overall the portfolio is down 6.16% from last week
Profitable trades closed: 18
Unprofitable trades closed: 8
Most traded instrument: $TSLA (8 Trades)
I said this week would be important, it certainly was. Unfortunately my bet that the strong earnings period would hold the market up did not pay off. Although all of the companies I backed beat their earnings estimates, some in spectacular fashion ($TSLA and $TWTR) the market dragged everything lower regardless. This was not helped by several amended forecasts for Q4 to the downside. The Nasdaq broke below the 50MA on the weekly chart, making this the worst month since the 2008 crash. For now, the ride down could be over, but with many currencies struggling against the strong dollar, and the ongoing political situations such as the China/US trade war, Brexit, and turmoil in most of Latin America I believe there is more to come, perhaps before the end of the year, but more likely in 2019.
Etoro added $BNB Binance coin, I wrote a quick summary yesterday about what it is for those who are not familiar. I do not currently plan on trading it. Another user also spotted $ZEC Zcash. This is a crypto I quite like and may look to invest a small amount in when it is made live for trading. Like BNB, I will write a short post about what it is when it gets added.
The SVK Crypto event I attended last week (unfortunately while the markets plummeted) was a very interesting event with some big names in attendance. The underlying theme of the night was primarily around institutional investment. On stage were some big names in the space, including Alexander Perrin from Virgin Ventures & Private Equity and Stephen Kelso, head of Galaxy Digital Europe. Both work directly with institutions, Stephen especially is working on onboarding institutions into the space alongside Fidelity. “The herd is coming” were the words used by Mike Novogratz not so long ago, and generally the panel agreed that the next 6-12 months should see institutions begin to build exposure to crypto. The panel did of course list some of the major issues that still require more work before that happens though. Specifically liquidity and custodial issues. Stephen said that they are actually working with competitors to help them reach the same point as Galaxy Digital, suggesting that Institutions won’t jump into the space until there are more than just two companies offering the security required by major institutions. Overall it was a great event, and considering Galaxy Digital was the first VC fund to partner with EOS VC it left me feeling bullish about the future of EOS, as well as the wider crypto market.
Cryptos
$DASH
2 large losses of -40.4% & -32.83%. Closed after a loss of confidence in Dash’s progress. I’ll hold on to the remaining positions since they are already down by some 80%+ and closing at this stage is no longer beneficial
$EOS
1 profit of 0.19%. Happy to take a break even as the market appeared to be going either sideways or down over the short-term. This also freed up much needed funds for earnings
Stocks $AMZN
A day-trade for 0.91% profit as the week drew to a close
$TWTR
3 losses of -19.90%, -24.48%, & -10.06%, following a 13% increase post earnings, given the markets weakness this looked a sensible time to take losses on a company that could be hit harder as the rest of the Nasdaq struggles
$FSLR
A loss of -50.07% as the position hit SL
$TSLA
8 trades, all profitable, between 1.09% & 7.66% Some reasonable trades either side of earnings, I closed reasonably early over my concerns that the market could drag Tesla lower
$SNAP
2 shorts, one a loss at -3.73%, the other a profit of 22.71%, Snapchat’s user growth continues to struggle, so I’m shorting quite heavily, a few big wins with hopefully more to come over the coming months
$ATVI
1 loss of -5.75% Closed ahead of another market move down, damage control.
$MSFT
1 profit of 1.75% Microsoft yet again smashed earnings and moved into the 2nd spot for the world’s most valuable company behind Apple. The profit was made in a swing trade around earnings.
$AMD
6 trades, all profitable, from 0.08% to 2.91% Lots of day trading pre-earnings, I also took out some long-term positions ahead of earnings as I was concerned about GPU sales. The downgrade in their forecast for Q4 made these trades more valuable than they appear here in terms of saving us from much larger losses.
Looking Forward
Given the recent turbulence in the markets it would be easy to become pessimistic. I do believe that we likely have much worse to come, but I do not think that it is likely to get much worse this year necessarily. I have reverted to more cautious 1x leverage trading again, and to more active day-trading as opposed to holding long exposure for new trades. I have freed up around 10% of the portfolio to take advantage of any major movements from here, and will commit to maintaining that balance to the best of my ability. For now the portfolio is substantially hedged, I will keep it this way until a direction becomes clear, or until I feel we have over extended back up, or further down. My approach to investing has always been to go with fundamentals first. I am still a firm believer in the companies I hold long positions in, such as AMD, MSFT, SQ, ETSY, WIX, NVDA and SEDG. Where possible I will hold our current positions through any major market correction, using some of the free funds to push our SL’s lower on leveraged positions if required. I hope this can rebuild some confidence that may have been lost over recent weeks. Market conditions are difficult, and I apologise for my poor performance during this period, I remain confident in my ability to recover over the next 12 months