Quote from: d_eddie on June 13, 2018, 12:22:59 AM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on June 13, 2018, 12:00:22 AM

Yes, I understand that some folks like to gamble, so I suppose to each his own in that regard. Personally, I get much more comfort from attempting to employ a strategy that aims to lessen the gambling component, to the extent feasible and reasonable.

I concur. I found a way to move in that direction that is working for me at the moment. My safety short, dictated by dreams of mammoths, has been exactly that: an attempt to lessen the gambling component, more than an actual bet.

From your previous description of the way that you were attempting to employ margin (really shorting), seemed to be a more reasonable and measured way than most of the seemingly all or nothing descriptions that I hear about.

Quote from: d_eddie on June 13, 2018, 12:22:59 AM

A successful attempt, I should add. Had it gone really wrong, I'd have lost some 20-30% of my play money - which isn't that much anyway.

It seems that you had employed a strategy that was to consider the ramifications of either price direction, and of course when any of us hedge our bets, we are not going to win as much as if we were playing an all or nothing strategy - even while we are creating insurance, too, yet on the other hand, I, personally, believe that hedging is a much more solid long term play - both psychologically and financially, because if you add up the wins and losses (if you are being honest with yourself), you are much more likely to come out ahead and even willing to invest more if you are playing with strategies that both account for either price direction and don't play balls to the walls.

Quote from: d_eddie on June 13, 2018, 12:22:59 AM

I purposefully set my stops in advance (ballpark, tweakable stops) to avoid falling prey to emotions. Luckily, it went well. The mammoths weren't playing games with me.

Well, yes. One of the recognizable problems is that whales will sometimes push the price in the opposite direction of your margin bets, which cause your stops to get played and then the market quickly reverses. Even though you did not have that issue in recent times, the practice of forcing stop losses needs to be appreciated as an ongoing possibility that could cause you to buy or sell at a time that has been manipulated and it certainly not of your chosing.

Quote from: d_eddie on June 13, 2018, 12:22:59 AM

I more than doubled my play money, and I haven't even fully closed the position yet. Maybe I'll manage to rebuild a larger position (at a lower, more dangerous entry level), but only if we see a few up runs - and if I get a little lucky in timing.

Sometimes you can vastly increase your "play money" while also skimming a little bit off the top to put into reserves. Of course, how you play your money remains discretionary, and if you develop good safeguarding practices, it is not too likely that all of a sudden you are going to revert to reckless gambling practices... and as we know there is another saying, which is "the rich become richer".. or put another way "you gotta to have money to make money".. there is some truth to those idioms..

Quote from: d_eddie on June 13, 2018, 12:22:59 AM

My language is that of a gambler, granted - "dangerous... if... little lucky...", but the attitude is more like that of a safety game in bridge: You give up the best possible outcome to mitigate the worst. For my short to fail, the price had to go over 12k. Isn't this kind of "bet" sensible?

Actually, don't get my prudish talk wrong because I am not opposed to gambling with some of the winnings and especially if you have already taken several safeguards to ensure that your bills are going to be paid for several months in advance and you are not dipping into "emergency money." Frequently, we hear about folks who "had to" sell at the bottom because of an "unexpected emergency." We are frequently going to have "emergencies" and they should be factored into any plan because failing to plan only causes an excuse about an "emergency" that could have and should have been anticipated to be within the realm of possibilities... so yeah, in short, I believe that there are prudent ways that you can set up your bets and to play possibilities that would likely pay off better in one direction rather than the other direction... but you are really not going to be devastated if the market goes against you.. which in the end adds up to a kind of "sensible" bet.