Here goes... wrote:
Ghost of igloi, that wasn't my understanding. The broker said that they have a fund that goes the opposite of VOO, but that the degree of swing isn't proportional--it swings less when VOO goes up and it goes down, and it swings more when VOO goes down and it goes up, so that it doesn't interfere with gains as much as it works to limit losses. Sounded good to me.
In any case, things are down today but VOO is still above 90. My thought was that it would go down yet today, which it has, but not yet enough. I can't resist watching, even though the deal is done.
La gente, this is no fooling. I have normal retirement accounts, but came into a bit of money that I thought I could trade with. I must admit that I feel remiss, not knowing exactly what I have been getting into, but at my age I have come to trust experts in these matters. My broker is fairly young, 35-40, but he seems like a responsible guy, and works for one of the large concerns--plus, and this was important for me, his office is in a major bank building only a few blocks from me, and I can drop in to see him pretty much whenever I want.
It's not only the panic of the whole thing that I don't think i can stand, it is the complexity. I have followed this thread for a while (34:32 10k when I was young), as well as many others all over the web, and the amount of information to know keeps getting ever-larger, to the point where I have tuned out, and proceeded on the basis that I would only call my broker when I really felt like the market was going to move one way or another, then he would suggest a trade based on that guess, and on the fact that I don't know anything about trading, and that I'm scared to do it. There is no way I would ever try to do this myself
I talked to him this morning. I'm going to keep the account open, but I think it will be quite some time before I use it. Probably, I will use it to make a large buy, to hold, if there is ever a decent drop in the market.
It's now 8 days after April Fools Day! You shorted VOO and you hedged your short with an inverse S&P fund ( e.g. SH ) !!!!! What happened on that trade?