A trader explains why timing and risk management matter most. If the market opens lower in April, those levels become upside targets. Buying below the quarterly open and holding beats repeatedly shorting, since small losses on longs are easier to recover than one big short loss.
Trading is a lot of timing and it's risk management because this is really all you're looking for from a technical perspective. Who's going to get the best fill on that next quarter? So as soon as April starts, if it trades lower, to me all of these levels would have been targets to the upside. Now we drop down into like an hourly chart and go back to the 1st of April. Let's say if the quarter closes bullish and this is our open price, anybody that's buying it below that quarterly open and now they're just holding it, right? Let's say you missed this run and then you miss this run. If you are continuously trying to shorten here, yeah, maybe you're going to make some money, but at some point when is it going to roll over, turn higher, and then eventually make another run like that? To me, trading a lot of timing and it's risk management because I would rather take 3 losses in here trying to go long than short and then on the 4th trade make it all back.
