*****This is a guest blog submission from Jordan Caroleo – @Jordar411***** — Editor’s Note

Traders, including myself, were caught in a wash of trades in this breath of volatility pushing longs and shorts alike.

One thing that I’ve heard and have seen were traders anxiously waiting to get short $GPRO. I stepped back, looked at the technical side and asked those traders “why is this a good idea? What is your reasoning?” On Thursday (9/25), I got a response that a traders thesis was “on basis of super extension, possible blow-off top this morning and today being day 3 of big ramp.” I also had responses regarding the short float (~30%), and some provided fundamentals that I didn’t fully wrap my head around.

So I sat back and watched the trading week enfold for $GPRO. Not only did the stock, in my opinion, not offer any great areas to build a longer-term short position, this was a name that had an opening gap of anywhere from $1-$3 on some days. Talk about “ouch” for bag-holders.

The morale of the story is this. It can be $GPRO or $TSLA or $NFLX or whatever. No CEO’s or fund managers are pinning prices to what you think the stock should be trading at. Yes, you should have a thesis/game-plan for your trades, but as a trader, you have to be willing to adapt to a number of things including catalyst. Price action is king, I, unfortunately, am not. The market doesn’t care what you think. This is also why people like Marc Faber can still make their calls. At the end of the day, you can stand on your desk and say whatever you want about where YOU think the stock should be trading at, but the market and price action is the ultimate teacher.

no relavant positions