Leveraged ETFs
My story:
After a number of small, fast flips that worked out for me over the past few weeks, I began to think I might have a clue.
I was pretty sure Friday would be a down day so went HND. Wrong. I lost about 3% overall.
I became super-bullish over the weekend - but with less confidence - so on Monday morning I waited and bought in to the HNU at 18.50 and was soon down a boatload, so I averaged down to 17.55 at about 2:27 pm i.e. a couple of minutes before the close, and was almost breaking even by the end of the stock market day so I held overnight. Wrong.
After a sleepless night of watching the March contract plunge on TV and fearing the worst regarding the April that we're trading here, I was pretty much convinced I was looking at 20%, and was kicking myself so hard I didn't even log into my account until 11:00.
Imagine my delight at to find HNU bouncing around 17.30. Grinning, I took my 1.5% loss.
Next time I logged in, HNU was trading (briefly, I know) at what would have been a profit for me, had I waited.
I now know, beyond any reasonable doubt, that I don't have a clue.
Just like with the oil ETFs, we are trying to play somebody else's game here. Logic has nothing to do with it, especially near the contract close dates.