Still think USO is a great way to invest in Oil?An Interactive Broker trader with a $77,000 account thought he would outsmart every institution and every big Oil trader, the result? A $9 million loss.
Well done.
IB normally doesn't take beginners, you need 2 years experience to trade FX with them (haven't checked futures so I don't know what the rule is for those), and the min account size is 10,000.
This day trader (go figure) thought he was smarter than every one, and he went all in, he bet the farm. This alone is stupid, but he went all in without doing his research!
Probably a "technical analyst". Weird, I thought magical esoteric TA told you everything you need to know, that everything was built in the chart and info not in the chart was useless noise. Didn't his magical TA tools tell him it would go negative? Well actually if he looked at the ATR / implied volatility he would have seen....
Even I, that has negative balance protection and guaranteed stops, went on the CME site to check announcements.
They don't exactly talk about negative prices nor clearly about limit up limit down, but here, with Oil massive volatility, they did confirm that yes indeed they were prepared for negative prices.
Thomas Peterffy (the hungarian market billionaire that is not George Soros) said 5 days wasn't enough for IB to update their platform and that's obviously true.
Now maybe they should have warned people with messages on the interface, e-mails, maybe set some hard limit to what their clients can do.
Maybe they should have had code ready at all time in case this happens. Maybe they share the fault, maybe not.
But anyway, being a customer friendly broker, they absorbed losses over 100 million.
Meanwhile I did my research, I shorted June contract and made money, and I'm fighting with my shady broker to withdraw some of my gains...
They have been condemned by the french regulators years ago for shady business practices go figure, but every retail broker has!
And the vast majority of their clients are retail. I'm waiting and waiting and waiting... I have resisted insulting them or calling the regulator for now.
The only other broker to give me a hard time was Kraken. They mention anti laundering laws and more, and I understand, but why be so unclear, and ask for documents 5 times rather than all at once, and why ask for the same documents several time, and why be so difficult, only when someone made money?
Short Bitcoin on Kraken which was clearly very pro bull, short Oil on *** which had a massive number of retail short sellers (they were on the June contract thought), and then it's an issue. Never had a single problem buying Bitcoin and sending it to a wallet, never a problem when losing money, extreme ease to deposit and start paying commissions, without any warning "getting it out will be very hard". "It's quick instant easy" ye sure, no it's not.
The fund running USO clearly said it was a tool for short term bets. It's not made for massive hoardes of dumb money to buy and hold.
They have spread over several months to be more nimble, ye looks like its working great!
I heard reverse splits were a good sign, that it was smart to invest in a stock after it made a reverse split.
Once again, retail that never in their lives made money consistently, thought they knew better than every one else, and that they would get rich quick.
Once again, I warned people with what little visibility I had.
Once again I was right and retail is getting wiped out.
Bagholders are going to argue, they are going to say "just wait", and any spike up will be their celebration and "told you so" "this is it".
Same old story. They'll keep arguing, they'll keep bagholding, they'll keep losing.
Dumb money at its finest: never understand when you lost. You can never tell them "told you so" because in their mind it's always just a matter of time.
When it gets delisted they'll have no choice but to understand they lost, and still then they'll go full lawsuit and dream of getting their money back.
How long for this? 5 years? 10 years? Apple Sapphire screen bagholders as I posted recently have gotten like 4% of their money back on average.
An average smart (average of the ones in the top) investor or speculator in 10 years will be up 15% compounded, so +300% (turn the total into 400%), and dumb bagholders that wanted to get rich quick "15% a year looool that's pathetic" will be spending their time in courts and dreaming of getting 4% back (turn the total into 4%).
Delusion at its finest. There is no free lunch...
If Oil was priced at $0.01 there was a very good reason for it.
Oil traders weren't just selling at this price because "emotions" "rsi very oversold".
It's so risible that some complete noobs that don't understand anything they are doing thought they are just so much smarter than the market, and that whales were just "being emotional" and selling a barrel of Oil at $5, $3, etc just because they were "scaaaaared".
Homer Simpson really thought "Aha! Whales are selling Oil at $1 a barrel but they are scared. I, Homer J Simpson, know something they don't! Oil is worth more. I am a visionary!"
It's like when Homer went hunting for a Turkey, he just put a nice plate down with rice and other food in, then shouted "Come on Turkey come join your friends" and pointed the gun towards the plate with a big smile on his face, fully convinced a Turkey would jump in his plate.
I thought the Simpsons were ridiculous and overly exagerated when I was a kid. How wrong I was.
My broker lets me set an order to short USO. Oh my, I sure know what I'm going to do! 2 possibilities actually.
The Difference Between Stupidity and Genius Is That Genius Has Its Limits.
