Operatorman Calls

No one is more insufferable than a person who tells you "I told you so" It is one thing to be right but completely another to crow about it. I am talking about my acquaintance, Operatorman, who had told me when Nifty was 4900 that it will hit 5600 in Feb-March. As Nifty moved past 5500, he had called me and told me that it is the last opportunity to sell the Nifty. He warned me that Nifty will head back to 5000.

I did not pay much heed to it then. I told him that my system will take care of the selling and the shorting and sure enough, I cut my long positions and went short yesterday at 5565. I did not write all this to warn you about the possibility of Nifty hitting 5000. It might or might not. I wrote this note to highlight the difficulty of trading any market. By a stroke of luck or design, Operatorman was spot on, this time. Nifty did hit 5600 in Feb and has since then started a fall. If Nifty indeed goes to 5000 as he predicts, then it will require a lot of discipline on my part to ignore his next call and continue to stick to my system.

In more general terms, a trader is inundated with news and gossip. Some of them will turn out to be right a few times in a row. Continuing to ignore them and sticking to ones method requires a lot of training and adds to the already difficult job of making money in a volatile market.

For the moment though, I am short and will be happy if Operatorman turns out to be right once again. I will however cut my short position above 5602 and will actually go long (despite Operatorman's dire warnings) above 5635.