Whether I enter a trade or not has zero bearing on the official trades. While I take most of the trade ideas posted on the site, I don’t take them all & I also take a lot of trades that aren’t posted on the site, all for various reasons, many of which are described in the FAQ page under the ‘General Questions’ subcategory.

I did short nat gas via /NG around the time I posted this official trade after a previous quick short trade (also posted on the front page or trading room) which followed a long swing trade position (also mentioned on both the front page & trading room). But again, that doesn’t matter as sometimes I might pass on an official trade, say AAPL, if I am already long or short QQQ or some other highly correlated trade. Again, that would be one of several reasons but I will also post an entry on the official trades at or before the point of what I believe to be an objective & optimal entry.

Natural gas has less than a zero correlation to the stock market and QQQ. It’s not that they are inversely correlated either, just that they aren’t correlated at all. As such, where QQQ goes shouldn’t have an impact on where nat gas prices go unless the stock market was in a meltdown mode, in which most securities tend to fall due to forced margin call liquidations & panic selling.

Regarding the storm, the questions are: How much of the recent gains this week were pricing in the potential supply disruptions from the storm & if a good part or all of that has already been priced in, what will happen to nat gas prices if the disruptions are less than expected or a non-event? Either way, I like the R/R so if this trade is stopped out, we’re looking at a beta-adjusted loss of less than 1 1/2% vs. a beta-adjusted gain of 5%+ with some pretty solid resistance not far overhead on /NG.