What if? September 11th

[schoe]

What If? September 11th.

I was not trading or in the country when September the 11th happened. What was it like from a spread betting point of view from those of you that were in trades? If you were long and had a stop in place how many points below the stop were you filled?
I am just trying to work out what would happen if I was the wrong side of a trade and the unthinkable happened again.
Thanks.

 

[stevem12]

If you want to look at something Really scary you want to take a look at the S+P and the Nasdaq in April 2000 when the bubble finally burst.

The S+P dropped 110 points on one day and 97 points a couple of days later

Makes the 55 points after 9/11 seem piddly.

Around that time the NQ and ES hit intra-day limits Several times in one day and they did it on more than one day, although this was the old 2.5% limit which has now been removed.

Those were the days when you could make in a day what would now be classed as a good week

 

[GeckoTime]

US markets were closed in the days after 9/11. Were the spreadbetting companies even taking bets during that time?

 

[peto]

While it was all going on the the spread on D4F widened to 30+ odd points on the Dow, as I remember. The market lurched down in about 3 stages as each new appalling item of news occured.

 

[Skimbleshanks]

The actual events of 9-11 happened BEFORE the US markets opened, and as the NYSE was one of the businesses/buildings affected, the stock markets didn't open again until September 17th 2001.

I was trading UK stocks and US indices at the time that 9-11 was unfolding. I took the immediate decision just to exit absolutely every long I had - and I managed to exit my positions in UK stocks with very little slippage indeed. I was quite surprised at this because it took me quite some time (half an hour) to exit them all (I had ISAs with three separate brokers). I had no US positions open as I've only ever daytraded US.

The only reason I could come up with for the lack of slippage was that the UK brokers themselves were glued to their TV screens watching the events unfold and therefore were distracted from their market screens. This was later confirmed in reports - the brokers seemed to be suffering from 'rabbit in the headlights' syndrome.

I did have a little slippage (slightly more than I would expect) on the last stock I sold, but on the whole I benefitted because I acted when everyone else was too stunned to notice what was happening.

I should add that I don't have a TV, so had no visual pictures, just the description of what was happening via the T2W chatroom. But I suppose my intuition just told me to go to cash as fast as possible.

 

[Hooya]

i was firt reported as an accident as well until the second plane hit, might have helped the delay in reaction

 

[madasafish]

I remmber very well.. I had no longs, shorted the DOw made 80 points, went long for the rebound made 30 and then gave up when US trading was suspended. When it resumed a week later Dow spread was 50 on fins and cmc.. Made 144 points in 1 trade as the markdown was too severe.. I bought at its low prior to open and it opened down a lot (550?or thereabouts) after being quoted -700.

Mind you it was quite scary and I kept stakes low.....