Betting against ETers - best long term strategy?

[Scataphagos]

So with this mini-crash, or whatever you want to call it, in early February, just reading the various threads on ET I noticed that there were SO MANY bears at the end of it. Some bulls, but mainly bears. Not just commenting on it, but actually placing bets to the short side. What did the market do? Come SCREAMING back up.

So I'm just curious. Is ET a microcosm of the broad market, and taking a view opposite what the ETers are taking in general is the best way to make money, contrarian style? It clearly would have made a killing in the February pull back. Literally no one on ET saw it coming (or at least I saw no threads - "Hey guys, watch it, market is looking risky here"). Then when it already happened, most of the ETers were calling for blood. Maybe every day we should have a new thread that is "For 3/19/18, do you think the market (let's say general US equities, so the DOW, S&P, NASDAQ) is going to be up or down 30 days from now?" Then to make money off it, just bet the opposite of what the majority of ETers that reply think?

Thanks as always, and god bless ET, the best message board on the entire internet.

Doubt there is a way to collectively play ET'ers sentiment... too diverse.

However, the website Traders-Talk.com has some votes tallied by the moderator. Seems sometimes it's good to go with the majority vote, sometimes better to fade them.

 

[Handle123]

Been using basic concept since late 1991, system goes against 9 year cycle extremes but has become a most complicated hedge/system in last 18 months as I have added physics to various components to curb risk/drawdowns even further. As Nasdaq made new highs, program waits for certain pattern to go short. System will also find areas where rally/dip against it long term positions exist and will hedge open positions as it did recently before mid February. Often times hedges comes from other instruments so as not to disrupt options in futures. I am now testing on stocks as many have similar personalities as commodities.

I don't recommend to most others as takes abilities to counter-trend trade and years at least for me to get profitable, and for most people it goes against what "seems" right thing to do catching falling boulder. This method has extremely low winning percentages as it might take years to be considered a profitable trade but so is the losing percentages/drawdowns.

As far as scalping/day/swing trading, 95% are against immediate trend. For me breakouts/trade with trend, never made much sense because risk was too high for me to fathom.