Diary of a day trader: Jay Smith

It’s not quite “sell sell sell” but the nerves have really kicked in this week. There are signs that stocks are heading for a major correction.

I’m in wait and see mood; I spent the last few days closing positions while shorting tech stocks like Facebook, which still look like they have a long way to fall.

Trump calling out Amazon has made the headlines, but it is the Grindr story that is really freaking out traders, after the gay dating app shared HIV details with two external companies. This has huge repercussions for the tech industry and shows the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal is just the tip of the iceberg.

Shorting the indices — especially the S&P, FTSE 100 and the Nasdaq — has also proved a good hedging strategy lately.

Yet I remain long on a number of stocks, especially the M&A plays like Netflix. Similar to Spotify, it has never made a profit, but it’s only a matter of time before these companies are snapped up by Disney, Microsoft, Google or Apple — hence the crazy valuations.

Traders have been on edge for well over a year now and there hasn’t been a major correction since 2009. It’s due.

Portfolio: $32,900

Seven days: -1.88%

YTD: +193.98%