he got unlucky tho that the mkt is an unstoppable bull otherwise most of his short pos wouldnt be underwater. maybe not 50% but 30% is feasable even with so much diversification.
Bit, Wouldnt you agree that if you could trade an equal notional long short book with some degree of correlation,and return 30%,you should be able to have a billion of dollars at your door??
it wont be easy to achieve 30% yr over yr, but yeah i cant see what's the big whoop with a small account. u can take risks with thin issues. i think it is a feasable thing to do. the guy aint a bad stock picker at all, all his long pos have performed well, it's just the shorts that for obvious reasons are sufferin'.
Dont take it the wrong way,Alpha is an excellent stock picker.My contention is that to run a long short book and acheive 30 to 50 percent returns is off the charts... In fact,if you can run a long short book without substantial beta risk,and slightly outperform the S&P and halve the volatility,you should be able to attract substantial capital...
kinda agreed with that. but it's obvious he would have done much much better with a rangebound mkt as that of the past 6months/1yr. let's wait and see when/if mkt reverses and gets back to churn if he can achieve high returns with a neutral strategy. i think it is still possible if the trader has particularly good instincts.
I realize the shorts have stunk, but I am only in the second month of posting them. I have experimented with using the SPY as a dollar neutral hedge and forgetting about shorting individual stocks altogether. This would reduce much of the theoretical risk associated with shorting while still minimizing market risk.
STOCK TO BUY FOR NOV 21, 2006 (ZEUS) STOCK TO BUY FOR NOV 21, 2006 (TCHC) STOCK TO SELL FOR NOV 21, 2006 (ASCA) 15.6% est. RETURN STOCK TO SELL FOR NOV 21, 2006 (OO) -2% est. RETURN
STOCK TO SHORT FOR NOV 21, 2006 (AJG) STOCK TO SHORT FOR NOV 21, 2006 (BIIB) STOCK TO COVER FOR NOV 21, 2006 (VIP) -3.6% est. RETURN STOCK TO COVER FOR NOV 21, 2006 (ETR) -4.6% est. RETURN