I still dont get why anyone wants to short Apple. It makes one high after another. I shorted AMZN, AKAM, YHOO, GOOG. Took a loss in AKAM after it came back 3 days ago. But all others are selling off into a rising equity market. I see no rational why to sell strong stocks such as Apple. Generally strong stocks are moving up for a reason and vice versa. Only reason to sell calls for instance is to generate extra income and possibly getting exercised against it to take profit. Other than that...???
exactly, thats why so many "individuals" who approach this field lose money or hardly make a dime. A lot of people want to trade because they want to be right or want to feel they got it right while others got it wrong. Some here seem to have decided for themselves that Apple must go down now and they get countless times stopped out or run a huge unrealized loss. Plus I dont even want to imagine what emotional pain this inflict aside their monetary losses. My observation is that those few who truly excel in this field trade because they have a passion to make money, nothing else. This necessitates a mindset to study, test, learn, and to be able to pull the trigger early when being wrong. One of my early lessons which I learned from my mentor and also through running tests myself is that probabilistically it NEVER pays off to short names that show strong upward momentum. -> But then I read there are a lot of guys in the market who actually trade and lose money because they like to suffer. Is that really it?
There's nothing wrong with a counter-trend play on AAPL, but AAPL's still not fully overbought on the daily chart, so why would you short it via options at this price level? Intraday, it's good both directions, as are most stocks, but for a swing trade to the short side, even if you're a counter-trender, AAPL is not yet "ripe" IMHO.
So you're nibbling your way into a larger position? I often contemplate doing that as a counter-trend play because it's hard to pick tops and bottoms, but every time I wait too long, I miss the move. How does that work out for you? Or do you play small and stop out a lot until you get the move?
yes I would even buy Apple here. One of my plays is relative out-performance/under-performance versus an industry index. In aggregate I end up with long and short baskets of stocks. Apple would NEVER be in my short basket, at least not under current market conditions. You do not make sense to me because you are from a probability standpoint behind the curve by trying to take short exposure to Apple. There are tons of weak names that show weakness by selling into a rising market. Why not shorting those? I mean do you mind considering this question: Is it really that you think something that goes up a lot has to fall a lot? P.S.: If you must short a name I would still look at Google if I was you. China Unicom announced they ditch Google on their mobile phones. You think that does not have an impact on their business?