Just wonder if you play against the overall market, by picking the weakest among the strong, you can still win. A guy named yuri111 on forums back in 2003 before dispeared, always short short short, in bull and bear markets. His performance is 20%-100% a year with 8 winning streak years. I learned the bad by shorting TASR, and lost a lot, since then I only LONG LONG LONG. I have a feeling that the market may have a correction in 2007. I wonder if I still LONG LONG LONG in a bear market, will I keep my performance in 2006. So I ask how your shorts are doing in the 2006 bull market.
You can be successful shorting in a bull market, but 70% of stocks will basically follow the market. Why fight the overall direction of the market if you have a 70% chance of being wrong? At market tops you will look like a guru though.
I like PUTS for the short side to tell you the truth. I'm a big fan of shorting scam-ish type companies, usually not much can help them climb out of a pit...so if you find those they are relatively safer shorts. Going long Puts will allow you get into a short position without worrying about TASR like situations. You have to be more patient and more risk is involved I guess, although you don't have the unlimited upside of shorting a rocket ship. You can make money shorting this market...but the last poster was right...why fight it? You can look for double and triple tops, I've seen quite a few lately and use those once confirmation is given. BIDU had a nice triple top at like $134 last week intraday and fell from there...did the same thing at $129 or so yesterday. Some healthy skepticism seems to be abound in the markets...it's about time.
i once short a scam at $20, then it went to $40 in 2 days, then i covered it, 2 weeks later, then it is $0.70. i even forgot its name, it is a medical company selling some magic patch. same thing for me on TASR, i lost 100% on it too. since then, i rarely rarely short.
most of my trades are daytrades. most of daytrades are shorts. there are always opportunity to short - just a matter of picking the right stock, timing, and how much you make (risk/reward). if you have a tight risk, but high % setup, that's all that matters. in a bull market, 'obvious' shorts don't always come in as often or as much. in a bear market, 'obvious' longs don't bounce as high.
I have had similar experiences in my short trading career. Shorting is very difficult. The airlines have had a tear, including pathetic companies like AMR. I mean, check out AMRs balance sheet and then look at its share performance. If you can't successfully short a pathetic dog like AMR, where's the action?
Shorting is a fools game...it makes you feel good and smart, but in return, you lose money. Everyone gets what they want from the market.
There are some people who have these locker room stories of how they shorted a stock from 1000 dollars to 1 dollar. I dont know how true these stories are... However, shorting is a game for the sophisticated investor. You simply do not know what will happen next...will the company be bought out, will they announce upward guidance, will the analyst come out and upgrade the stock, etc. My preference is to wait until the market is in shreds as indicated by the vix and bullish percent indexes. Then when I believe the market to be at a low, swoop in and find deals. The money managers who short monitor their positions constantly. If you dont feel like your a sophisticated investor and dont have the time to give these short positions your attention, then you should not be shorting.