Its all price action, and sentiment is also a factor. But there are unsustainable movements in the market in the short term, and people don't know how to discriminate between an overvalued overbought crap stock and an overvalued overbought growth stock. I would not dare call a top on BIDU in this environment, in fact, I think BIDU will go higher, but the flotsam that's been rocketing up is gonna be much lower in a few months. That's why I made the China Turd Index, because what I was seeing was the worst China stocks going up the most, and that's not sustainable.
I sold out my bidu position yesterday (originally bought at 66 & 100), sold positions at 200, 270, and 324(all within the last 2 months). Its been my experience that when a stock runs up like baidu has, with no significant event, its likely to run back down. I'm not willing to predict the top, but I am willing to predict that we will see $250 again, and probably $200. I assuming price stays at 320+, this stock is going to tank after earnings, cuz there's no way it can live up to the expectations (its more than doubled since the last q)
a stock can only drop 100 percent. it cannot drop by more than that amount as you posted. what is your point?
My point is that if you have proper money management, it doesn't matter. If you trade with stops and cut losses, there is limited downside on the short side as well. The astute trader is never there to see his position goes against him to infinity, or to zero. He's already cut his loss long time ago.