AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA! thousands and thousands of people dont start selling at one time due to "no difinitive explination" that is funny. let just say a few little words and a massive rate hike were heard round the world. where DO you get this crap?
Certainly shorting isn't mandatory to make $$$. But a LOT of people (who don't short) had a tough time from the bubble in early 2000 until the market finally moved up a few years later. I'm sure there are some still expecting (i.e. hoping) for NAZ 5000 again. I have no ego when it comes to shorting individual stocks. Pick a stock, or sector, that's overbought or ripe for profit taking and/or pullback. To me any serious trader that only plays the long side is like a football coach that only runs the ball. To not pass the football (or not short) stocks is giving up a good part of the game.
How is your short doing? I am certain you will be amoung the 1000's to cover next week. Here is the wikipedia entry for blackmonday as you can see there is no 'single' explanation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Monday_(1987)
Your positions were from May/June b/f the market started climbing (from your chart). Had you been wrong you would have gotten crushed. You just held and held hoping and praying. I dont know how much $$$ you had on the line but you could have easily gotten crushed. My point is, you cant be so blindly following one side. If and when its over, you have to be willing to accept that otherwise you will get wiped out.
I am sure that some traders make good money from the short side. I am talking about swing trades only, at this point. I could not develop good trading systems with excellent performance in the shorting individual stocks arena. Probably due to the very strong up bias of the 1990-2006 period.
Does anyone really believe that those who have been long since '03 or '04 are sticking around? C'mon. They're picking their exits right now. Only the genuine Buffet's and Miller's are sticking around.
If i was long the CSCO and INTC and ORCL and MSFT and all those nice techs back in 03 and 04 I certainly would be selling now. Heck I went long an ETF in May of 2006 right before everything fell and ended up holding it for the dividend, finally in November it touched my buy price and sold out of it for a minor profit. Still trading where it was since I sold it.
I still think we have one more rise up, maybe even to a new high. The fund managers do know there is no way they will make money next year so they have to bring the market down soon, but I don't think we are quite there yet. We have had 2 distribution days which does not bode well for the market, but I have seen this happen before only to rise again for a bigger selloff.
Yea the nasdaq rebounded sharply off the 2390 level an hour ago. 'Smart Money' isn't going to let the markets drop much lower. December rally coming up.