ok, I see your point now...You were referring to stock traders...Yes, I think that is probably very credible mainly due to the mechanics of trading stocks and the fact that many people who got their start trading stocks during a bull market would have the majority of their winners from long positions... What I found almost incredible was when I flipped thru Gary Smith's book on futures trading, how he mentioned that he almost never goes short index futures...Of course the book was published in early 2000 before the bear market took full effect...
LOL, don't even get me started on Gary Smith (the one who wrote the book, not the one who is on realmoney.com and is actually a cool guy). His book had me cracking up from the getgo when he said he's too lazy to get up for the open but always makes sure to tape CNBC. I still laugh out loud at that recollection. He is a losing trader for like 15 years- waaay too long to figure out you suck at something- and then just happens to "figure it all out" about the same time the biggest bull market in history is ramping up. He might as well have titled his book "how my idiotic persistence at something i'm really bad at turned into dumb luck after a decade and a half of beating my head against the wall."
I'm sure there is a procedure as this has actually happened with multiple dot bomb names. If the stock is officially put down I would imagine the brokerage considers it a buyback at zero and give you the cash, the same way they would look at short puts or calls that expire.
The sticky wicket for being short these companies is when they are delisted but they don't go bust. If you are long your funds are tied up in a now privately held crappy company until they either give up the ghost or make a comeback. If you are short then ___.
That's the kind of problem you'd love to have. I want to ride just one tech wreck down to 5 cents or so just for my trading stories collection, so when I'm old and grizzled I can gather round the wet behind the ears gunslingers, light up my pipe, get that faraway look and say "back in my day..." The stock with the best "zero" potential in my short stable right now is WEBM- I'd say pretty much anything with "web" or "net" or "com" in it has the sharks circling.....
yeah, lol...to make matters worse I remember back in 1999 he went to all of the various message boards looking to interview anyone who traded shorter than his position trading time frame, only to try and prove a heavily subjective theory in the first place...He wanted to prove that all short term futures traders lost money...And then he has the nerve to try and say that simply going long futures is the key to success...Like you said, another bull market phenomenon...
It makes my heart glad to see you guys see through some of the nonsense written out there. The book referenced is so extremely silly that it is hardly worth mentioning. I "get in trouble" when I point stuff like this out....glad you guys did. Don
Because people think they should go short or long as easily, many think that they can always take a position so if they are not long they should be short they think. Also they think the short side is sexier because that's what the "pros" do and it's cool to make money when it goes down. From Don Bright: "Stocks fall much more quickly than they rise" I beg to differ here, I think this is an old diehard cliche but I guess your statement is supposed to support the case that since stocks fall faster and prop traders can short more easily with bullets, you should be a prop trader !! It's true on a daily basis but most of the time not intraday whether we are talking stocks or index futures. Selloff often start slowly then accelerate with expansion bars while runup often start with strength immediately. You see more spikes on the upside than downside in the futs. I personally have a long bias even with eminis (for stocks the uptick rule almost forces you to be more often long than short, just a matter of risk/reward) and that's because I like a short holding time intraday and a good risk/reward I don't like to wait 15-20 min to have a cushion I want it to move significantly the next 3min.
Kicking: I think that the tendency for futures to spike up or down quickly has alot to do with what "stage" the market is in...By the time the market gets near major support, there is definitely alot quicker spike action to the upside near the support levels and vice versa... I think both can display the same velocity, but it really depends on where the market is when it happens...Also, it is worth noting that in the past few years there have been a number of upside "crashes"...
I agree w/ Don in that over the long run stuff definitely falls faster than it rises. It's a general description not just for markets but reality as well- people, companies, currencies, countries, philosophies, empires, worlds. I remember two years ago in April '00 seeing the S&P down 100 full handles and Dow down 600 points intraday. There's never been a melt "up" comparable to that- or to crashes of '87, '29 etc., and there probably never will be. Meltups in general are likely to be extinct for a good long while, except in the form of dead cat bounces. Greenspan has lost his mojo and the next bubble is probably at least a decade away. Just for fun, I wonder what the next superbubble sector will be in 2010 or 20 or whatever....nanotechnology? Cryogenics? Space Travel? Legalized narcotics distributors?