i've been trying to find some short strategy on us stocks, but failed so far. i find reasonable patterns for longs, but hardly anything useful for the shorts. my question: what is your percentage of shorts as a share of overall profits? (assuming you make profits )
Almost every sector has been in an uptrend in this bull market. There are some individual stocks that have been shortable, but overall, it hasn't been a good market to short since March 2003.
Some people feel the need to always have some shorts or always have some longs. I don't necessarily agree with that. Let the market dictate your shorts and longs.
formika i respect your points. current status of the poll is pretty amazing to me. would not have thought there are so many making money in shorts.
Why not look for the mirror image? If you use charts, when do you buy? When they're oversold? Bounching at the bottom of a Bollinger Band? So why not do the reverse for shorting? Short in overbought situations. Depends on your timeframe also. The market gives us chances most every day to short (intra-day).
It works for me ... besides, I'm a trader, not an investor. Anyone knows the market moves higher over time. And longer term bias doesn't have much to do with a short term horizon IMO. Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
on a systematic basis i found that patterns for shorts have to be significantly more complex than for longs. the mirror concept usually does not work at all.
I found some chart patterns at http://www.baresearch.com/education/technical_analysis/chart_patterns.php there are some there that can be applied to shorts