I generally agree. However, there is a problem with this approach. If you are good at the fundamentals, but crap at market feel, you will never make money this way. Also, it's quite possible you will get faked out or "tricked" by the market action, and not make much profit because you are paying too much attention to price movements. If you are absolutely, flat-out sure that a sector is going to crash (caveat - you must be *proven* to be good at fundie analysis i.e. your predictions generally have worked in the past), ultimately the only sure-fire way to profit is to put on a position, and HOLD it come what may. Since you can't do that with shorts (because it could double and wipe you out), the only "fundamental trader" approach is to average into deep out the money long-dated put options. Just keep buying deep OTM puts every few months, drip-feed your capital into them and, if you turn out to be correct, you are absolutely guaranteed to make a nice profit. Unlike almost every other trading approach, there is literally NO WAY that you cannot make money if you are right. What typically happens when I do this, is that i lose money for months and sometimes 1-2 years, but then make it all back and much more when the crash finally occurs. Believe me, there are few things more profitable than rolling put ladders in a secular bear market.
Gold futures off 9 points this morning....GLD down 1% in first 10 minutes. look at the difference here. me..."i have 5 diferent points of analysis with "x" plan. you "i have a feeling...." big difference. I also think over time gold will go up...but that cant cloud your judgement. shorting is only hard for you if you let it be hard. dont be your own worst enemy.