>> This is in response to Pete's situation and may be quite boring <<
You probably hit the nail on the head there... thankx (I think!). ;-)
Thank you very much for your advice. I actually did some more trades yesterday (Tuesday) before I read your note, which leads me to the Update on Pete's Evil Scheme:
I decided that my old evil scheme was lacking in one important area (commitment!! If ya' wanna make money, ya' gotta commit...). If I covered some of my shorts because I think the stock's going to rise, then I'm an idiot for not wanting to rise with the tide on the rest. So I covered 2/3 of the remaining short, and went long right at 30. I had watched it drop briefly into the high twenties, and when it recovered over 30 so promptly, I figured it would head higher.
Now I have only 1/6 of my old short position still short (mostly in case DDIM does actually drop significantly, it will make me feel better), but 5/6 is now long.
To keep tabs on whether I'm doing any better, I'm going to keep score. So at DDIM = 31, the current price, my old short position (before I got fed up and began covering at 32.6 (oops!)) equals -60. My current position (incl the losses for covering) equals -65. So if I had done nothing with my short position, I would be doing better with DDIM than I am now.
However, if the stock continues to rise, I am well positioned to profit by it.
In the unlikely event anyone is still reading this message, I'll continue to post the score periodically (between my old short position, now mostly gone, versus my new wacky "go with the flow" position).
Currently, old position of -60 is beating new position of -65.
-- Pete |
