Roger, FWIW I'm with you on AOL, VIAS, DDIM, and MANU, and sorely tempted to short DELL, AND, AVNT, YAHOO and ZITL. But I've been a contrary indicator on tech stocks of late, and mostly too early on shorting those above. I was short CTXS when you started this thread but have been too baffled since covering too early on its crash this Spring to take any position since then. (But I confess I don't understand what is the big deal about "thin clients" when CPU, RAM and hard drives have become practically free. It seems to me there was a great invention called "time-sharing" back when we were writing FORTRAN programs on punch cards and thought a modem had to have two big rings to hold the telephone receiver -- but that the silicon miracle freed us of dependence on a central unit that might go down or time us out. How much productivity is lost when an employee cannot continue working on her standalone when the network is down?)
I covered a small CIEN short a few days after the lock-up ended and have ceased following it. Some of your others are unfamiliar to me. It does seem that your shorts are rather concentrated in OTC techs. To hedge a diversified portfolio, why not short some other overvalued stocks -- I've been looking at retailers like FMY, ROST and SUIT where insiders have been cashing in heavily, and I shorted a little SBUX last week (it soared Monday). Have you looked at shorting closed-end funds that trade at mysterious premiums? I could not get shares of TTF at the open today, but some lucky person sold at 13.75, which was at least a 50% premium, I believe, even before the 5% drop on the SET Monday. I am short a little MFV; could not borrow more last time I tried. ISEE (Sterling Vision) is another Asensio target; maybe the bounce over the last couple of days is a shorting opportunity (I am short a few shares).
IMHO MSFT is closer to being a short than a long, but I base that only on the lofty ratios, the company's own statements and the heavy insider selling at these levels.
Off topic, do you have an opinion on Longview Fibre, LFB? It has suffered from low linerboard prices for years, it seems, while I have held the stock and now has finally broken above 20. The company does own over 1/2 million acres of tree farms, very undervalued on the books. Is there more upside, finally, or is this the chance to get out?
-- Shoe |
