Roy, Thank you very much for your kind words. Feeling unconfident is not good because it makes me afraid to act.
Actually I need a few months of leaving my portfolio alone anyway! (GGG)
Today I accidentally shorted for the first time. I was unfortunate or stupid enough to buy BOST at 14 1/2 a few weeks ago, thinking it was a good turnaround candidate. The earnings however were disappointing, and the news worse, that they would not make a profit for at least another year. So today I decided to sell and buy Bingo, a small company I almost bought last summer and have been following. But I have two accounts with Datek and sold the bost in the one where I didnt have the stock!!!!! In a few minutes I realized what I had done, but it was too late. The other account, where the bost was, is an IRA so I couldnt move the shares over. I went ahead and sold the right shares and panicked for 5 minutes or so, then asked a few people on SI what to do, and finally "covered" , making about $4 after commmissions!!!!
Scary.However, now I know what shorting is.
I am going to consider it a tool to use, sometime, when I know a selected few companies and their stocks price pattern well, and i think its reasonable to do it. So it worked out ok.
Do you ever short?
Freeus |
