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Technology Stocks : BroadVision (BVSN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GraceZ who wrote (1733)	7/18/1999 1:50:00 PM
From: marketbrief.com	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3773

I am a hit and run trader who takes a few points out of a stock and moves on... with BVSN I am in a position that is now a breakeven trade at worst... I expect that I will be able to take around 5 points out of this short trade in a few days time if all goes well. I understand perfectly well that the long term holders of this stock have been experiencing fantastic returns and I congratulate their good fortune. I think that you should be careful though when making judgments about risk... seeing that BVSN was a good buy in May is purely hindsight. Short term traders do not make judgments about value, but take advantage of short term price patterns, and buy or sell short accordingly with a very precise understanding about the risks. Regarding the statement that "swing trading longs successfully ALWAYS makes far more dough than those short selling," I have this to say: horsehockey. Not only is Rande(?) engaging in math abuse, but also I doubt that he trades for a living, and if he does, I am certain that he does not have much "dough" to show for it. ~Smart$

To: GraceZ who wrote (1733)	7/18/1999 3:24:00 PM
From: Cesare J Marini	Respond to of 3773

Grace, Remember this....percentages are greater moving up than down. For instance...a short at 10 with a cover at 5 yields a gain of 50 percent. Whereas a buy at 5 need only rise to 7.50 to yield 50 percent. But a short-sell at 5 that must be covered at 10 is a loss of 100 percent. And that is just another reason why those swing-trading longs successfully will ALWAYS make far more dough than those short-selling. . .when making an equal number of trades. . . it is just simple mathematics. Unfortunately, your friend Rande is making some very BIG assumptions. First, he's assuming that longs do nothing but go long, and that shorts do nothing but go short. That is usually HARDLY the case. For example, I am mostly long, but I'll box my positions from time to time to make some extra money out of them. Also, take a look at Rande's statement: "...when making an equal number of trades...". Shorts tend to move a lot faster than longs, because stocks tend to move up over time instead of down. But when they DO move down, it's fast, and a short usually has to be in an out quickly. Thus, shorts tend to make LOTS more trades than buy-and-hold longs. Joe