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Strategies & Market Trends : Roger's 1998 Short Picks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Amit Ghate who wrote (18479)	11/24/1999 12:36:00 PM
From: Gerald Walls	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 18691

I believe you can short SPDR's (S&P depository receipts) which are tied to the S&P. Not only that, they are not subject to the uptick rule. This means that you can short them even in a rapidly-falling market. SPY is the S&P-500 SPDR. There is also a SPDR for each of the major S&P-500 sections (Technology, Transportation, etc). A similar instrument is the QQQ, which tracks the NASDAQ-100. I don't know if it's subject to the downtick rule or not. The QQQ has options, but as of the last I heard the IRS had not yet decided if they would be treated as Equity options (tax holding period reflects actual holding period) or as Futures options (tax holding period is always 60/40 Long/Short [or Short/Long, don't remember] and marked-to-market on 12/31). I don't know if the SPDRs have options.