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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Daniel Chisholm who wrote (9160)	12/6/1999 3:44:00 PM
From: Michael Burry	Respond to of 78611

Re: shorts, So far this year, shorting has been nicely profitable for me. Yes, even AMZN, which I recently re-shorted at 84 and change. I've got a list of potential shorts on Yahoo that is simply exploding upward. New highs and all. Keeping my powder dry and as far as I'm concerned those are analogues to undervalued depressed stocks. There will be a glorious opportunity to short them. I've taken some profits, had a good year now with some cash, and watching for short opportunities as well as buy opportunities (I've got 6 I want to buy now but why not wait for better prices). There's some merit to what J. Bash has to say. I don't think shorting the QQQ is the answer. But to give up on shorting when short candidates are as omnipresent now as undervalued stocks were at the bottom of the '74 bear, or to buy the QQQ isn't the answer either. There's still room for intelligent investing, IMO. Good investing, Mike

To: Daniel Chisholm who wrote (9160)	12/6/1999 4:31:00 PM
From: Madharry	Respond to of 78611

Hi Daniel, I bailed out of USU shortly before that Barron's article came out I was afraid of all the year end tax selling that would be coming into the stock. SOmetime in December I may reenter. I figure there will be plenty of time to short after some of these issues have dropped 20% in a down market. Much better to be late to the party than early. That way you know the party is happening! I think when yahoo goes up 10% in a day it still is a tad early.

To: Daniel Chisholm who wrote (9160)	12/6/1999 8:03:00 PM
From: Paul Senior	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 78611

Daniel Chisholm: Ha. No I'm not buying QQQ ... yet. But since I want to maintain a diversified portfolio, and value stocks - or what I perceive to be value stocks anyway - are the biggest component by dollar value in most of my portfolios, then I want to look around for ways to diversify. One way would be to buy QQQ. Another would be to buy a relatively small amount of internet/telecommunications stocks. (I'm doing this.) Another way would be to short apparently overvalued stocks (I do this but don't have any success.) Or short a basket of stocks using options. (I don't have any success with options.) If you will look real, real closely you will find, imo, that most people do not make consistent profits or a lot of profits from shorting stocks. There aren't so many people who've quit their day jobs- from what I can see, based on profits from selling short. But there many who have profited immensely by being long. There are some successful short sellers sure.... Anthony, Mr. Pink, and perhaps a bunch of their followers. On this thread, Peter M. comes to mind and might be another. You will notice that Mike Burry argues for short selling as a very good opportunity in today's or tomorrow's market, and his actual short position is very small compared to his overall portfolio and is used as a hedge, according to his site notes. This seems reasonable to me. Switching back-and-forth between long and short positions or having large short positions (in dollar amounts)-- that, from what I can tell and from what I read of successful investors - is best left to professionals. That my opinion, anyway. I want to say also, that I hope I am basing my opinion on what I see and experts say, and NOT on my own experience. That is, just because I can't short well, I'm not saying shorting doesn't work and people shouldn't short. pasta boiling, gotta go. Paul.