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Non-Tech : Auric Goldfinger's Short List -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jbe who wrote (5025)	4/16/2000 3:05:00 AM
From: Sir Auric Goldfinger	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 19428

A lot of answers to several questions. Shorting no "goodnicks" that are running out of cash works as long as you have liquidity and a non-bullish environment. When things get bullish again there will be people who run screens on heavy short interest (float and SIR)who have nothing better to do than light a fire under your posistion to see if they can get something going. IF there are enough MOrons around who just jump on any volume that looks like a good trade, it will work. Most of those types are out of commission for a while I would imagine. The trick is to watch the liquidty in terms of volume, bid/ask spreads, average size transacted as well as the number of active market makers in the stock, among other things. With regard to SIR (short interest divided by average daily volume) and short interest realtive to float, you should examine both of them. A lot of it depends upon the stock and the environment you are in. Suffice it to say that a stock with short interest over 20 days or 30% of float short is a stock where the shorts have a high degree of confidence in where it is going. It is the stocks between 10 and 20 days tha I find the most interesting as the tug of war seems to be the most volatile. Higher trading volume is almost always better, but there are so many other variables like beta and volatility that enter into the equation as well. As for a large short ratio being a bullish sign, that is nto always the case as I alluded to above. Certainly in a more bearish environment it means a lot less. In some stocks, the story is well known, the fraud has been exposed and it is clear that it is a GT0 as in Go to Zero. You need a bullish reason to pull off a short squeeze now that a lot fools got caught long some real jokes that they thought they were going to make a quick buck on. But you've got to assess who is on the other side, If Vinik is doing a Boston squeeze or Joe Barton is out touting some POS, you might think twice about it as these guys know how to play the game and people are very often fooled by the filings that show them long, when in fact they may well be boxed. OTOH, with firms like Pilgirm Baxter gettin redeemed right now, there are a lot of longs who are screaming to get out. As for timing, as always "sell high, buy low unless it is a GTO" Hope this helps. All rights reserved, Auric Goldfinger.