To: donald sew who wrote (28692 ) 8/30/2000 1:21:48 AM From: adcpres Read Replies (1) | Respond to Donald, I feel I touched a nerve here. Somehow you and others (in private messages) misinterpreted my message. Obviously I did not express myself clearly which is hard to do in short posts. For one thing, I hold at least 7-8 positions on any given day totaling at least 5K-7K shares and 40 contracts and base my decisions on how a majority of these positions fair and not on just a single trade. Last week I set to work several short positions on this market. Because of poor timing, they are not producing the returns expected. Should I stick with my convictions and keep loosing money until this market turns around? That's not my style. My account is still up 46%(down from +77%) since I jumped into the market in May after a 5 year absence. Why not bail, save my buying power and jump in with long trades as long as the market insists going up and short it again later when it decides to turn around? What I was trying to say is that if I am standing in a crosswalk and a semi comes bearing down on me, I will step aside and let it pass even though I have the right-of-way. The idea is to make money -- not to hold fast to a loosing position because the indicators say it ought to be the other way. If I go long on a stock and it begins to fall, no one would fault me for selling to limit my losses and move on to another trade -- don't ride a stock to the bottom. The same logic applies here when one shorts a basket of stocks and they increase -- cut your losses; don't ride it to the top. I never expected the stocks I picked to break their 52 week highs and keep running.
