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To: gdichaz who wrote (121946)	7/22/2002 6:33:28 PM
From: waverider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

To lock in a profit? Preserve capital gains? Hoggs get fat, greedy pigs get slaughtered? wr

To: gdichaz who wrote (121946)	7/22/2002 9:14:09 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Respond to of 152472

MM: <<i closed all my shorts today. >> Why? because i made nice profits on them and it seemed like a good time to lock them in. keep in mind that when you short a stock, the value of your position declines as the stock goes down. so if you shorted at 100 and the stock goes to 50, now you only have 50 on the table so further declines of a given percentage will only provide half the absolute gain (i.e., 10% decline from 100 is 10 dollars; 10% decline from 50 is only 5). meanwhile, unless your shorts are going to absolute zero, their decline thus far has brought them closer to fair value, which means it's closer to "closing time" in any case. still, i am no master timer, so i wouldn't be surprised to see the positions i closed continue to go down. so it goes... short term, at least, we seem to have reached a panic stage in the markets. as somebody who believes there is value to being contrarian, i view this as a buying opportunity. and closing out shorts is one of the easiest ways to increase my long percentage (and locks in profits). i think you have the wrong idea of me, chaz. you seem to believe i only like to be negative on the market, whereas in fact i only like to make money, which means it makes sense to be negative when the market is going down (or getting ready to). likewise, it makes sense to become more positive as the market prepares to go up (or at least stop going down). my current "bullishness" should be taken with several pounds of salt. after all, i am merely increasing my equity percentage to 30%, which most people would consider a low allocation for my age. however, being 30% long is actually 25% more "bullish" than than being 22.5% long. and how many people do you know who are increasing their equity allocation 25% this week? probably just me, mucho, the Perma-Bull! :) i'll not be surprised if more agile traders than i will make good money on the long side in the coming weeks. i am simply taking a small step towards a bigger equity allocation, but i don't expect to approach what most people would consider "normal" (i.e., 80/20 stocks/bonds) unless equities fall to levels of the mid-1970s. and i doubt i'll ever have the 100% equity allocation many SI posters seem to be comfortable with. been there done that.