To: steve goldman who wrote (3734 ) 4/19/1998 7:28:00 AM From: funk Read Replies (4) | Respond to of 12617
Tim in response to your message... .... I started daytrading at the end of last august with borrowed money.. I made about an eight percent return my first day! Then I gave it back and then some for the rest of 97 for every gain there was a loss that was equal to it or even a little greater... my account started to slowly melt... in october i got hit hard when lots of day traders were having their most profitable days ever. Two things were going on. One, I had a steep learning curve I was climbing. Two, I did not have the proper tools. If you are interested in shorting... you need to realize that without the right tools it is going to be harder to short successfully. I will also offer out that I know two trader that do NOTHING but short and I find them to be two of the best guys. I think you are on the right track. There is only one rule! Control your LOSSES. Everything builds from that. With that in mind, if you are trading or trying to trade actively and want to short... having inadequate tools could create a condition that makes loss control more difficult. I can tell by your question that you still have a bit more pondering to do about how a trade actually occurs. When you short you are basically going thru all the same steps as when you go long. BUT its in reverse. the order of events is just backwards. So a trade is started with a sell and ended with a buy. Infact sometimes when i am short a stock and i am starting to consider the exit... i sort of pretend that i am NOT short and i look at the indicators and i ask myself would I buy this stock here to make money going long? Sometimes that little trick helps me keep a cool head. Here is the part you need to look at some more... if you are a traditional customer of a traditional brokerage you buy at the ask and sell at the bid. So when you go long you immediately lose the spread and too when you go short you still incur the same amount of slippage, as you still would lose the spread because you bought at the ask and sold at the bid. Here is the thing I think you missed in my first post... you don't HAVE to lose that spread. If you are trading actively you definately do not want to be losing that spread on all your trades. Because I work my own trades, I buy on the bid and sell on the ask on the majority of my trades. Just the opposite of what I used to get from a $9 internet broker. So lets say you have an account at, o i don't know, Scottsdale , I think they went to $7 dollars now. You and I are both by coincidence are looking to buy SPYG. If it is printing 10 1/8 BID 10 1/4 ASK and we both want to go long, with your broker you are going to pay 10 1/4 and I will see your buy print off the ask price. I may decide to join you and hit the ask too. However if there are still some sells coming thru, if there are still people puking up shares for 10 1/8 ...the bid price, then i may opt to offer to buy my SPYG on the bid... so if i get a fill i'll take my shares from a seller. So here we are at the beginning of our trade we both own one or two thousand shares of SPYG. If we both bought two thousand shares the world would see your 2000 go by on the ticker GREEN 10 1/4 2000 and my 10 1/8 2000 would be RED. We both are proud owners of SPYG but you saved on commission. You paid 10 1/4 times 2000 is 20,500 plus 7 is $20,507 for your SPYG. I went this way...10 1/8 times 2000 plus 18.95...20268.95. hmmm.. $238.05 difference and we are just getting started.... tim i am going to post most of this message in the thread as it may be helpful to another... I hope that is ok with you. funk great luck to you!