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Strategies & Market Trends : Roger's 1998 Short Picks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RockyBalboa who wrote (12670)	8/12/1998 5:25:00 PM
From: Roger A. Babb	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 18691

Christian, it is hard to define an equation for short profits due to the margin nature of the trades. Also my portfolio tends to be a mixture of longs and shorts in hedge fund style, by definition such a diversified portfolio rarely makes large gains or losses. Thirty percent in a volatile year and 15% long term average is all that should be expected from a "safe" portfolio. Yes you would have done better by using your entire portfolio to short ZITL last year or go long AMZN. But it would have been a great risk and your big gain would have been mostly luck, and you would probably lose it all on your next big bet. This is another one of those situations where the tortoise beats the hare in a long race. Diversify, hedge, keep plenty of margin, and be happy with smaller but safer gains.