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Strategies & Market Trends : The Art of Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jttmab who wrote (87)	9/10/1998 3:17:00 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Respond to of 10655

Yup, I've noticed that day trading pattern also. It is amazing just how much one can learn by staring at the tape all day. My problem is that I can't trust my broker to execute the order well. I've seen my gains evaporate or worse turn to losses due to poor execution. I shorted RATL and out of the $20,000 trade I made less than $8,000 because of the execution. This kind of trade can also be very stressful. Exactly 2 years, 5 months, and 9 days ago (you can tell I learned a lesson that I'll never forget) I lost $110,000 in matter of 4 days in 3 short trades (I was using options). My only consolation (and not a big one at that) was that I had made $135,000 in trades during that month. Mike, Jim's story (and mine) demonstrates why it is so much harder to be a short than a long. It also demonstrates why I said that some shorts will go bust on just two trades, especialy if they've only been jumping on the band wagon. I've found my best shorts have been low tech companies with little intrinsic value. SOC was my best short ever. I made almost 30 points in it. Because it was run by Dunlap, I was careful to short it after it's back was broken. So I missed the first 18 points off the top. I did not mind, because I new there was a lot more down side left. Of course I got lucky and they ran into accounting problems, but even without the accounting problems, I saw it likely that they'd go bankrupt. I still think bankruptcy is a real possibility for SOC. So it is still a good short (you just have to let it breath a bit). BTW I don't trade any thing that is not optionable and I don't go long any thing that cannot be shorted. Options and short positions are sources of information and I want to have access to as much info as I can. Best of Luck ST P.S Daniel, do let me know how I can carry some yen. Real or synthetic I don't care. I'm willing to take the currency and interest rate risk in exchange for the interest pay off. P.P.S Mike the charts that I suggested you watch should be plotted for the past 3 years.