Which stocks to short?

[kewp]

Check out my portfolio @MarketGuru.com for ideas.

http://www.marketguru.com/V4Vendetta

I basically day-trade the leveraged short ETF’s (when I have the time). Most of my gains this year have been buying SKF (ultrashort financials) on the dips and flipping it.

There are also 3X leveraged short funds now:

http://finance.google.com/finance?q=BGZ

*But*, keep in mind the biggest rallies are in bear markets. I’m going to try staying in cash and shorting after the rallies run out of steam.

[capeman]

With the ^VIX at all time highs options are a scam right now. You would have to time your thesis near perfectly and the volatility in the market could kill you quickly. If you really want to short in this environment direct shorting would be a better idea.

[capeman]

With the ^VIX at all time highs options are a scam right now. You would have to time your thesis near perfectly and the volatility in the market could kill you quickly. If you really want to short in this environment direct shorting would be a better idea.

[capeman]

With the ^VIX at all time highs options are a scam right now. You would have to time your thesis near perfectly and the volatility in the market could kill you quickly. If you really want to short in this environment direct shorting would be a better idea.

[capeman]

With the ^VIX at all time highs options are a scam right now. You would have to time your thesis near perfectly and the volatility in the market could kill you quickly. If you really want to short in this environment direct shorting would be a better idea.

[capeman]

With the ^VIX at all time highs options are a scam right now. You would have to time your thesis near perfectly and the volatility in the market could kill you quickly. If you really want to short in this environment direct shorting would be a better idea.

[TheBreeze]

[quote=capeman]With the ^VIX at all time highs options are a scam right now. You would have to time your thesis near perfectly and the volatility in the market could kill you quickly. If you really want to short in this environment direct shorting would be a better idea.[/quote]

Yeah, buying options is not a good idea right now. Writing them would be a much better idea. Lots of amateurs on this board who don’t understand options.

[TheBreeze]

[quote=capeman]With the ^VIX at all time highs options are a scam right now. You would have to time your thesis near perfectly and the volatility in the market could kill you quickly. If you really want to short in this environment direct shorting would be a better idea.[/quote]

Yeah, buying options is not a good idea right now. Writing them would be a much better idea. Lots of amateurs on this board who don’t understand options.

[TheBreeze]

[quote=capeman]With the ^VIX at all time highs options are a scam right now. You would have to time your thesis near perfectly and the volatility in the market could kill you quickly. If you really want to short in this environment direct shorting would be a better idea.[/quote]

Yeah, buying options is not a good idea right now. Writing them would be a much better idea. Lots of amateurs on this board who don’t understand options.

[TheBreeze]

[quote=capeman]With the ^VIX at all time highs options are a scam right now. You would have to time your thesis near perfectly and the volatility in the market could kill you quickly. If you really want to short in this environment direct shorting would be a better idea.[/quote]

Yeah, buying options is not a good idea right now. Writing them would be a much better idea. Lots of amateurs on this board who don’t understand options.

[TheBreeze]

[quote=capeman]With the ^VIX at all time highs options are a scam right now. You would have to time your thesis near perfectly and the volatility in the market could kill you quickly. If you really want to short in this environment direct shorting would be a better idea.[/quote]

Yeah, buying options is not a good idea right now. Writing them would be a much better idea. Lots of amateurs on this board who don’t understand options.

[Chris Scoreboard Johnston]

I should have proofread what I typed before posting it but that is really semantics. They are both vehicles for trading the same thing so it is irrelevant. What you clearly are misinformed on is the practical side of this.

As a professional trader who routinely trades these vehicles side by side I could easily prove through hundreds of actual trades made the relative lack of liquidity and poor fills in the SPY vs the futures. The minimum tick value might be one thing but where the fills actually occur is quite another. I can easily move a 50 lot in the futures without moving the spread at all but no way could you ever trade an equivalent position in the Spiders with the same effect. There was a year where I traded the same trades exactly entered at the market with these two different vehicles at the same time, and there was an over 20% difference in the gain at the end of the year, case closed. Trust me from someone who has done this for 25 years, SPY’s are much less liquid than the futures, especially now in this environment.

Options are the most illiquid choice available, and also have the time value decay problem, but I suppose better than doing nothing at all.

[Chris Scoreboard Johnston]

I should have proofread what I typed before posting it but that is really semantics. They are both vehicles for trading the same thing so it is irrelevant. What you clearly are misinformed on is the practical side of this.

As a professional trader who routinely trades these vehicles side by side I could easily prove through hundreds of actual trades made the relative lack of liquidity and poor fills in the SPY vs the futures. The minimum tick value might be one thing but where the fills actually occur is quite another. I can easily move a 50 lot in the futures without moving the spread at all but no way could you ever trade an equivalent position in the Spiders with the same effect. There was a year where I traded the same trades exactly entered at the market with these two different vehicles at the same time, and there was an over 20% difference in the gain at the end of the year, case closed. Trust me from someone who has done this for 25 years, SPY’s are much less liquid than the futures, especially now in this environment.

Options are the most illiquid choice available, and also have the time value decay problem, but I suppose better than doing nothing at all.

[Chris Scoreboard Johnston]

I should have proofread what I typed before posting it but that is really semantics. They are both vehicles for trading the same thing so it is irrelevant. What you clearly are misinformed on is the practical side of this.

As a professional trader who routinely trades these vehicles side by side I could easily prove through hundreds of actual trades made the relative lack of liquidity and poor fills in the SPY vs the futures. The minimum tick value might be one thing but where the fills actually occur is quite another. I can easily move a 50 lot in the futures without moving the spread at all but no way could you ever trade an equivalent position in the Spiders with the same effect. There was a year where I traded the same trades exactly entered at the market with these two different vehicles at the same time, and there was an over 20% difference in the gain at the end of the year, case closed. Trust me from someone who has done this for 25 years, SPY’s are much less liquid than the futures, especially now in this environment.

Options are the most illiquid choice available, and also have the time value decay problem, but I suppose better than doing nothing at all.

[Chris Scoreboard Johnston]

I should have proofread what I typed before posting it but that is really semantics. They are both vehicles for trading the same thing so it is irrelevant. What you clearly are misinformed on is the practical side of this.

As a professional trader who routinely trades these vehicles side by side I could easily prove through hundreds of actual trades made the relative lack of liquidity and poor fills in the SPY vs the futures. The minimum tick value might be one thing but where the fills actually occur is quite another. I can easily move a 50 lot in the futures without moving the spread at all but no way could you ever trade an equivalent position in the Spiders with the same effect. There was a year where I traded the same trades exactly entered at the market with these two different vehicles at the same time, and there was an over 20% difference in the gain at the end of the year, case closed. Trust me from someone who has done this for 25 years, SPY’s are much less liquid than the futures, especially now in this environment.

Options are the most illiquid choice available, and also have the time value decay problem, but I suppose better than doing nothing at all.

[Author]

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