So getting out of a 2500 share position when you are only getting a fraction of the "real time" volume is a monster. I've been selling 500 lots every 4-5 hours the past 3 trading sessions - just impossible to work with such a low volume mechanically in Investopedia.com. Nor is it something (at that volume) I could do in a mutual fund.
I shorted in the $14.80 area [Feb 2: Bookeeping - Shorting Gmarket] with a 3.1% stake and have been covering $15.10 to $15.40 in bits and pieces. I had written my stop loss area was $15.35 but with the low volume my limit order to get rid of the entire position was not filling. So I'm down to my last 500 shares which I hope to get rid of by the end of the day. Intraday the stock has held its 50 day exponential moving average of $15 each of the past 4 days so the strength is pretty solid (that said, with no real volume who can really tell?) and my original thesis of a quick reversal has not played out, so we'll take our 4% hit and exit stage right (albeit slowly)
EDIT 2:45 PM - last of position closed
*****Thus far I have been messing with stocks that are actually quite strong (gapping up on good news) to short. The reason is the ideas I want to focus on for fundamental reasons have been in constant free fall and I prefer shorting those names when they rebound rather in the middle of a tailspin; since I fear a reversal (the most beaten down stocks have a nasty habit of a +30% day when you least expect it). So it's been a less than premium strategy on the short side although this is only the 2nd loser trade (the other being Goldman when the bad bank news came out)
I'm flattish on the 3 remaining major short positions - trading around them a bit but I was hoping some of these casinos, retailers, financials, or other consumer discretionary stocks would pop. I missed a chance at some individual REITs last week - I went with the index instead which worked out very well but the individual names in my watch list have fallen twice as much. On the next rally I am going to try to focus on 1-2 office REITs, and 1-2 mall REITs and exchange it for the general REIT index short. The list of candidates is immense so we'll see when we get there. (if they bounce)
Anyhow, in a blink of an eye we jumped from the "magnet" point of the past 3 weeks (S&P 820) to near the top end of our range. We have lemming risk tomorrow (oh my gosh we only lost 550K jobs instead of 625K jobs! celebrate! Buy stocks!) and then government risk hot and heavy next week. Just reading some comments online by some people who "trend trade" like me over longer periods of time - there is major frustration out there since the time frames are so short and reversals happen in hours or at most a few days. The 3-7 week time frame to hold anything seems an antique. Stylistically, this has not been "my type" of market for many many months - so just treading water until holding something for 2-3 months is not looked on as a sin.
By the way one of my outlier predictions for 2009 was a weekly jobless claim number of 725,000. We hit 626K today.... which is a record. My number is looking very plausible by this spring. But nevermind that - the government will save us with accounting rule changes. Problem solved. Buy buy buy.
Short Gmarket for a few more hours more in fund; no personal position
