Shorts

[Guest HarryLong]

It's a probablistic list. I will be right on some and wrong on others.

[DCG]

What has your total portfolio done? It's not that anyone is shunning your ideas, or that there's anything wrong with a long/short strategy. It's that in market rallys, you come on here an tout your longs, and In Market declines, you tout your shorts. Aren't you long companies like Netflix and Ebix? if you own enough stocks, you'll most likely have a combination of winners and losers.

[Guest HarryLong]

What has your total portfolio done? It's not that anyone is shunning your ideas, or that there's anything wrong with a long/short strategy. It's that in market rallys, you come on here an tout your longs, and In Market declines, you tout your shorts. Aren't you long companies like Netflix and Ebix? if you own enough stocks, you'll most likely have a combination of winners and losers.

 

If you go back through the netflix thread, the day I sold is super clear.....

[rranjan]

I think this long/short vs pure long debate is useless. It's true that if someone has long/short then they will have something to brag about all the time. Even though Harry did admit earlier about being wrong on some shorts after fellow members prompted him.

 

In my opinion, only thing matters is long term returns without the risk of permanent loss of capital. Going with this I don't feel confortable with shorts because downside is unlimited but that's just me. Yah, you can do position sizing or something else to minimize the downside but I don't feel comfortable with it.

 

It's hard enough to find solid longs but once you find, you don't need to worry about fluctuations as long as they were bought as good discount. It almost ensures that you will make money over the years. I personally don't care what happens in one year or two year but I do want to make money with good enough returns over the years without taking a risk of total wipe out. Going long with discount works for me.

 

Everyone needs to pick their spot based on their comfort level and aim. All spots will have some pain( ?? lack of better words) time to time and it depends on which pain you feel comfortable with.

 

 

I know I am not saying anything new here. Good luck Harry with your long/short postions.

[Guest HarryLong]

I think that the problems we're running into as a society is that methods that worked in a 50 year bull market (being largely long) may not necessarily work in less auspicious environments.

 

From what I've read, it's pretty clear that Buffett has shorted before. I am not sure where this notion comes from that he's never shorted before.

[Parsad]

From what I've read, it's pretty clear that Buffett has shorted before. I am not sure where this notion comes from that he's never shorted before.

 

I don't believe anyone said that Buffett has never shorted.  Just that he doesn't recommend it to anyone, as liabilities are unlimited, while the upside is limited. 

 

We don't short, but we had Spyder puts and we had puts on CRM before the market drop.  But we will make a heck of alot more on the long-side we bought after the drop, and not from those puts before the drop.  Cheers! 

[rranjan]

I think that the problems we're running into as a society is that methods that worked in a 50 year bull market (being largely long) may not necessarily work in less auspicious environments.

 

From what I've read, it's pretty clear that Buffett has shorted before. I am not sure where this notion comes from that he's never shorted before.

 

My statement had nothing to do with Buffet rather just what I feel comfortable with. Last 10 years has not been bull market exactly but buying at discount has worked just fine for me.

 

You are right that in some market long/short will work better but in shorts timing comes into the picture in very big way and I am not good at predicting the time frame. I want to keep things simple. I do admit that few people can produce higher returns over some period with long/short portfolio but I feel that will be last in that performance queue. Clearly the prospect of coming last the the queue does not feel very apealing to me so I chose to skip the queue.

 

It's not to discourage you because you might do very well with your long/short. I was talking about myself.