Buying or Shorting a Stock?

ohioboy2 said: "I was wondering if any of you had any good experiences with shorting stocks?"

AlfredSokol said: "I had a lot of success shorting Adelphia and Qwest a few years back."

thezster said: "Being able to short stocks is one reason I'm able to say :Every day is an opportunity - somewhere! I buy and sell short on a regular basis, but more of a speculative nature than an investment nature."

thezster said: "While I pretty much stay with "speculating" short term.... I continue to contemplate a long term short of Blockbuster. Down around 30% over the past 12 months the last time I checked. Gotta wonder what the future for video rentals holds. While online rentals has taken a chunk of the market share, accounting in part for BB's poor performance.... with ongoing technological advances..... how long is it before you can simply download the video onto a disk/cartridge/storage device for pennies vs. driving to the store, renting for $3 - $4, and returning within 5 - 7 days. How BB takes advantage of upcoming tech advances remains to be seen....... and with their poor showing in the online rental biz.... I don't think the future bodes well for them as a company....."

HappyHarry said: "It's hard to argue about how bad BlockBuster's prospects are. To have a whole chain devoted to "video rentals" or second-hand video sales is very suspect, to say the least."

thezster said: "As someone who appears to enjoy digging into the technicals ... How about your take on the chicken business. IMO, it's not a question of "if", but a question of "when" the new bird flu finds it's way into our U.S. flocks - causing a massive consumer flight from chicken. Opportunity for a long term short??? Tyson, Pilgrims Pride, and Colonol Sanders are gonna be hurting......"

HappyHarry said: "It's a logical line of reasoning. One case of bird flue gets reported in the U.S and sales will plummet."

trickynick said: "[QUOTE=HappyHarry]It's a logical line of reasoning. One case of bird flue gets reported in the U.S and sales will plummet.[/QUOTE] That's probably true. The public does not yet and probably will not for quite some time understand that there is no way to catch avian flu from eating cooked bird meat."

trickynick said: "BTW, about shorting stocks...yeah, you can make money...but look out. You give up a risk premium, a dividend and you pay an interest rate when you short. And your loss can theoretically be infinite as there is no upward limit on the price of a stock. Even if a stock is sure to fall, it may in the end not be worth having shorted it if you mistime your position. It is widely thought that more money has been lost shorting stocks than by any other technique possible in the capital markets. Many people lost a lot during the 90's shorting stocks in an attempt to predict a reoccurance of the 1987 crash. By the time the market finally did fall it was 2000 and by then the shorts were too shell shocked and broke to get back in and profit from it."

thezster said: "Poultry stocks will plummet as supply crashes when entire flocks are eradicated once an infected bird is found."