Sell Short

A Simpler, Safer Way to Profit When Stocks Go Down

Michael Shulman

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780470412336
• eBook ISBN: 9780470480212
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Investments & Securities
• Index: Business

Come over to the short side.

Ever since Dutch trader Isaac Le Maire invented short selling in 1609 (and evoked the first ban on it), short selling has been seen as the dark side of stock trading—slightly suspect and too intricate for individual investors. Today, short selling is an integral part of all markets and new tools can make it as simple as buying stocks.

As Michael Shulman explains in this book, a short seller is a profit-seeking contrarian who sees opportunities others do not as a stock or market segment moves down. In Sell Short, Shulman turns the mystery of short selling inside out, revealing how using the same fundamental approach underlying the purchase of a stock can lead to tremendous opportunities on the short side.

Shulman does not believe traditional short selling is a good trading approach for individuals and this simple, but comprehensive overview of short selling focuses on buying puts or, in some situations, exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Throughout these pages, Shulman reveals the day-to-day details needed to generate short side profits. He describes how short selling works and how individual investors can best identify compelling opportunities before Wall Street finds them. Shulman also helps you to determine what part of your portfolio will fund short selling, what percentage of your capital should go to the short side, and how big each position should be.

Filled with in-depth insights and straightforward advice, Sell Short walks you through the mechanics of opening, managing, and closing a position, including rolling or pressing a position to increase profits. (Shulman does cover traditional shorting, though, in case you'd like to take that route.)

Step by step, this book prepares you to:

• Prospect for gold in fading stocks
• See opportunities that Wall Street misses
• Create, manage, and exit a position
• Short stocks, markets, and indices as well as specific sub-segments of the market, real estate (through REITs), commodities, and even countries
• Create the "rocket-fueled trade"—the higher-risk purchase of calls on double inverse ETFs
• Explore a dvanced trading techniques such as selling calls, hedging, bear call spreads, selling puts on short ETFs, and more

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Introduction
• CHAPTER 1 - The Schadenfreude Component of Your Portfolio
• CHAPTER 2 - How Shorting Works
• CHAPTER 3 - The Case for Puts
• CHAPTER 4 - Prospecting for Gold in Fading Stocks
• CHAPTER 5 - Technical Indicators—You Gotta Love This Chart
• CHAPTER 6 - Creating a Position
• CHAPTER 7 - Going Short the Traditional Way or Borrower Beware
• CHAPTER 8 - Shorting a Market Segment
• CHAPTER 9 - Creating the Great Segment Trade
• CHAPTER 10 - Shorting the Indices—Only the Big Ones. Please.
• CHAPTER 11 - Managing a Position or Everyone Has a Plan Until They Get Punched ...
• CHAPTER 12 - Shorting Commodities and Real Estate
• CHAPTER 13 - Shorting a Country
• CHAPTER 14 - Shorting in a Bull Market
• CHAPTER 15 - Advanced Trading Techniques
• CHAPTER 16 - Case Studies—Ruby Tuesday, the Bear, and the Home Builders
• Glossary
• About the Author
• Index