Short selling includes the word “short” for a reason……you’ve gotta be quick! Stocks tend to fall faster than they often climb, for a few reasons. One reason stocks fall quickly is that high
trading volume is not always required (in the form of a large seller) to push them lower – bidders can simply step out of the way and cancel their orders. Another reason is that owners of the stock can be prone to panic selling or
capitulation once things begin to turn ugly.
In
uptrending markets,
shorting stocks gets tricky. One approach to shorting in a strong market is to look for rising support in the form of
trend lines. Shorting in situations like this is best done in a day trading situation to catch a quick move down rather than fighting the market trend.
Wednesday night in my
stock newsletter, I highlighted SNDK as a weakened stock which looked to be completing a minor bounce. This created a potential
short sell situation to be played as a day trade in spite of the climbing NASDAQ. Additionally, SNDK has been prone to gapping a number of times lately, preventing it from being an ideal
swing trading stock. A small
rising trend line provided the trade entry, which was a downside break of $50.65.
Today as the stock broke the support area at $50.65, SNDK headed south in a hurry, falling more than $2.00 in just an hour. This made for a very nice day trade, which lasted only a short time (pardon the pun).
When you
short sell in a market that isn’t
downtrending, be quick and take profits when you have them. Then get back to your shopping list and find some long exposure!
Jeff White
President, TheStockBandit, Inc.
http://www.thestockbandit.com/
