Well, I'm Canadian, but all governments are the same. <GG> Whether it's your RRSP here or a 401K south of the 49th, you can only go long. Of course there are many other restrictions, but they rig the game against you and do it in ways that most don't understand, including the civil servants of the governments and employees of financial institutions.
One of my brothers was a broker for twenty years until the late eighties. He was hired by Ross Perot and worked for Bache Canada. Took the SEC courses and their inhouse courses. During his time he sold whatever products they were pushing and the LTBH strategy. Like many he jumped from house to house for promotions, more money etc. but he left after the crash in 87. Said he just couldn't sleep knowing how much money his clients were losing and how fast they were losing it. Like many his clients had become friends. A couple of years ago I asked him what the fastest way to make money in the market was, as he still plays a little, but isn't getting anywhere really and probably losing money like most. He said to find a new company that was cheap and ride it up. My answer would be to short an overvalued stock in a falling market and triangulate it down.
You've got to understand the theory of the BIG LIE. If it's big enough people will believe it. Life insurance is really death insurance isn't it. You buy it but never benefit from it yourself. All the salesmen believe in their product or they wouldn't be able to sell it. They are no different than brokers who are just sales reps for their firms. Many of their best clients are civil servants of course. I have a neighbour who puts money into his investment account with his representative every month and of course it keeps going up in value, but lately not as much as he puts in. He's bought the lie that he is saving and investing.
As you're here on IHub and reading SI, you're one of a very small minority. If you're one of the people shorting, you're a small minority of those people. The numbers of posters on SI has dwindled drastically in the last 2 years and why has that happened? They rode the wave of the tech bubble on the news and rumours and thought they were traders. They just bought into a different lie. Mostly I think, they didn't understand the dark side and they didn't have the discipline needed to stay in the market. If you averaged down in 98 or 99, so what, the next couple of days you would be back in the money. Who needs stops and how many lower their stops?
I don't know what rules you are aware of so I can't answer your question about the ones you don't know! There are very few rules, the uptick or even tick as well here in Canada is the main rule. You must have a short account separate and like your margin account sign an agreement that they can borrow shares you have long to loan to those of their clients or the clients of other brokers to those clients who do short those shares. It's not the rules that count, but the understanding. What books have you read about investing, and who recommended them to you? Do you understand the rule of seven otherwise sometimes called the six functions of a dollar?
As for myself, it's been a year since I shorted, CLS, late August 01 and again early last year. Couple of dabbles at BNS as they are Canada's only bullion bank, but that's like fighting the FED. Unless you increase your risk by triangulating your short, or covering every once in a while and reshorting a greater number of shares the most you can make is 100%. In other words and without using a calculator, say you caught the top of NT and shorted at 120 and rode it down to 12 you would have gained 90%. Your capital at risk would have been a lot but if you had shorted it at 12 and rode it to 1.20 you still would have gained 90%.
And then there's the goldbugs. Oftentimes when it is best to short such things as CLS or NT, goldbugs will buy stuff like NSU which I did at .39 in June 01 and sold yesterday at 3.55. You do the math.
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