The Short Thread. Shorts, Share Your Positions!

[XMFALieberman]

Our stocks took a nice tumble over the last week or so. There was a lot of action on these boards lately with some great discussions.

A lot of talk about how to take advantage of this natural and healthy drop in the market; which positions to add to and why.

We also had some of the dooms-day predictors pop their heads in (as they tend to do if prices drop at all) and predict the end of the world for some of our great businesses.

This is a thread to encourage healthy discussion on which stocks people are shorting and why. Also, please post your returns YTD (and longer if you wish). It’s important to establish credibility and accountability for our predictions.

Many of the regulars here have posted results regularly for years. It’s easy to go back and see how Saul and others have performed monthly over the past few years…as the market flows higher and lower.

Shorts and dooms-day predictors, here’s a great place to do the same.

I’m serious, if you want to add value and actually engage in meaningful discussions, please do so on a regular basis. Not just when the market drops a bit.

Here’s what I did during this market drop (maybe there’s more dropping to come).

Tax loss harvesting: sold a few recently opened positions that were in the red to lower my short term capital gains taxes and IMMEDIATELY re-invested into other companies I already owned (and a couple new try on positions) that were also down.

I can’t say which companies yet due to the two day TMF compliance rules before/after trades.

My portfolio went from up ~96% YTD to up ~50% YTD. That hurt to watch, but if I was trying to time the market I know I would have sold when I was up 20% or so YTD and have no idea when I would ever get back in.

I have about…3% in idle cash because I’m waiting to buy more shares of another stock I want to add to (compliance again).

Shorts and dooms-dayers… what are your YTD results?

[AdrumlinDDaisy]

I am not sure if you are serious (the tone of the post was sort of unusual), and also not sure if this is an acceptable topic under the rules of the board. But I am a cautious investor, fearful that values are too high, and I have hedged and shorted some positions this year. I also have benefitted from this board, buying AYX, MDB, TWLO, SQ and NTNX based on the high-quality posts on those companies on this board. So I will take a chance and respond on the theory that you did want the input you requested.

My portfolio for most of the year was about 15% the above stocks and Australian stocks recommended by Joe Magyer (similar in nature to this board’s stocks), 15% MLPs such as EPD and MMP, 15% more conservative recs by MF Canada (Iain Butler) such as PAC, MELI, BAM and BIP, 35% cash, and the 20% balance in puts on UDOW and SPXL (general market hedges).

The results YTD are roughly as follows:

Saul-type stocks: up about 40%

MLPs: a bit better than even, but also with dividend yield of about 5% YTD

Conservative MF Canada recs: up about 12%

Hedges: down about 52% (unfortunately, like an idiot, I closed my put positions before the recent slump, which would have helped make this figure somewhat better)

Cash: basically unchanged, just interest payments.

I used the recent slump to buy MDP, SQ, SQ LEAPs calls, NTNX and some more EPD (an MLP). I also shorted SPY directly today (I will never learn).

My only specific short of the year was of TSLA when I began to see signs of aberrant behavior from Musk, and that actually worked out well. But it was not enough to alter the above results materially.

Putting it all together, I am a bit better than even on the year, but not much at all. Obviously, I wish I had done what the board regulars did.

My circumstances are a bit different than for most on this board, but I will not get into that because it is not what you asked.

If you were just making a point, please feel free to delete this post.

[XMFALieberman]

Broke,

That was exactly the type of meaningful response I was hoping for.

It was a serious request. I think it’s important to not have group think i.e. all of us clamoring about how great all these stocks are all the time, but at the same time, most of the negative posters only pop their heads in for a quick comment when stocks are down a bit.

This is a thread for them to 1. Share their results to build credibility and 2. Share their thesis for why they are negative or short the stocks they are.

If it’s too OT and people want it deleted, I’ll report the thread myself.