Bookkeeping: Short Actions Reversed

Submitted By Trader Mark
As I said in the previous piece these news driven moves really make your technical analysis moot.

I had put in a short position in Macerich (com/quote/MAC">MAC) yesterday, writing

This finally triggered one of our short limit order at $16.40, so we now have a 3% stake in this mall based commercial real estate name.

With this favorable entry price I can stop out if the stock breaks over resistance around $16.55 (the 50 day moving average). To account for volatility I will give it a little room and set my stop just over $17.00 which limits our losses to 3.5% maximum.

And we're out! $17.00 breached (currently $16.92, with a day high of $17.22) - 3% loss.

Further, I had short limit orders for Wynn Resorts (WYNN) and Las Vegas Sands (LVS) that hit this morning but their moves have been so explosive - I am going to take the losses immediately and get back out.

WYNN triggered this morning @ $35.06, current $35.60 (where I'm covering); high of the day $36.55 .. it has breached the 50 day moving average intraday; I want to see it stay BELOW that level on the close. Which it might if the market weakens later in the day but I am not taking liberties and I'm playing it close to the vest. We are not going to repeat April where I gave up 2 months worth of gains sitting in short positions that went against us. Losses will be small and quickly taken. Minimal damage here, -1.5%. I'm fine with that; we'll revisit when the bulls are not in a lather.

LVS not quite so nice of a story, thankfully we locked in our gains yesterday - but as we said we'd reshort around $7.50 ... it hit this morning at $7.53. Current price $8.07 (where I'm covering); high of the day $8.23. That hurt - a 7% loss. Which eliminates the gain we enjoyed from shorting it over the past week. That said, I am pleased we locked in our gains in LVS yesterday or we'd not only have given back a 7.5%ish gain but in the end lost money from the original short last Thursday. Instead we came out flat w/ the 2 transactions balancing each other out.

Why are the casinos running? As you know, as goes Intel, so goes Las Vegas... ahem.

But once again this shows why these premarket moves, either up or down can wreck havoc with any technical analysis based strategy. And why "investing" in this market has been so difficult the past 2 years - so CNBC breaking news, Washington DC bailout, Federal Reserve action, economic report instant knee jerk, earnings news reactionary. In our knee jerk "instant news" A.D.D. video game culture, perhaps this is just going to be the new normal.

p.s. late last week, we were threatening S&P 870, now in very short order we're up 6% and threatening to break out. How quickly this market changes its mind. So much for "the correction".

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