Portfolio of the Week

[Rob]

Week 41 (2), Day 4

It looks like Van McCoy has all but sewn this baby up! On the other hand, if you consider what happened to Ray the beer-drinking dart-thrower and Citizen Kane today, then you'll see how things can sometimes turn out quite differently than expected.

[skiracer]

Hey Ski-eraser....I mean Skiracer.......Ski....,

It's always something ain't it? The more chart the better in my book!
SssSssSss

Hey, by the way, what's the best Zinfandel you've had lately? Or are you strictly a cab sav-er?

Boy could you be more right! I'm with you. Jeez by the time you get done resizing them to make everyone happy you can't read them anymore.

My favorites are all the California reds. I have quite a number of Cabs put away. I kind of collect them but I love the Zinfandels, Merlos, pinot noirs, and a number of the blends from different wineries. I had a 2003 Ridge Zifandel a couple of weeks ago at a friends house. His wife made a beautiful roast beef with the ribs on it and sometimes a cab or merlot is to heavy for me with a greasier meat like around the edges of a roast like that. I live for the fat and gristle and marbly meat and a lighter red like a Zif is better with that type of meat for me. I also like to drink the cabs at room temp without any chill but with a Zif I'll put an ice cube in the glass to give it a little chill. There are a number of Australian and Chilean Zifandels that are really inexpensive and still great tasting which I will drink and have in my stash. What are some of your favorite names or vineyards?

[Rob]

What are some of your favorite names or vineyards?

Almaden. Not because I'm much of a wine drinker but because I lived there from '64 to '73. I do remember thinking the Glen Ellen wine tasted particularly good when I tried it.

[skiracer]

Almaden. Not because I'm much of a wine drinker but because I lived there from '64 to '73. I do remember thinking the Glen Ellen wine tasted particularly good when I tried it.

Nice part of the state Rob, but that vineyard is at best a lower grade commercial producer. I've drank the Glen Ellen label and it's what it is. Not for anything but if you were to start to acquire a taste for the better stuff and become more discriminating in what you drink as far as wine labels or vineyards then you would see the differences in the better or best vs the commercial grade stuff that you see everywhere.

[Rob]

It was a cool place to grow up. Like I said, when it comes to wine, I'm not going to be a great source of information. Anyway, Almaden doesn't look even remotely the way it did as I remember it. When we first moved there, there were vinyards, prune and citrus orchards everywhere. Now it's all strip malls and condos.

[eliaskane]

On the other hand, if you consider what happened to Ray the beer-drinking dart-thrower and Citizen Kane today, then you'll see how things can sometimes turn out quite differently than expected.

Yeah... Ouch!

[skiracer]

Rob,
sell MED and buy ACOR short please.

[IIC]

Rob,
sell MED and buy ACOR short please.

I thought you "sell" short????

[skiracer]

I thought you "sell" short????

You're absolutely right Doug. It is "sell" short. Please excuse my oversight and please let the play go as I intended. I meant sell short but then Rob knows exactly what I intended. I certainly didn't mean buy long. You, my friend, should be in editing literature.

[Rob]

ACOR does appear on today's Reg SHO Threshold Security List for NASDAQ securities, and it does not show up on the IB shortable securities list.

This shorting thing is a real bugaboo for this contest. I don't like it.

Shall we do away with it? If you say no, then please suggest a simple way to make a determination.

Here's part of the problem: I don't have time to run out and check the IB site every time someone decides they want to short a stock. This contest consumes too much of my time as it is.

So what's it gonna be?

[Rob]

Rob,
sell MED and buy ACOR short please.

MED sold at $10.15. Your position is now in ca$h, and you have one more trade this week if you like. If you want to short a stock, please check the IB shortable securities list first.

[Lyehopper]

Sell short.... Buy to cover....

I thought you "sell" short????

That's right DEF, you Sell first then buy to complete the trade.

Actually you borrow the shares and pay the brokerage interest and a fee to handle the transaction (Sell Short)....

Then when you "Cover" the short trade (buy to cover) by buying the shares on the open market thus paying the brokerage back at the current price and pocket (or pay) the difference....

Here's a copy of post #672 on my thread explaining the short trade in Redneck terms.... SsSsSsssss!

http://www.mrmarketishuge.com/showthread.php?t=1289&page=68

Hypothetically.... Let's say you wanted to short sell some cattle....

There are cattle producers who always have cattle in inventory regardless of the current live beef prices. Just as there are brokerage houses that own shares of many different securities (stocks) regardless of the current stock prices.

Now you (the cattle speculator) have a truck and a stock trailer. You own no farm land, not one acre!.... you own no cattle herd NOTHING! Just a truck and a trailer.

You call me because you know I always have cattle on my farm (regardless of current market prices) and you make me a proposal.

Proposal:

(1) To borrow ten (10) 500 pound black A-1 Angus steers from me for an undisclosed period of time.

(2) To pay me back with identical steers at some future date.

(3) You then propose to compensate me for the (amount of) time you've borrowed this cattle by paying me interest (at current rates) on the (current) value of the 5,000 (total) pounds of live cattle you are borrowing.

The Short Trade:

Now you load up the ten steers and you promptly truck them to the nearest livestock market and sell them on the open market at the current price of $1.50 per pound. You take the money and go home and drink a shot of "The GoJi" and hope that live cattle prices soon fall.

It's five weeks later and a news article hits the wire that Mad Cow Disease has been discovered on a dozen farms in the Mid West and Live Cattle prices plummet!....

You Drink a shot of "The GoJi" and hook up your stock trailer to your F-350 Ford and head out to the Livestock Market to buy back the ten 500 pound A-1 Angus Steers you own me. You buy them for $0.50 cents per pound! YEEEHAWWWW!!!!

Then you truck them out to Lyehopper Hollow Farm and unload them.... You then shake my hand, drink a shot of "The GoJi" with me, talk about the weather and leave with a smile on your face! AND you go back home with $5,000.00 profit in your wallet (minus the interest paid out)....

And then you stalk the next "deal"....jejeje

[skiracer]

MED sold at $10.15. Your position is now in Ca$h, and you have one more trade this week if you like. If you want to short a stock, please check the IB shortable securities list first.

No problemo.

[Lyehopper]

ACOR does appear on today's Reg SHO Threshold Security List for NASDAQ securities, and it does not show up on the IB shortable securities list.

This shorting thing is a real bugaboo for this contest. I don't like it.

Shall we do away with it? If you say no, then please suggest a simple way to make a determination.

Here's part of the problem: I don't have time to run out and check the IB site every time someone decides they want to short a stock. This contest consumes too much of my time as it is.

So what's it gonna be?

I say we keep the provision to short a stock .... We just need to check out trades with IB first. That's not so hard to do. Plus the link to IB is in the POTW rules at the bottom of all Rob's posts.... So it's not too difficult to check first.

OK FELLAS! if you want to short check the SHO list on IB FIRST!

PS.... X, STLD and AKS are not on the SHO list, so feel free to short them in real life!

[spikefader]

POTW has always been a game. Sure...many of us actually trade competition picks "for real", adding icing to the cake for the good weeks......but at the end of the day it's a game, with no requirement to prove you actually traded it in order to get a place in the top 3 or good stats. Should we really care so much about the reality of whether an issue is actually shortable or not? Besides the time factor of checking IB, it's probably not even a good way to do it, for another broker might easily have or "find" shares to short when IB won't or can't. So whether others can actually short someone's else's pick or not, or whether the picker actually traded it or not, isn't the determining factor of success in this competition. It's the % figure from entry and how clever you are at picking direction. This competition is a pure simulation......with no focus on slippage or liquidity factors, no focus on real stops, no focus on sensible and logical limit orders most of us would surely use if we had the option. The true reality of what we're doing is beside the point, so why make an issue with shorting in reality? Shorting is fun, as I recently heard someone say. Let's keep the fun in this competition and not get too carried away with reality.