The Perils of Shorting: A Real Life Example

it's not what I was referring to with Colm or Brendan , they aren't out to scalp the market and pick up a few pips here and there they are taking a decision over a longer time span.
I agree. Short-term trading is something I know nothing about. A personal opinion is that it should be almost impossible to make money from this activity, especially when you allow for bid-offer spread. What USP does a private individual have playing this game? I have similar thoughts on @SlurrySlump 's suggested strategy.
every short you take or Brendan is a coin flip
Obviously I disagree. As I said in an earlier reply, you're right 99% of the time, but there are rare occasions when it's possible to say that the market is blatantly wrong.
I went back over past diary entries (all of which can be found somewhere on AAM, or more conveniently on my website www.colmfagan.ie) to check how many times I opined that the market was blatantly wrong on a stock.
The ones I found were as follows:
On 4/10/2015 I wrote that I thought Renishaw was substantially undervalued at £20. It rose to over £50 last year. Its current share price is £38.
On 6/12/2015 I wrote that I thought Apple was substantially undervalued at $117. Its current price is $266.
On 7/1/2019 I wrote that Phoenix Group Holdings was "particularly undervalued" at £5.71. Its current price is £7.19 (and its main attraction was the dividend of over 7%, which has to be added to the above return).
On 17/11/2019 I wrote that Tesla was grossly overvalued at $350. Of course, I could be wrong, as I have been many times in the past, but I don't recall ever being proved wrong when I held a view as strongly as I do now.
I am glad that I didn't, as I would have been burnt badly as crazy valuations became even crazier.
Brendan, I hope that, like me, you would have been able to ride out the craziness and have come out intact the other side. The people who can't ride out the craziness are professional fund managers who have to keep their investors and boards of directors happy. We don't have those constraints.
 
My observation about shorts is that the price can move more than 100% in the upward direction. It can move 1000% or 10000% or more. It can only go down 100% max.
If you get your money management wrong or your stop loss doesn't work it mightn't be pretty.
 

I think thats it, you are the victim of "ethical investing" and the misallocation of capital. There seems to be an awful lot of money now largely owned by younger investors that only want to invest in stuff like this regardless of the financials. The corollary of this is that the oil companies have very strong financials and are making good money yet are being ignored by investors even by sovereign wealth funds including ireland's. That means that they are allocating capital to companies that don't deserve it financially but get it because of "ethics".
 
Hi Richie

Initially, I was put off by the talk of unlimited losses.

I was also put off by all the warnings of the dangers of leveraging.

But it's very easy to manage.

Let's say I want to sell Bitcoin today at $8,000

I can sell one coin, set the stop at $12,000. I am risking $4,000 to make $8,000

If I want to increase my risk/reward but still limit my losses to $4,000, I can sell two bitcoins and set the stop at $10,000. So I am risking $4,000 to make $16,000. But there is a very good chance I will go bust.

If I want to reduce my risk , I could sell half a coin for $4,000 and set the stop at $16,000. So now I am risking $4,000 to make $4,000

I would only use it for a long term short and I would not bet on short term movements. I did on AIB and learned my lesson.

Brendan
 
As usual, some very good comments and questions - which is why I enjoy posting on AAM, despite the occasional abuse
I'm surprised and disappointed, though, that there wasn't even a single question or challenge on any of the six paragraphs of what I thought was readily accessible analysis of Tesla's finances and strategy. It's a sign of the times. In ways, I should be happy, as it creates the occasional opportunity for profit for someone like me.
 

It reminds me of people who buy houses to do up and then sell on , they make a few changes and pat themselves on the back when they walk away with a profit , not realising that if they had of done nothing at all they would have made the same profit.

Seen as you quoting 2015 for Reinshaw and Apple if you had of bought the S&P 500 it was at 1950 at Start of October 2015 now its 3122
On 7/1/2019 the day you bought Pheonix group or wrote about them the S&P 500 was 2596 now 3122
I invest every few months and my portfolio makes me look like a genius but I am just benefiting from a bull market which I think you have also , except I feel you become overly attached to positions and convince yourself you know better .
I don't mean to sound harsh , I admire you for putting stuff up in paper. but how many companies could you have put out there instead of Apple , Renishaw or Pheonix on them dates and had the same results ? The odds where very largely stacked in your favour it would of been harder to put up a loser as your seeing now with Tesla.
 
What is your exposure as a percentage of your portfolio?
Brendan, sorry for not getting back to you on this earlier. As you know, I have a concentrated portfolio, for both long and short positions. At end June, gross (negative) Tesla exposure was under 3% of my total long portfolio. Now the percentage is above 8%, partly due to the price rise, partly to my decision to add to the short position as the price rose. I'm still quite comfortable about my exposure. It's outside the top five in absolute terms.
 
That would be too high for me. But each to their own.

You will probably be proven correct eventually. I hope you will still be wait that long.

Brendan
 
if you had of bought the S&P 500 it was at 1950 at Start of October 2015 now its 3122

That is a really good point for all stock pickers to think about.

It's not enough to say - My portfolio is up 20%. There should be some benchmark.

And it needs to be a lot longer than 2015 especially with a concentrated portfolio. There are times when my portfolio (which was picked at random) would have made me look like a genius and other times when it would have made me look like a fool. If I had written about it, I presumably would have been more inclined to write on the good days.

Brendan
 
I'm surprised and disappointed, though, that there wasn't even a single question or challenge on any of the six paragraphs of what I thought was readily accessible analysis of Tesla's finances and strategy.

@Colm Fagan that may be due to the apparent lack of any specifics in your first post to question or challenge though, for example what are your 2025 projections for total electric car sales, average sale price, Tesla market share %, net profit margin, etc. etc.
 
if you had of bought the S&P 500 it was at 1950 at Start of October 2015 now its 3122
On 7/1/2019 the day you bought Pheonix group or wrote about them the S&P 500 was 2596 now 3122
That is a really good point for all stock pickers to think about.
I agree with both of you at one level, but at another level, I use prices of individual stocks as guides to tell me, not only if their prices are too low/high, but also (in some cases) as proxies for whether the market as a whole is too low or too high. Thus, I can use them as wider 'buy' or 'sell' signals. Possibly, one can extrapolate from my Tesla valuation that not only Tesla, but the overall market, is a bit stretched.
In any event, I think that, if you take the respective stocks and compare them to their markets (i.e. UK market for UK stocks, US market for US stocks) and also factor in the dividends, my point is still valid. (I am too lazy to do the exact calculations).
 
In that case, how do you assess the success or otherwise of your stock picking strategy? Genuine question.
I accept it as a genuine question.
For someone my age, the biggest decision is how much to invest in shares versus how much to allocate to bonds/cash. That is far more important than the secondary question of which shares to invest in.
As you know, the standard advice for someone aged 70 or over is to invest less in stocks, more in bonds. That strategy delivers lower average returns but greater peace of mind. I have discovered that I am more prepared to invest a high proportion of my fund in shares if I know the companies in which my money is invested and if I have reasonable confidence on their future prospects (including earnings and dividends). I would not be able to take that leap of faith if I was investing in a fund where I had no knowledge of whether the shares in the fund were overvalued or undervalued at any time. It's likely that I would constantly worry that prices would fall through the floor. I don't have that fear when I know my money is in durable businesses that will continue to earn profits come what may.
The fruits of that strategy since I took out the ARF in December 2010 is an average yearly money-weighted rate of return, net of fees and allowing for withdrawals over the years, into double digits. That calculation is based on prices ruling at close of business on Friday last.
I don't know if the average return would have been marginally higher or lower if I had put the money in a low-cost fund that tracked the World Equity Index, but that's not the point. The point is that I would never have had the courage to put all my money in a pure equity fund where, if market values fell by 10% overnight, I wouldn't know how to react. I do know how to react if the value of one of companies in which I'm invested falls by that percentage - because I know the business; I know the company.
I don't know if I have explained myself well. The main points I want to get across are: (i) the real measure of success is total return on the fund (ii) that return should be higher if the money is invested in shares rather than bonds; the choice of shares is of secondary importance; (iii) fear of volatility of share values is the main reason why people choose not to invest a high proportion of their savings in shares, particularly as they get older; (iv) investing in companies whose businesses I'm familiar with and where I have reasonable confidence on future earnings and dividends helps me to overcome that fear. The fact that I get dividends in cash also helps, as it reduces the requirement to sell shares for 'pension income', possibly at an inopportune time; (v) I don't know whether the shares I've chosen are doing better or worse than the market. I think I am doing better, but even if I'm doing worse, I would have to do worse by more than the amount of the management fee before someone could claim that my strategy is flawed.
 
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I like your approach Colm but I would have a concern over the idea that you 'know the company'. Take Tesla for example. I agree with all your reasons to short the company but you have a risk that the company is one meaningful invention or development away from blowing your short out the water. No balance sheet or P&L is going to show you that. Of course you can look and say that the shrinking R&D budget makes this unlikely but it is still a risk that is very difficult to identify.

Even some of your long positions. History is full of perfectly liquid cash rich businesses paying dividends that have collapsed over night because the picture wasn't what it seemed.

I like your approach but it takes a brave man and to be honest, you have more capabilities than most including myself so I don't know if your strategy will ever win widespread approval but I have to say, I do tend to agree with you...
 
Hi Colm,

I really enjoy your contributions to this forum and you are very brave to document your approach so publicly and without the veil of anonymity.

Nonetheless, I think your approach is deeply flawed. You do not have the resources to research and understand these companies but even if you did your strategy is too concentrated. Good companies can go bad for peculiar reasons. A couple of these and your pot is badly hit.

I fully accept your “sod bonds” approach and I too will always invest solely in equities, but I believe that you would be far better served with a more diversified all-equity approach, either with 30+ equities or a selection of funds.

Also, citing good absolute performance over a period that coincides with the current bull market doesn’t really mean a whole lot. What about relative performance? My fear is that you’re going to blow-up your retirement pot.

My strong advice is to abandon your self-managed approach, give it all to an investment manager who you trust, agree a diversified global all-equity approach, and spend your time enjoying yourself.

Gordon
 
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@Colm Fagan

Many thanks for your detailed and considered response.

Like others, I think you are bearing way too much diversifiable risk with your "better the devil you know" strategy but I do appreciate that psychology is important in investing.
 
There are a few different aspects to this discussion, many of which are far removed from the initial article about my Tesla short.
I will deal with just two of those aspects now: my preference for direct investment instead of a pooled fund (taking as read that I'm not going near bonds - that's a completely different topic), and the concentrated nature of my portfolio. Sceptics include @Gordon Gekko, @Sarenco, @Fella, even The Boss!!
At its simplest, I do what I do because I enjoy having shares in individual companies rather than units in a pooled fund. I had an interest in stocks and shares since childhood, but it was completely theoretical until I set up my own company pension scheme in the mid-1990's having set up my own business a few years earlier. Setting up a company pension scheme was an ideal opportunity to indulge myself.
I have a concentrated portfolio because I don't want to spend much time analysing financial statements. I also like to feel that I know the businesses in which I'm invested. That would not be possible with a large number of companies without having to make too much of a time commitment. As regular diary readers know, I have just a few core stocks in my portfolio and they have remained remarkably consistent over the years.
I recognise that, in theory, I am running too much risk by having too many eggs in a small number of baskets but I believe that, over a long period, that risk reduces. I'm already at this for 23 years; I hope to have another 5 years at least before circumstances (physical or mental) force me to give it up. I think that's enough time for mistakes and coups to balance out.
As noted earlier, I find it easier to accept setbacks when I'm familiar with a business. It helps me psychologically by allowing me to keep a higher proportion of my investments in the market. It also helps me gain a better understanding of turning points in the market.
Finally, there are fees. I reckon that, even if I do worse than the market, the margin of under-performance will not be more than the cost of managing the investments. Even 0.5% a year mounts up over many years.
But make no mistake: if someone were to ask me what I would advise, I would tell them to put their money in a low-cost passive world equity fund, where they would get lots of diversification, etc.
As you can gather from the above, performance is not the absolute be all and end all, but I have done well.
The figures I quoted earlier for the ARF were money-weighted, not time-weighted. It would be difficult to compare them with published figures for unitised funds without going to a lot of effort.
From the start of 2014, I have kept detailed records of the performance of my total portfolio, which includes the ARF/AMRF, some non-exempt investments, a deposit account, and spread bet accounts (including my shorts). Those records are sufficiently detailed to allow me to calculate time-weighted as well as money-weighted returns, so I can compare the overall return with those available from published unit funds.
I looked at the website rubiconic.ie. The best performing active managed fund over the five years to end October delivered a return of 8.5% a year. The average return for seven funds from various companies was 7.4% a year. My overall portfolio performance averaged 8.7% a year over that same 5-year period. That is net of all charges, including the ARF/AMRF charges by the ARF administrator, all stamp duty, commission, withholding taxes, etc. It's also net of the bid-offer spreads when I'm buying or selling shares, and even bank charges on ARF withdrawals.
I think the results vindicate my approach. Of course, I may not do as well in future as I have done over the last five years. As I've said already, though, that's not the primary aim.
 
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But Colm, it’s too short a timeframe to infer anything.

I genuinely think that over a longer period you will do spectacularly worse than the market.

Would you not consider a halfway house? Say your pot is €2m; why not manage €500k of it yourself as you’re currently doing and stick the rest in an MSCI World ETF? That’d keep you engaged but also protect you in terms of diversification.
 
I genuinely think that over a longer period you will do spectacularly worse than the market.
Do you know something about my state of senility that my nearest and dearest are afraid to tell me? I presume you know the theory that, if I just sit on my hands and do nothing (which is my default mode) then the expectation is that I will do exactly the same as the market. I would 'genuinely' love to know why you think I will do 'spectacularly worse than the market'.