Taking it in the shorts

[8BR]

I think the level of short selling is being underreported as part of the bear market. It used to take missing numbers unexpectedly to knock the likes of Citi down by 10-15% in a single day. But 23% in one day - on no new real news??? Clearly they're being shorted.

Of course, investors/hedge funds need shorting for hedging purposes, but I wonder if the SEC is still stoked about killing the uptick rule.

All that money that was dumped out of the commodities markets had to go somewhere. And it looks like big money is shorting the financials...maybe trying to make their year-end numbers not look so bad.

"The financial industry is under assault," said Tom Sowanick, chief investment officer for Clearbrook Financial LLC in Princeton, New Jersey. "It looks like the short-sellers are squeezing the hell out of Citi shares.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNe...rpc=22&sp=true

[RobinFinderson]

I bought $10,000 of stock XXXX at 19.95, and sold it at 22.20. That is an 11.28 percent gain in a little less than four hours. Not bad for a day of 'work.'

The keys to the Finderson investment strategy:

1. Buy low, sell high.
2. Invest in stocks that you think have long-term growth potential, in case you didn't buy as low as you thought.
3. If there are any short-term significant precipitous gains, SELL FAST.
4. In this kind of market, keep most of your cash on the sidelines.
5. Don't gamble like this on stocks that you haven't been watching for some time. Certain stocks attract certain kinds of investors. The mindset of your average individual Google stock holder is going to be different than that of your average Citi holder.
6. Don't gamble more than you can lose (this is all Roth IRA money for me, so if I get stuck with something low, as long as it doesn't go belly up, I should be fine in the long term.)
7. Stay away from the short sell. Any transaction that has no limit as to how much you could lose is by definition too risky.

So there it is, my current gambling 'wisdom/foolishness' for all to see. I'll be eating my words in a few months, but for now, this death spiral has been very good to me. Surfing volatility for fun and profit.