Customer Reviews

How to Make Money Selling Stocks Short (Wiley Trading)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I am a big fan of O'Neil, subscribing to Investors Business Daily as well as the DailyCharts website. I had hoped to get some valuable insights into short selling but I did not. This book did not cost much, but it was not worth the time or the money.

O'Neil credits his co-author "Gil Morales... undertook the tremendous task of rewriting... this work... originally published... in pamphlet form...". This book is still a pamphlet, with about 150 pages of charts out of the 192 pages. The meat of the subject boils down to the "short selling checklist", which doesn't even fill 2 pages. In essence, short only in a confirmed bear market, shorting former leaders months after they peak.

Your time and money would be much better spent buying a good book on technical analysis (John Murphy's books are required reading and he educates you on many indicators to look for when shorting stocks). At least you'd learn that what this book calls "overhead supply" is called resistance (and you'd learn not only to sell resistance but you'd also learn to buy support... but only in a confirmed bull market, and only months after the stock bottoms).

Miles Hoffman, CFA
Atlanta

William O'Neil is perhaps the one individual responsible for my development as a trader and investor. I consider How to Make Money in Stocks to be one of the most valuable books on stock trading. I cannot say the same for this one. In fact, I found it to be a complete waste of both my time and money. There was not a single new or insightful bit of information in the text. If I could give it 0 stars I would.

William O'Neil, publisher of Investor's Business Daily, as well as the author of a handful of highly readable, and very useful investing books, has updated his 1976 original treatise on short selling with the assistance of Gil Morales, Chief Market Strategist for his firm. The book briefly covers the mechanics and rationale for short selling. Selling short is the opposite of buying long. However, many investors are afraid to short because they either think it is un-American or dangerous. Neither premise is correct. If you know what you are doing, have a game plan, have stop-loss rules and monitor the markets daily, the opportunity to make money is there. And the May through October timeframe in 2006 may turn out to be terrific shorting opportunity.

The first part (27 pages) of this 194-page three-part paperback covers how and when to sell short. Using colorful charts with detailed explanations of the key price and technical market conditions, the authors illustrate the proper timing of the short sale.

Part II entitled "The Anatomy of the Short Sale," details the mechanics of a short sale in seven pages. Two page-size charts illustrate the four phases of a short sale and the logic used to known when to pull the trigger.

Part III is composed of 155 pages of annotated chart examples of different stocks pointing out the stock's trading characteristics and exact sell point. The chapter includes detailed write-ups of nine stocks and their charts, and hundreds of single page charts with annotations

Some of the key points made in the book include:

1. Very few investors know how and when to sell short correctly.
2. Use daily and weekly charts of a stock's volume and price.
3. Use 20 and 50-day moving averages of price and the piercing of these averages by the price.
4. Best short sales are the biggest winners in the prior bull market
5. Determination and persistence are required characteristics of a successful short seller

Overall, this book provides a very basic introductory discussion of short selling which is not totally inclusive of all the information needed to make the sale. Comparing this book to his other books, O'Neil does not provide the same degree of detail or insight. He could have put more emphasis on providing more indepth discussions on the psychology and practice of short selling, as well as show how to use options instead of stocks. An investor considering short selling should become familiar with the market's internal statistics, sentiment indicators, and technical analysis (e.g., MACD, stochastics, RSI, etc.) before even considering a short sale. Since 50-70% of a stock's move is dependent on the market's trend that should be the first item to be determined.

Bill O'Neal has done a great deal in this brief book (It was originally a pamplet)esplaining the correct time ot sell stocks short. Contrary to popular opinion you should not attempt to sell short at a stocks 52 week high. You first wait for the initial pull back and for the stock to fail on 3 attempted rallies, you should short on the 3rd failed rally, this is the point of proven weakness. O'Neal suggests shorting previous market leaders when they have fallen out of favor.He backs up his teachings with over 120 real historical bar charts showing volume and showing when to short on each one. You can double your chances as a trader by trading both sides of the market. I highly recommend this book to all traders along with all of O'Neal's other books and Investor's Business Daily. I am very glad Mr. O'Neal decided to share his research and experience with the general public.

This book, unfortunately, is perhaps a mockery of the author's reputation. The first few pages (Part 1 and Part 2 - each may be about 10 pages or so) talk about when to short in very abstract sense and then the mechanics of shorting. Part 3 of the book is a gigantic collection of stock charts which provide some "itsy-bitsy" techincal mumbo-jumbo scribbled along a chart with an indicator saying "short here"!! It borders on amusement at times. On a serious note, the author does clearly point out that shorting is a risky business and does provide tons of examples. One could only wish that the author had distilled all the information in his 150 or so charts and actually described "something" that will answer the question posed as the title of the book. It is particulary disappointing that the author wrote one of my all-time favorite investing book, and I am a big fan of Investors Business Digest. leaf through this book, but not buy it.

I used to be a big IBD fan in the nineties. But during the bear market I grew up and learned the lessons the hard way as the writer is too bullish too often. I was disappointed that the writer is just trying to profit from a bunch of charts and the usual IBD after-the-fact claim to being right. During the bear market I was still reading IBD and I never once read anywhere where he suggested, recommended or alluded to any of the short trades he mentions in the book.

After reading about 10 pages of very basic info, the author has 100+ pages of stock charts. Before each stock takes a dive, the author puts a red arrow and says "short sell here." what a genius? I spent a total of 10 minutes with this book. Very disappointing.

Is basically a brief introduction and outline and then many examples. The examples are all mostly from the 2000 decline in the market. So the book outlines a very specific approach and highlights examples that fit that approach.

Given the cost of the book , I don't mind having it in my library. So far the best book on short selling was written by Justin Mamis . The book by Kathryn Staley is great as well. The focus there is how to look at the balance sheets and corporate shenanigans. Both these books are not light reading though.

I found that this book is in fact a great addition to my O'Neil and IBD library of great books. This gives the reader the other side of what to look for in stocks that are candidates for short selling. This not only helps your short side trading but the long side as well. By understanding the key concepts that IBD presents in this book you will understand when a stock has really started to loose it's strength which will help on both the long and short side.

The concepts for shorting presented are very good. In fact I have never read any other resource to date that has the principles so clearly defined and laid out. This book explains key points that are necessary to look for to correctly take the short side. O'Neil and the guys really understand what they are doing. Great resource!

I bought this on the strength of his name. I expect many will be very disappointed.
It is little more than a bunch of charts of all the fallen stocks of 2000 with markers of how you would have shorted them all near their highs.
This is 'curve-fitting' technical strategies with no substnace. Example:
On page 49 the chart of Cisco uses the head and shoulders pattern to predict the sell point, but....as the market does not continue to go down, they put a note on the chart "Only 2 1/2 months from peak - Too early too short". This is typical of brazen and irresponsible use of hindsight, with no reasoning or rules to back up, and far too many contradictions.
I will not waste my time going through the rest of the book, which is all charts, but I stongly suspect there is not one example of a losing trade.
Please pass on this one - it really isn't worth the cover price.