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.