In Sell and Sell Short, Dr. Alexander Elder examines one of the most overlooked aspects of trading and reveals how you can protect and profit from your trades by exiting them the right way. Throughout the book, he explains how to set profit targets and stop-loss orders prior to entering any trade. He also shares real-world examples that show how to manage your position by adjusting your exit points as a trade unfolds. Along the way, Elder also addresses short selling.
Introduction:
There is a time to grow and a time to decline. A time to plant and a time to reap. That cute puppy bouncing up and down in your living room will some day become an old, decrepit dog whom you will have to drive to the vet’s office to put it out of its misery. That stock you bought with such great hopes and which you enjoyed watching grow has now rolled over and is cutting into your capital instead of increasing it. It is high time to look for an exit.
This is a book about selling. Buying is fun. It grows out of hope, great expectations, a chest full of air. Selling is a hard, unsmiling business, like driving that poor old dog to the vet for its final injection. But sell you must. And that’s what this book is about. And once you and I talk about selling—that hard, cold reality at the end of almost every trade—we will not stop. We will talk about selling short. Amateurs don’t know how to short and are afraid of it, but professionals love shorting and profit from declines.
Stocks go down much faster than they rise, and a trader who knows how to short doubles his opportunities. But before you sell short you must learn to sell and sell well. So let us take off those rose-colored glasses and learn to sell.
Contents:
- How to Buy
- Trading Psychology and Risk Management
- On Keeping Records
- Selling at a Target
- Selling on a Stop
- Selling “Engine Noise”
- Shorting Stocks
- Shorting Non-Equity Instruments
