I said recently that my short positions needed an exit strategy and suggested three possible options. One was to close the positions at the time of writing, the other was to apply my stop loss strategy in reverse, and the third was to cover all positions if the gain on the whole portfolio dropped below 10 per cent. This has now happened so all short positions should be covered.
It is apparent that the best strategy to maximise gains is to use my stop loss strategy in reverse. The result of shorting all the stocks that I suggested and using my stop loss strategy to close individual positions is an overall gain of 16.0 per cent while still being short shares in 20 different companies. This is a lesson for future reference. Incidentally my stop loss strategy involves closing positions either where the price has risen by 20 per cent above the selling price or where the price has risen 30 per cent above the lowest price reached since the sale was made.
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