Structuring Shorts

Don’t Get Squozen: How to structure equity shorts for max profit and min risk of ruin (14 min read)
by Brent Donnelly

Brent’s free Substack series on trading concepts is terrific. The title doesn’t bury the lede. It’s a great discussion of shorting. But this post really stood out because of the decision tree it lays out for how and when to consider using options. I also added the post to the Moontower Volatility Wiki.

I’ve written a bunch on shorting and using options for directional reasons. Please read Brent’s post if you care about this stuff. If you feel like hearing my written voice after that, you can learn more about these topics here:

• Shorting In The Time Of ShitCos (8 min read)
• The difficulty with shorting and inverse positions (2 min read)
• The Gamma Of Levered ETFs (8 min read)
• Structuring Directional Option Trades (8 min read)
• How Options Confuse Directional Traders (8 min read)
• Using The TSLA Price Endgame To Understand Options (12 min read)

I’ve been reading J. Paul Getty’s How To Be Rich: His Formulas which is a collection of essays that was first serialized in Playboy magazine at the behest of Hef in the 1960s. I like the way Getty writes and I liked learning about how he amassed his fortune in oil but it’s not a book I’d say rush out and read. I picked it up from the Getty Museum gift shop because it was short and I knew nothing about him.

Anyway, you’ll recall Moloch was a heavy theme of this newsletter at the beginning of the year. I just liked this: