DDS out @ 18.10 Covered My Shorts :(

Lots of stress for 2%. Okay well 2% over two or three trading days isn't bad. I could have done a lot better IF I would ahve stayed in the stock a lot shorter (yes shorter than two days - one day - should have taken it at 16.50 or 17) and I should not be so optimistic when covering a short by placing an unrealistic limit price on it.

I need a latte, I need to make better profits than a stinking 2%. I need the success of PBR or NOV.

Like I said I am considering going long on this stock now that I have seen it test this low so effectively.

Stock Investing 101 - How do you calculate percentage gain or loss on an investment?

Okay every now and then I am going to break down some basics that I think will help out the novice investor. If you are savoy don't be snobby and skip this post. For those of you that are learning, I feel that knowing your gains is like looking at your kill. For better or for worst you have to get to this task every transaction you make. You should never hop offline or get off the phone with your broker without assessing what your kill looks like.

This is a good article that will help you out:

Calculating the percentage change of your investment is quite easy. All it takes is a little bookkeeping and either a simple calculator or a pad of paper for doing the long division. Here is what you need to do:

Take amount that you have gained on the investment and divide it by the amount invested. To calculate the gain, take the price for which you sold the investment and subtract it from the price that you initially paid for it. Now that you have your gain, divide the gain by the original amount of the investment. Finally, multiply your answer by 100 to get the percentage change in your investment.

If the percentage is negative, resulting from the market value being lower than the book value, you have lost on your investment. If the percentage is positive, resulting from market value being greater than book value, you have gained on your investment.

Here is what the formula looks like:

(Price Sold - Purchase Price)/(Purchase Price)

If you haven't sold the investment, you can use the current market price in the place of the price sold.

This basic formula is used every day to find out exactly how many percentage points indexes, stocks, interest rates, and so on have changed over a given period of time. For example, if the Dow Jones Industrial Average opens at 9,000 and closes at 9,300 today, the formula would show that the percentage change over the day was 3.33% [(9,300 – 9,000) / (9,000)].

However, investing does not come without costs and this should be reflected in the calculation of your percent gain or loss. The above is an illustration of the calculation without costs, such as commissions and taxing. To incorporate costs, reduce the gain (market price - price purchased) by the costs of investing. By incorporating these costs you will get a more accurate representation of your gain or loss. Also, if your investment paid out any income, such as a dividend, you will need to add this amount to the gain amount.

Here is a more detailed way to calculate gain or loss:

[(Amount Sold - Amount Paid) + Income Gain - Costs]/Amount Paid

Gentleman's Club Fist Fight - Read This Post

Yahoo Financial Blog - Click This Link To Read An Informative Post on The Shorting of RICK

Takeover, Sleepover - more On Dillard Department Stores - DDS

Lets not get crazy here people but DDS is up around 17.94 with some positive ticks. If this thing get to $18.00 I have to get out! I would have to abandon my strategy of waiting until next week. That would be a bummer. I know this stock is goign to fall around 15-14. I just intuitively feel its got to test that bottom out.

Please understand that I will more than likely convert this stock to a long term position and through it in my IRA once I cover my short position. I am under the impression that this stock has been beat to hell. And I like their real estate holdings and think the market will come back one day.

But hey for the Some interesting news came out, but as news goes it could just be some smoke and mirrors. There is some articles that talked about how the top executives had worked out a golden parachute plan (read this thread for a better take on things)

RICK - Shorting Gentleman Clubs In A Bad Economy

I am thinking this is a no brainer and the only reason this stock is up is because of anaylst booha.

More on this later I promise but I just shorted RICK (RICK'S CABARET INTERNATIONAL INC) at Limit Price of $14.02

Shorted Dillard Deparment Stores, Inc. on 11/20/2007

Wow, the market being open today is like being caught smoking in the boys room. It's like someone scaring you when you come around the corner, yikes! I mean really the market should be closed today, like most business!

Well anyways I forgot to mention that I shorted DDS last week. It is the third move I made in November and I wanted to get it documented.

DDS - Dillard Department Stores, Inc.

If you go in the store its horribly empty. I also know that with most retail companies you have to take into account the real estate that they own (click here to read a great message thread on this), and Dillards owns a lot. But I just can't shake that whenever I walk into the stores it looks like the sales people are trying so hard not to act desperate that its comical.

I saw that they were up 30% one day early last week on some really bogus news. The company had reported 3 quarter problems but yet the stock was surging.

Then I saw another release come out and the light bulb went off. Dillards was issuing a stock buy back program and they had an upgrade from some analyst that obviously would support the idea that Dillards was not valuable because they are a retail company but because they are a large holder of real estate.

Well sometimes the market doesn't respond to reason. Sometimes it goes off common sense or lets call it emotional sense. People think Dillards, they see the news talking about Black Friday and how the retail sector is going to Haites, they hear that the Federal reserve chairman is saying that it is more than likely that we are going into a recession, and they start to get emotional about these topics. They start to think to themselves that it would be stupid to gout and spend money on lavish gifts because they were watching the today show and Ann Curry said most Americans are tightening their purse strings this year, I should too. Some of those people are investors ...

Hey I am with the stock gurus who say Dillards is a great stock because of the real estate they own and the stock should be at $50 a share. Listen I though Webvan was a great idea, did that mean that the company should be rewarded by the market? Well let me tell you having groceries delivered to my door step in 1999 was awesome. I am glad a associate of mine has brought it back in 2005. The poor stockholders and employees of Webvan should have had seen growth that reflected its pioneering ideas. Instead it was picked apart in by Analyst. Well now its the revenge of emotional sense.

So I shorted DDS on 11/20 at 18.40

I could have and should have jumped out at 16.57 the next day 11/21. I would have kept my margin interest down and I would have saved myself some extra grey hairs. But something told me to wait until after Black Friday when some of the stores start to report what I saw. That the shoppers were going into the stores and buying the drastically reduced - get you in the store sale items. They were only buying those items... The idea is to get you to buy other items too.

Also there were not a lot of people at the malls. I watched the news reports and they were reporting half full parking lots. Not a good sign.

Well we will see. I want out of this stock next week. It's up today 2.7% but I am still in the positive gains so I can hold my breath until Monday... I hope...

p.s. read this article on DDS and how it missed its 3Q profits its a good one.