i can still recall the ringing in my years when i would get off the trading desk with karen cramer andould say what's the deal with the memorix? i would say hey, i'm hoping it gets a big contract. she would scream. hope? hope? we need hope to make this work? sell it and get me something where we have more in our favor than just hope. man, what a beat down. many times she didn't ask. she just sold it after i used to word hope. i didn't buy it back because i was hoping something would happen, and once it was sold i felt like well relief. sometimes the stocks of good companies do nothing and you get frustrated. good stocks at times will do nothing for ages. i remember when hathaway did nothing for ages. if you're a professional investor, this waiting can be unnerving. you have partners calls you regularly asking what you are doing with their money. they don't want to hear you own stocks not moving up at once but individuals have no such pain. individual can sit on stocks as long as they want. when i cancel patients many individuals get antsy. they want gains, want it now. some of the best

but when i was at my old hedge fund where karen cramer was, she shorted everyday.was her strength. she loved the short side. so here's what i'm going to do a long time ago she wrote wrote down short selling rules to live by and i'm going to give them to you. not much commentary just straight out. they are timeless even if some of the examples now seem a tad quaint is rule one has dust on the it. she called it the "businessweek" cover rule. at the time trading publications like "businessweek," "forbes," "fortune," they were incredibly powerful. they you have been featured companies on their covers and when they did the stocks levitated higher. so she had a rule she said never short a company that you could imagine would be on the cover of a great publication. i have augmented this rule and it's simple. never short a best-of-breed company. there's so many crummy companies out there, why short a company that's a standout that can be considered the best of the best. move on. find something better to do with your time. ask yourself, can the company be taken over? if it