Quote from Handle123:
Many young, or inexperienced or longer term traders and investors only take the Buy side, and that is main reason there are so many "jagged" moves up, different ways to get from the "those who don't know or won't". Some will say that selling short is Un-American, but it is un-American not too. We live in a capitalism way of life in USA, making money is the American way of life whether buying or selling short. But the exchanges and our government prefer we buy as they have made the GAME more Pro buying with the rules in place, up tic rules, divendend rules if short and retirement rules, brokers have easier time to sell client the whys of buying than selling short.
I don't believe what moves the market is Greed, it is all FEAR that makes moves up or down, fear of being on wrong side of trade, fear of missing moves, fear of gain and fear of loss. Since there are many many more folks on the long side of stocks, any kind of heavy selling is going to cause huge bars down. Takes a third of the time to drop like a rock than to go up. It is less risky to sell short than to buy, markets seldom go sideways in down moves, whereas there is more chop, sideways, in markets that go up.
When markets drop, the Specialists in NYSE will always buy it, but since there are tons of orders coming in, they will offer to buy at much lower prices causing it to drop even more and more protective stops get hit and becomes a snowball effect. I much much rather go short in stocks that to buy, much bigger profits, much faster profits and tighter risk.