Short Sighted

Just for fun, I have a My Caps portfolio I play with on Motley Fool.  I take more fliers than I would take with my real money.  I also short stocks from time to time as well, and I never do that in real life.  The portfolio has done pretty well of late, I rank about #24,000 out of 75,000.  Not great but not terrible.  It is funny though, my downfall are my short picks.  Currently I have 6 open short positions, STP, P, JRCC, PCRFY, HLF and NFLX.  HLF is the only one that has been successful.

STP is up 96% since I shorted it (I thought they would go bankrupt).
P is up 13% (I thought itunes Radio would hurt them).
JRCC is up 25% (I thought coal was dead and they would go bankrupt).
PCRFY is up 32% (this is panasonic and I thought they could no longer compete).
NFLX is up 26%.

HLF is only one I have right so far (down 5%).

My best pick was GA, which I bought in February of 2011 at about $3.  It is up 206%. Sadly I waited another full year before buying in my portfolio.

GTAT is my next best pick, up 158% since I bought in January of this year.  My actually buy in March was better timed.  In fact GTAT in my real portfolio has made me more actual dollars now than any other stock I have ever owned.

NUS and USNA are both up about 140% for my Caps portfolio.  I added at same time I bought NUS for real. Wish I had bought both!  BTW, NUS is pushing the century mark that I predicted after their increased guidance about a quarter ago.

IRE and GNW are both up 133%.  Obviously I bought GNW, I should have bought IRE.  I have kicked myself the whole way up.

SLCA is my final stock up over 100%.  I did very well on them in real, though it has obviously been a big mistake to sell them a bit over $23 as they're above $27 now.  Oh well.

So I guess the moral of the story is that I should not become a professional short stock picker!