A short note on recent shorts : NOG, LFT, SODA

I have recently started shorting stocks again, and this post is a summary of how my short positions have been doing. Because I just started shorting, I decided to go slow to see if any problems will come up. I have just 3 shorts, NOG, LFT and SODA, and together, they make up around 5% of my portfolio, or about the weight of a long position. NOG and LFT ideas are courtesy of John Hempton at the excellent Bronte Capital, and both have been doing quite well. I shorted NOG at $26 and covered at $20, for an approximately 20% gain. I shorted LFT at $20, and the stock is now suspended. Since Bronte Capital and Citron Research have both already covered LFT in great detail, and in any case the trading opportunity has passed, I do not intend go over LFT in detail. I expect that LFT will gap down dramatically once it resumes trading as a pink sheet, and then slowly trend down. Suffice to say that I am in no hurry to cover LFT, and will likely sit tight for a while. SODA is my only non-Hempton short, initiated at $53. I’ll write a full post on SODA soon, but basically, I think it’s a fad and the torrid growth will soon slow, which would make the stock at its current multiple dramatically overvalued.