When to trade short?

One thing that keeps hurting my trading at the moment is getting the wrong balance of shorts to longs, I know there's no special formula etc.. it's all perception of markets etc.. I read numerous model portfolio columns that always talk about, "being net-short", "being net-long", "being half-half" etc.. but i'm not very good at judging this myself. I was wondering what people here have to say on this issue? any guidance please?

For context, I'm personally talking about Stock trading, typically in the 1 week to 4 week timeframe, but varies depending on market...! (usually when it stops me out!)

Thanks

I normally short when I think something is overvalued and go long when it is undervalued. If you find you are losing more on the shorts than making on the longs perhaps you should reverse your strategy - i.e. go long when you want to go short and go short when you want to go long ?

ukdaytrader said:

I normally short when I think something is overvalued and go long when it is undervalued. If you find you are losing more on the shorts than making on the longs perhaps you should reverse your strategy - i.e. go long when you want to go short and go short when you want to go long ?

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Thanks, yes I do something similar re valuation. My "Short" strategy is:
- Start looking for shorts when FSTE100 Index Breadth looking overbought >75%
- Find a Stock that has poor/average latest results, has sizeable netDebt (> mcap/2), looks overvalued, in a Sector near upper trend line resistance, where the Stock price itself is near a key Resistance level

It just doesn't work that well with the FTSE currently going up at 45 degrees !! although saying that my current 3 shorts are still holding below their Resistance levels, so we'll see...

Cheers