skills/long-short-pitch/references/strategy-playbooks.md

# Long / Short Strategy Playbooks

## Public Long

- Show upside, downside, and expected return from price target scenarios.
- Identify the one or two KPIs that unlock the variant perception.
- Include add and trim evidence thresholds.
- Do not rely on rerating alone unless peer/history support is explicit.
- Under sparse context, state whether the long is actionable now, a watchlist idea, or a pass until valuation/catalyst support improves.

## Public Short

- Include borrow/carry, short interest, crowding, squeeze risk, and preferred expression where available.
- Make the catalyst path explicit. A short with no catalyst is not investable.
- Show cover rules and adverse price target risk.
- Separate structural short thesis from cyclical disappointment.
- Under sparse context, do not call a short actionable without at least a catalyst path, borrow/crowding caveat, and measurable cover triggers.
- For HTML pitches, surface a compact `Implementation Gate` immediately after the proposed posture: catalyst failure, valuation anchor, borrow/carry, defined-risk option feasibility where relevant, and squeeze/buyback exposure.
- If reported fundamentals improved and implementation gates are missing, prefer `wait for proof`, `watchlist`, or `pass for now` to a valuation-only short posture.
- When scenario targets or probabilities are analyst assumptions and implementation is not underwritten, use `Illustrative Scenario Skew` and do not present expected return as actionable.
- For a no-position or watchlist HTML pitch, use `Conditional Action Rules` and `Monitoring Triggers`; do not imply that an active short already exists.
- Describe strategic agreements according to their actual economic direction: an issuer cloud-spend or infrastructure commitment is not short-negative revenue evidence unless incremental revenue or economics are disclosed.

## Pair Trade / Relative Value

- State the pair thesis in one sentence.
- Show why the long leg should outperform the short leg.
- Identify hedge ratio, factor/sector neutrality, beta residual, and liquidity mismatch.
- Include spread, ratio, or relative multiple entry/exit logic.
- Define break conditions for either leg independently.
- Under sparse context, frame the pair as a watchlist relative-value setup until hedge ratio, liquidity, factor residual, and valuation spread are known.

## Event-Driven

- Show probability-weighted expected value, spread, timing, break price, downside, and event milestones.
- Map regulatory, legal, shareholder, financing, or process risks.
- Use `event-driven-analyzer` first when the ask is mostly spread math or legal/regulatory timeline.
- Under sparse context, separate confirmed milestones from assumed milestones before presenting expected value.

## Credit Markets Handoff / Equity-Risk Signal

- Do not build a credit pitch, debt-security recommendation, covenant review, recovery waterfall, or restructuring view in this plugin.
- Retain credit data only when it changes the listed-equity thesis: refinancing stress, solvency pressure, liquidity runway, maturity-wall risk, rating pressure, CDS/spread signal, or downside equity impairment.
- Route bonds, loans, CDS, spread/yield relative value, capital-structure priority, distressed-security selection, covenants, and recovery work to Credit Markets.
- Under sparse context, label the credit read-through as screen-grade equity-risk context and request the Credit Markets output before making it a trade driver.

## Hard Gates

Shorts require borrow, carry, squeeze path, buyback or low-float risk, catalyst timing, and cover rules. Pairs require hedge ratio, residual exposures, liquidity mismatch, catalyst symmetry, and break conditions. ETF/index expressions may be hedges, baskets, benchmark-relative pairs, or index-event setups.