[gizajob]

And slowly building up their shorts and keeping cash on the sidelines to short harder when it finally all comes crashing down.

[fred_is_fred]

The problem with shorts is that bubbles can expand well beyond rationality. Cash or bonds is what I am doing.

[hattmall]

That's not a problem at all, you just roll some of your bull market gains into close dated ATM puts periodically. If the market is sideways sell calls.

[qcnguy]

Genuinely curious, why do you need close dated ATM puts. If all you care about is protecting upside can't you just put in limit orders.