The premarket looks better this morning. I'm not biting yet. It seems like a lot of traders think we're oversold and are looking for a bounce.
I sold most of my positions last week and my portfolio still managed to loose another 4% today. That doesn't make me happy. I'm glad I heeded my own advice and avoided buying anything today. When the DOW was up 80, I got a little twinge in my stomach. It's a good thing I ignored it.
I'm not planning on any new purchases this week. I think there is a possibility of a continued downtrend until around options expiration this week. I'm still counting on a good run through January, but right now all indicators tell me to wait this one out for a bit. The challenge will be for me to actually do that.
That was one of the worst weekly showings that I've ever had. I lost over 10% and I'm starting to feel a lot less confident that this is a minor blip. I've been ignoring a lot of traders who are smarter than I am who have said we're in trouble. I hope that they are wrong, but for now, I'm not buying anything new.
I tried to be a calming voice yesterday to friends who were calling me in a panic over the recent unpleasantness in the stock market. I used to get that way too, but having suffered through several inexplicable declines, I've started to take it all in stride.
Chris Perruna has an excellent article (with charts!) that says it better than I can. The bottom line is to hang in there. Learn from what is happening and make yourself a better trader.
Actually, I don't hate the market. I hate all the wimps who panic and sell with every little bit of news that comes out.
If you read this blog at all, you know that just about every time my portfolio makes a yearly high, I end up giving a bunch back. I get a knot in my stomach whenever I start to make money, because I know I'm about to get my butt kicked. The last couple of days are a prime example. Tuesday I was up 53%. Today (so far) I'm at 42%.
Whenever I get the wind knocked out of me, it causes me to rethink what I am doing. So, I probably learn a lot more from losing than I do from winning.
One of the mantras of traders is to never trade against the tape--meaning the broad market really controls everything. It's hard to make money when no one else is.
The problem is, you never know if things are headed higher, or if they're about to crumble. But there are indicators out there that are extremely helpful in determining what's going on behind the scenes.
Here is a simple chart that helps give me an idea about what's going on. I first saw this kind of chart on Pitbull Investor which is an awesome site that offers some really great tools for very little money.
The chart uses simple moving averages but it gives me a nice picture of the market. If I would have used this chart in making buying decisions over the last 3 months, I would be a lot better off today than I am. If I wouldn't have made any buys after October 22nd, I'd be sitting on about 50% instead of near 40%. I could have avoided a 20% drawdown in August if I would have quit buying around August 1st.
Part of my problem over the past 4 years has been my inability to be patient and wait for the productive times while sitting out the nasty ones. Maybe this thrashing will slap me around enough to create a change in my trading. We'll see.
There are amazing tools out there for free that would have costs thousands of dollars a few years ago. I need to use them better.
Down 4.86%! Sometimes I hate the market. My unbridled arrogance has given way to fearful humility. OK, not really, but I really got sand kicked in my face today. The good news is I took a bigger hit percent-wise just a couple of months ago. So this isn't as devastating as it seems, but I lost more money than I have since I started trading in 2003.
I guess the silver lining is that I'm still up 46% and I was up 43% when the DOW hit 14,200. So if things recover by the end of the year (and I think they will) were looking at some decent gains before all is said and done.
Invariably after a really good day, I usually have a really cruddy one. Today looks to continue that tradition. Sometimes I wish I was a day-trader. My goal is to avoid watching the market today and let the positions handle themselves. I'll let you know how I did tonight.
Dollar-wise today was the best day in my trading history. It was my best day percentage-wise since August of 2006--up 3.98%.
This is one of the reasons that I tend to stay fully invested at all times. You never know when your train is going to come in and sometimes it happens when you least expect it.
I enjoyed re-reading Nicolas Darvas' book How I Made $2,000,000 in The Stock Market during my vacation. Even though it is a bit light on usable information, it does show the power of ignoring the crowd, the news, and the chatter and following your program without wavering. He lost a lot of money when he started listening to other traders and the media.
Even though I enjoy reading what other traders think about the market, I think I would never make a trade if I didn't follow my own program. No matter how good things are, there are always folks out there saying it's about to get bad.
So, I guess my advice for everyone out there is--Ignore everything and follow your program.
A wacky week that rarely made much sense to me. The portfolio gained a wimpy .80% this week while most of my screens did pretty well despite the overall markets tanking at the end of the week. I was up nearly 53% for the year until Thursday--my dreams of riches were dashed. I guess I'll have to wait until next week.
I wasn't really expecting things to go the way they did today. I thought that there might be a slight pullback, but nothing like the way it did by the end of the day. I was only down a half percent until things dropped the last hour. I ended up losing nearly 3% overall.
Fortunately, I gained about that yesterday, so I ended up with sort of a wash.
Days like this used to make me sick. But I have confidence that what I am doing is working and today presents an opportunity for further growth. I still think things are headed higher by the end of the year, so don't let one day (or even several) spook you out of this market. There is money to be made out there and you can't get to it if you are wimpy and stand on the sidelines.
Sucky days like today are the bane of emotional traders (I still count myself among this group). Nothing seems to be working. Stocks that were making huge gains are taking huge losses. I'm down way more than the market and there's really no explanation why out there.
It's easy for days like these to shake your confidence and make you question yourself. Don't let it happen. It's how you handle the crummy days that separate you out from the traders who lose money.
My first instinct is to panic, take my losses and run. Even though I've been doing this for four years, I still get caught in unrealistic thinking--that I should never have a down day. However, experience tells me that this is all part of trading.
It best on days like these to let your trading plan do the work. Turn off all news and all the tickers and do something else. The market will take care of itself and your portfolio will recover.
Since the majority of StockPunk readers said the news feeds were worthless, I removed them. Power to the people.
I haven't been as diligent with my posts lately. Life has been busy with work, school, and family.
Yesterday was a good day. Up 2.86%. The last three months of the year are usually the best for my screens. Last year, over half my gain came in during October, November, and December. I've got high hopes for this year as well and everything looks pretty good right now.
What a wacky week! I can't believe I actually made money--and good money at that. I had a hard time avoiding the news and I benefited from all the power and internet outages.
For the week the portfolio was up 7.52% which brings the portfolio to its highest point this year at a little under 48%.
I assumed that my mechanical screens would struggle this week, but they ended up doing pretty well.
I took my first foray into options today, and it wasn't as confusing as I assumed that it would be. I'll keep everyone updated on how things progress, but I see some opportunities in the options market and I need to quit being scared (and ignorant) of them.
Every day this week has been crazy with the ups and downs of the market. So far I haven't been dinged too badly, but there have been some mornings when I was down 3%. We're starting to hear the doom and gloomers trumpet the end of all things again. I wish I was an emotionless being and could just focus on the 10 stocks that I own and quit worrying about everybody else. But, alas, I just can't do it.
First the power was out and then my internet connection went out and has been out since Tuesday That has helped me from looking too much and being influenced by the large swings this week.
I stopped out of three stocks today and I feel pretty good about where I got out. I lost nearly 16% on one this week which is my largest loss this year. Ouch. Fortunately other stocks have picked up the slack.
I don't feel like it is time to run to the sidelines, yet. Some of the market indicators that I follow still look strong. It's just kind of weird out there right now, so choose your poison wisely.
Another crazy day that ended up pretty nicely--up another 2.06%. The day started off cool and then things took a tumble and then, once again, the power went out. I wasn't able to get online until 9:30 tonight and once again, the blackout benefited me.
People are getting jumpy in after hours trading, so we'll see how tomorrow flows, but so far, I'm pretty happy with how this week has progressed.
I gained nearly all of Friday's losses back and ended up 2.45% today. I made a couple of buys this morning, they tanked, and then the power went out for the rest of the day. I wasn't able to look at anything until an hour after the close. So my new strategy is to buy in the morning and then cut the power to the house.
It's been nearly 6 months that I've been using Zack's Research Wizard and I'm starting to regret my decision. The screener is still a very powerful tool, but I'm relying on it less and less as I learn more screening and analysis techniques.
I think the thing that I've struggled with most is the support that I've received from Zack's. The salesmen assured me before I purchased RW that they would design screens around my ideas. I've given them qualifiers a couple of times and I have not heard back from them for four months. Not a peep.
There is a real lack of support for such an expensive product. I think it would really help to have a user forum available. Any sort of communication on a weekly basis would be great.
I truly think that RW is a great product. It has a lot of cool features--the backtesting ability (as flawed as it may be) is unique among stock screeners.
But I'm finding other screeners that are just as neat for far less money. I think I'm going to let my subscription run out in another 6 months.
Not all successful traders have huge houses. This is mine. It's my first house ever.
OK, it's not quite built yet. But it will be by next March. I've tried to figure out the best way to buy it. Do I pay cash for it? Do I put as little down as possible and use the money to make more money (I'm leaning in this direction)? Do I put 20% down (most people think I'm crazy if I don't)?
I know that the stock market is unpredictable, but If I can average over 20% a year, wouldn't it be better to let my money grow than to put it all in the house? There sure are a lot of opinions out there dagnabbit.
Today sure took the air out of my sails. I was getting all geared up to blow past my YTD return of 43% and the market took some back from me. I guess I can't complain since my portfolio barely moved from last Friday's close, so despite the weakness of the broader market, I'm doing pretty OK.
It would have been better for me to take a few more days of vacation because two of my big drains today were purchases I made the last two days. It's hard to say what this all means, but I still think things look good for a strong finish to the year. Hopefully this is just a good time to take advantage of some consolidation and panic over a few wimpy earnings announcements.
I plan to update my screens on Sunday. I need to figure out this week's gains and losses and I'll post those before Saturday evening.
Although I had a terrific time with my wife in Jamaica, it's good to be back home. My wife took this photo of me sunning on the beach. I added the stupid thing of me dreaming about stocks because you really can't take a picture of a person's thoughts (or so I've been told). My wife won't let me include a photo of her even though she was the best looking woman on the beach (or in Jamaica for that matter).
We scuba dived a couple of days and the reef wasn't as bad as my environmentalist brother suggested it would be. There were , however, many cages underwater full of crabs, lobsters, rays and fish that were soon to be harvested by local fisherman. That made me feel kind of bad, but I ate a lot of fish anyway.
My portfolio survived my absence (or maybe because of it). I read a few books during my trip that focused on two of my interests--WWII and um . . . the stock market.
I can't believe that it has taken me an entire day just to get caught up on things. Apparently the market decided that it could move on with out my constant monitoring. That's what I love about the whole market show. Every day is different, there is always something new to learn, and you can go on a vacation and the market is still doing its thing when you get back.
If you take a look at the major composites, you'll notice that all but the NASD have recently broken through their 2000 highs. The NASDAQ is still nearly half of what it was in 2000.
Maybe the last few days are indicators of where the next phase of the market is headed.
Tech has been hot lately. People are starting to upgrade to take advantage of the new features in Windows Vista. Apple just released a robust new operating system. Folks are wanting new computers for Christmas.
Will tech catch up with the rest of the market? We'll have to wait and see, but things sure look like they are moving in that direction.
I haven't been able to gain much traction this week and that seems to be the overall feel of the market so far. I've read that this is often how the first couple of weeks in October trade.
I'm off to Jamaica tonight so I will be away from an internet connection for 5 whole days. I was silly enough to check on things during our last two cruises (at like $3 a minute on a dial-up connection) so this will be a real challenge for me. I'm sure it will be a good experience and teach me some good lessons about my constant battle with my emotions.
Have a great week!
Not much going on today. The portfolio was up .19%.
A few more folks have added to the margin debate. Check it out and add your 2 cents if you haven't already. I went against what I said just a few days ago and added margin to my account. I don't plan to use it yet, but I'm getting tired of waiting for trades to settle before I can safely make another trade. We'll see if I blow up my account.
Four more days to Jamaica. Tick tock, tick tock.
Last week was pretty strong and we're heading in to another bout of earnings. So far things look good.
I've got 20% of my account in cash right now, so I'll be looking for some opportunities this week. Most of my screens have remained extremely stable during the last few weeks so I don't really have any exciting picks.
The "To the Moon" screen has some new candidates, but I'm not too keen on jumping on them just yet.
Have a terrific week and trade well.
One of the things I struggle with most in my trading is knowing when to sell. It doesn't matter if the stock is rising or if it is falling, pulling that trigger is just plain hard. That's probably why there are so many different ideas, theories, and discussions about the subject.
Chris Perruna has an excellent article on how to take profits at his blog. I've experimented with several ways of taking profits and preventing losses. Right now I am focusing on a volatility system which seems to have a lot of promise.
The best thing any trader can do is to tap in to the wealth of information out there. There has been no time in history where more information has been available--and most of it is free. Take advantage of what is out there to make yourself a better trader and a better person.
My hard drive gets loaded with tons of stuff each week (photos, video files, programs) and I sometimes forget where everything went. I use WinDirStat to get a visual representation of my hard drive so I can find where those huge files are lurking and either archive them or get rid of them.
The program is free and a great tool for somebody that uses their computer for many different things (hopefully you're not so addicted to trading that you don't have other interests and hobbies)
Right now, my favorite stock screener is AAII's Stock Investor Pro. It's inexpensive (about $200 per year) and the build-in screens are invaluable for creating powerful watch lists. I've used it over the last three years and I've been very happy with it.
I use Scottrader Elite to monitor the market when I want up to date information. I usually only look at it during the open and close of the market because I can get too wrapped up in market swings during the day. It's a pretty powerful tool and free with a Scottrade account with over $25,000 of capital.
I use a Yahoo Widget to monitor my watch list during the day. The quotes are delayed 20 minutes and this helps me avoid the emotionalism I am so accustomed to. The widget hangs out on my desktop and updates itself regularly throughout the day. It gives me a nice visual on how things are going and it looks cool.
These are just a few of the tools I use on a daily basis. I plan to continue this "series" once a month to let you know what kind of tools I find especially helpful with the kind of trading I do.
Not a bad week even though the indexes did as well as I did. I made 2.21%. My screens struggled this week and it seemed like the large caps ruled the week. Tech stock seem to be gaining quite a bit of momentum lately as well.
I lost out on a decent move by NOV. I sold it on a gut feeling and got burned. I ALWAYS get burned when I trust my gut. Watch me, I'll probably make the same mistake next week.
Boy, that's ugly. GRMN appeared on my To The Moon screen on Monday and promptly dropped like a brick. I don't own it.
I've noticed a pull-back in a lot of recent big gainers this week. That may be a healthy sign of rationality.
China stocks are lighting up one of my momentum screens like a Christmas tree. I'm not taking the bait, but you could probably make some quick profitable trades if you don't hang around too long.
I'm letting a couple of trades settle until the end of the week. I've got some pretty tight triggers set on the rest of my portfolio--nothing above 5%--so we'll see how the rest of this week pans out.
Today I lost 1.41% and I got all worked up about it. What's wrong with me? I know better.
I'm experimenting with using volatility stops with my trades and so far I'm liking it. It really helps with the decision making and helps me keep a majority of my profits. If I continue to use it, I'll give everybody the details.
You can find several short interviews with popular stock bloggers here. Pradeep at Stockbee is the latest. Interesting stuff.
I exited two positions today--NOV and FTI. Both were good trades that took over a month to be really successful.
Here's another guy that shares his returns with his readers. I love to compare different strategies and different traders to see how they do in different markets. I wish more bloggers would post their results on a weekly basis. Maybe I'm too competitive.
I'm beating the pants off of Stock Superstars and The Prudent Speculator. Yep, I guess I am too competitive.
Thanks for those of you who gave their two cents about using margin. I'm leaning toward avoiding it. It doesn't seem to be as widely used as I thought.
My friend Sean continues to hold on to IESV.OB. This is a good example of a stock that "can't get any lower". He bought it at 5.5 cents. It touched 3 cents today. That doesn't seem like much of a drop, but that's about a 50% decline.
The last time I bought an OTC (over the counter or penny) stock it went up over 10% after I bought it. I soon realized that it was my purchase that had moved the stock up. It didn't trade another share for 4 hours! Then somebody sold a bunch and I lost like 25%. What an idiot, I was.
I've never used margin (unless you count the extra money from school loans that I choose to trade). I'm considering it now, but I'd like to get some opinions out there from people if you have. If you'd care to post your experience here, please do!
Well, we managed to claw our way back in about a month from the despair of August's plunge. I was kind of hoping the market would struggle for a while longer. I'm not real comfortable with these short-lived corrections.
My portfolio is near where it was when the correction began. That's good, but I feel like I'm just being swept along by the market. I like it better when the market struggles while I brag.
I didn't get my screens updated over the weekend. I hope there aren't any goofballs out there that actually trade my dumb screens. I use them to show the realities of mechanical trading. They're a good tool, but they are no substitute for knowing what you're doing.
I'm learning a lot over at Stockbee's members only area. If you like the mechanics of finding good trades, there is a goldmine of information at that site.
Not a bad week. I wasn't around much to monitor things and that worked out well for me. I'm inching toward my year high for the portfolio. I'd be happy with a 40% gain for the year. Ugly showed that he had a 100% gain for the MONTH. Why am I not trading the way he is? I probably couldn't hack it.
I printed out an application for some margin at my broker but I didn't fill it out. I'm too scared.
A few of you have inquired about my upcoming scuba trip. This one isn't too spectacular. It's in Jamaica. My scuba purist brother told me to "enjoy the dead reef". He is the director of invertebrates at the Omaha Zoo. It angers him when I eat shrimp ("Do you know how many other animals had to die in those shrimp nets?"), when I take a cruise ("I hope you know they dynamited a healthy reef so that ship could dock."), and when he sees my neglected coral tank ("You're an embarrassment to the aquarium industry.").
I put this stupid video together so you could see me underwater. Our favorite scuba trip so far was to the Fiji Islands. I have never seen so much life underwater. The Caribbean is pretty boring by comparison. I've been spoiled.
We're staying at a Sandals resort and they offer free scuba diving as part of the package. They don't however, offer free internet access. Weasels.
Today the portfolio popped a bit which made for some good entertainment. It was up 1.79%. I made a selling error yesterday with PKOH (which I bought over a month ago). It hasn't done anything so no big loss. I still whimper when I see a stock do well after I've sold it, but that's something I need to work on.
Right now I'm trying to take advantage of this irrational market. I've been a bit hesitant to stay in after an awful August, but so far things are going pretty well.
Like Charles Kirk, I sure wish I would have bought this one. Here's a guy that bought it and then sold it with a wimpy 2% stop. There's always a stock like that somewhere, even in a sucky market. That's what makes this "treasure hunt" kinda fun.
That Chris Perruna sure knows how to pick 'em.
Learning from investing mistakes.
The last two days have seen my portfolio meander back and forth but really hasn't done much one way or the other. Life has been very busy, so the market hasn't been a priority lately.
My wife of 15 years (what was she thinking) and I are going on a scuba vacation in two weeks. My goal is to ignore the market completely during that time (except for the books I bring) so I won't be posting at all. I'll let everybody know before I leave (like you care anyway).
Charles Kirk has a huge list of links if you need something to keep you entertained today.
I pretty much expected today to go the way it did. Nothing too impressive or too frightening. I lost about the same as the market as a whole. No big whoop.
Not a bad week even though I got beat by some of my screens. The portfolio was up 5.93% for the week. I'd feel better about this week's performance if the rest of the market hadn't gone haywire. So for now, it's hard to tell if I'm just riding the wave of enthusiasm.
The DOW is just under 200 points away from the all-time high again. I guess I would rather have clawed my way back while the indexes all struggled. It makes me feel like my gains are tenuous. If things do rocket back down, I hope I'm smart enough not to make the same mistakes that cost me nearly 20% the last time things broke down. Maybe I should go back and read some of my old posts.
This month I'm doing some research on stop losses. Every few months I change my ideas about the best way to manage my account. The whole stop loss issue gets me all worked up. Here's a decent article in Smart Money Online about using stop losses.
These guys have a much better survey than mine this week. I hope their sample is larger than mine.
Today didn't end up as strong as I thought it would, but it was still decent--up 1.17%. I've got a couple of stocks in my portfolio that just aren't moving with the trend. I'm thinking about booting them out if they don't show some action by Friday.
Now that things are looking a bit better for the year, I went back and looked at the mess that I made of August. One of the concepts in Trading for a Living (see earlier post) is to quit trading for the rest of the month if your portfolio drops from 6% to 8% in value. That would have put me at about 36% at the end of August. Instead I traded myself down another 12% by the end of August.
Although it is a bit arbitrary, I think it is a good idea to refocus after that kind of draw down. It is obvious that things aren't quite working out and taking a few weeks away from the market can be enlightening (I wish I could speak from experience, but I can't--at least not yet).
Blogger has been giving me fits all day long, so I apologize for this late post. I can't quite figure out how the discount rate effects EVERYTHING. Apparently it does.
The portfolio was up 3.03% today--not too impressive given the general market was up nearly as much. I'm hoping the euphoria lasts for the rest of the week. I'm up to my 30% goal for September. Yahoo!
Chris Perruna has an excellent article about using position sizing to manage risk on his website today. I've mentioned before that the whole risk management thing is new to me this year. It's all so simple and straight-forward, but it doesn't seem too many traders do it. It's one of the reasons new traders flame out so quickly. I think I just got lucky.
Check out Ugly's Bob Dillon's stock picks video. It made me laugh.
It appears that the bulls really haven't shown up much today and may be waiting for the "real deal" tomorrow. USA Today announced that the fate of the stock market was to be determined tomorrow.
I don't know about everybody else, but I'm not waiting on the sidelines. I'm fully invested (and losing so far today). I'm getting tired of being burned every time I try to time things. I do much better when I pick a stock and let it do what it does.
Speaking of timing, I have found that waiting until lunch time when making a buy has helped me tremendously with my emotions and with getting a decent price for a stock. I used to buy before 10:00 am and often sat there with my hand on the trigger waiting for the best time to jump in. I ALWAYS second guessed my decision no matter which direction the stock headed.
Things usually level out during lunch time and it seems to me to be the best time to place a trade. I'm in a much better frame of mind to make a decision and I usually can get a better feel for where the stock is headed for the rest of the day.
I guess the Rapture was supposed to happen on Friday. Curiously, I haven't gotten any e-mails yet explaining why it didn't.
Everybody's talking about this being a wild week. It should be fun. I've been getting a lot more "buy" signals lately and I'm chomping at the bit to recover some of my August losses by the end of September.
From what I've been reading lately (see earlier post), "chomping at the bit" describes a trader who is pretty much an idiot. In fact I've noticed that many trading traits that I possess are considered "dangerous".
I think the best thing for everybody who reads this blog to do is to sit back and watch me systematically self destruct. And while you're at it, click on a few ads that you see on StockPunk. I've made 9 cents so far in September. Quit laughing.
This was kind of a dull week for me. The portfolio drifted back and forth but really made no big advances either way. I made a tad over 1% this week, which I guess is better than losing.
Next week looks to be the most interesting out of the month of September, although I think next week's decisions have already been built into this week's prices. We'll see.
Pradeep over at Stockbee has a new members-only area. I joined a few seconds after he put up a "Join" button. The suggested cost is $50. I paid more because I think the information he provides saves me that much worth of time each week. I would encourage anyone who like to trade to join. It's money well-spent. Quit being so dang cheap.
My arrogance last week has been replaced with humility this week. The market is handily beating me so far.
I finished Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom by Van K. Tharp about a month ago and I began reading Trading for a Living by Dr. Alexander Elder this week. I've learned a lot from both books.
I am in no way prepared to make a living from trading yet. I hope to be able to however, in 5 to 10 years. But in preparing for that kind of life, there are many things that I never took into consideration. Both books addressed these issues and more:
I've been very busy the last two days, so I've missed a couple of posts. I didn't have much to write about anyway, the market has been kind of lethargic. The portfolio has barely moved.
Chris Perruna has a nifty article on his take on the upcoming Jewish holidays Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.
I've gotten e-mails recently that explain that Rosh Hashana 2007 is the day all Christians will be "raptured" out of here. So I guess it doesn't matter anyway.
Not much went on today. I lost 1%. I held on to SILC too long and then sold it at its low. Call me an idiot.
Not much happening this week. I still plan to be fully invested unless things take a dramatic turn. I'm feeling better about how stocks have acted in the past couple of weeks. Things seem to be getting back to normal (at least for me and the screens I use).
My goal for this month is to take my return above 30% with my goal for the year being 40%. We'll see how things play out.
That was a nasty week. I was feeling all good about myself going into Friday morning. I looked at the premarket and got that sinking feeling--why am I not a day-trader? It sure would be nice to be sitting on a big pile of cash in the morning when everything goes to pot. Maybe some day I'll get it figured out. For today I lost 2.20%.
The week wasn't too awful. I made a little over 1%. If I could just do that each week--hmmm. A good sign is that I got handily beat by a couple of my screens. There are a few stocks that are doing quite well out there and I capitalized on a couple SILC & FTI.
It will be interesting to see what Monday will bring us.
I used to read Ugly Chart every day, but when he started trading futures I lost interest. He's been writing some interesting stuff recently and I love his sense of humor. He still seems to be more of a day trader, but his concepts fall in line with some of my ideas.
He also has some hilarious videos and great sarcastic commentary. So I'm putting Ugly Chart back on my list of Great Stock Blogs list. Check it out.
Chris Peruna has a good article on creating several stock screens that he has found perform pretty well. I'm always looking for interesting (and profitable) stock screens and I appreciate anybody who is willing to share the "mechanics" of their screens.
I've been visiting his site more and more recently. It's a great source of information. I'm adding it to my "Other great blogs" list.
I don't know how one stinking indicator can get people so worked up, but apparently it has this morning. SELL, SELL, SELL!!! Wimps.
I made a whole .03% today. I'll take it. This has been a pretty good week. I've been able to recover about half of my losses since the downturn in July. Stocks are starting to click like they used to. Even if things continue to meander like they have the past couple of weeks, I think there are still opportunities to capture quick moves. Just be nimble and not too greedy.
One of my favorite stock blogs used to be Solitaire Trader. He hasn't posted for about a year, but when a stock made more than 10% in a day for him, he did a "Snoopy Dance". I had a Snoopy Dance stock yesterday SILC.
One thing that makes me all giddy inside is when the market has a sucky day and I make a few bucks. It doesn't have to be much. Even one buck is OK. All right, even if I LOSE LESS money than the market as a whole, I'm happy.
Today I made .48%. I'm doing my Chewbaca Howl. ARRUURRAGUH!!!
I debated about going all in today and I haven't had much time to monitor things, but I'm pretty happy with my decision making so far. The portfolio was up 2.81%.
I've got myself spread out a little more than usual. I own 10 stocks when my average is 5. With things as volatile as they have been, I figured it might behoove me to broaden my stops a bit. Wider stops might have helped me in August (see my previous post for some reasoning).
I'm checking out another stock service this month. As I learn more and become more comfortable with my style of trading, I like to go back and review things that have piqued my curiosity in the past. I'll let you know about my experience in more detail next month.
I was quite surprised when I went over the Zweig screen for August. I base a lot of my trading on that screen and I figured it would have taken it on the chin during the month of August. On the contrary, it made 5.27%. Buying all the stocks you see in the chart on the first day of August and holding them through today would have beat me by 20% this month. That makes me question my tactics a little bit.
A couple of stocks caught me by surprise this month. I didn't have BW on my watch list this whole month and it was the best performer in the screen. I also ignored HRS and jumped out of VMI too soon.
I'm not sure if this month was an just a fluke, but I'm sure there is some further analysis that I can do to figure out what went wrong.
I debated for several months whether or not to include any advertising on my site. Some stock bloggers I admire refuse to allow outside advertising (The Kirk Report) and some layer them on pretty thick.
I planned to take the high road like Charles Kirk until I read an article in last month's Fast Company magazine about a 17-year-old girl who started a web site that offered cute templates for MySpace accounts for free. She included Adsense advertisements and this year cleared ONE MILLION DOLLARS (you have to say it like the evil guy in Austin Powers). Holy Toledo!
So, I jumped on the band wagon this August and --you may want to sit down for this--I made THREE DOLLARS AND EIGHTY ONE CENTS (you can turn off your evil guy voice for that one). So tonight I'm treating myself to some Taco Bell (I probably won't be able to get a drink--just water please).
To put it bluntly, my trading in August sucked. Fortunately, the market as a whole sucked as well so I don't feel too awful about my performance. Judging from a perusal of other blogs, sites, and newsletters, August was tough for everyone.
For the most part, I stuck to my trading plan in August. I didn't lose more than 1% of my portfolio on any one trade. Unfortunately, I had several losing trades in a row so I ended up down around 10% for the month.
Like I've mentioned before, I've dramatically changed the amount of risk on each trade. Last year I often was fully invested in one or two stocks with wide stops. A struggling market made HUGE dents in my portfolio that were hard to recover from. I'm not seeing HUGE advances either, but I'll take a less volatile approach over insanity any time.
I've been taking a closer look at technical analysis since this downturn began. I've been a fundamental guy for years and frankly technical analysis never seemed to work for me. But during the past month I've seen some advantages to using TA when my stocks with strong fundamentals began sucking wind. It would have been prudent to look over some charts before I blindly jumped back in (and consequently got my clock cleaned).
I'm counting on a strong finish to the year and my goal is to recover my losses and be ahead by more than 43% by December 31st. I've got my work cut out for me, but with every passing month (and day) I learn something new.
I had myself convinced that I should stay out of the market today and let sleeping dogs lie until Tuesday. But the premarket and overnight trading in Asia have got me all worked up. Do I sit this one out and potentially miss out on some decent gains or do I take a risk and jump in for some short term action. Hmmmmm.
Early on the market tanked and then roared back and then tanked again and ended up down a bit. If you've got a handle on this action, pat yourself on the back. I'm hoping that September will make more sense, but historically it has been a volatile month. I'm too impatient to wait a whole month (I'm doing good if I wait a couple of days) so I plan to regroup this weekend and try my luck again on Tuesday (you know you're a trader when you look forward to Mondays and you're disappointed if Monday is a holiday).
Value Blog Review has set up a best of the stock blogs list where folks can vote. I thought I would be bumped off the list pretty rapidly, but some how StockPunk remains in the top 20. Thanks to those of you who have voted. It makes me feel all tingly inside.
I've mentioned The Prudent Speculator in previous posts. Hulbert Financial Digest reports that TPS has averaged a 20% return for the last 20 years. That's the best performance that any newsletter advisory has been able to put together according to Hulbert. If your portfolio is doing better than thier's then you should probably quit whining.
Here is an article from the authors of The Prudent Speculator that kind of "qualifies" the recent market action. It's good to listen to some voices of reason during confusing times in the market.
I wasn't expecting that. I finally convince myself that after a big losing day where several of my stops trigger it isn't prudent to get all worked up and jump back in. Then Bernanke makes it all better and everybody jumps back in while I'm left holding a bunch of unsettled funds. Oh well, it was just one day. But I'm getting really tired of these "one days" that make no sense.
Last week's gains are but a memory. Where do we go from here? I wish I knew. There are still folks out there saying a huge rally is building up. I hope so.
Today my portfolio was down 3.10% -- its worst showing since June. It has been very difficult for me to figure this one out, but I've learned that there are some bloggers out there who have devised some valuable indicators.
Stockbee has been cautioning his readers since the decline started and has implored traders to stay out until after Labor Day. I thought he was being a bit extreme, but now he seems quite reasonable.
Whatever happens, I hope to learn from this. I hope you do as well. Stay encouraged. People have been making money in the markets for hundreds of years. This last month doesn't mean a thing.
The market kind of churned all day with nothing really notable. Every one of my picks was down today. My portfolio was down 1.18%.
I didn't see anything concerning today so I'll just keep following the program I guess.
There are a few changes in my screens, but after a pretty good week, I'm hesitant to mechanically dump stocks that no longer appear on my screens. I'm holding on to last week's winners and dumping the poor performers that no longer appear on the screens.
I'm hoping that things continue positively this week, but there is still a lot of uncertainty out there. Have a good week!!
It looks like the majority of StockPunk readers use stock screens to pick their stocks. The next highest choice was doing your own research followed by stock blogs.
Personally, I find stock screening the best way to go for finding my picks. I've tried using my own research, but I've found that my emotions and flawed logic always get in the way. I make assumptions that influence my decisions based on what they company does, trends, economic influences, etc. All that stuff just gets me confused and I end up holding on to losers too long.
Stock screens keep the emotion out of my decision making. If I'm doing what I'm supposed to based on my strategy, there is no reason to be upset about stocks plunging.
I am obsessed with looking over performances of newsletters, blog writers, and indexes and I on Friday it makes me giddy to compare my performance with the "big boys". Two of the newsletters that I check each week are The Stock Superstars Report and The Prudent Speculator. There are very few advisory services that are bold enough to post their returns each week, and both of these services do.
You'll notice that despite the brilliance of the managers of these services (I am not being sarcastic--those guys are SMART) both of them are struggling this year. Neither one of them is outperforming the market by much.
So don't be discouraged if you're struggling as well. This market isn't making things easy for anybody.
"We've long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good. Even now, Charlie and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children." Warren Buffett
I always insist that I have no idea where the market is headed at any given time. Great investors seem to say the same thing. Does that make me a great investor? Probably not.
Although I got beat by most of my stock screens, I still ended up having a positive week this week. The portfolio was up 5.22%. Another week like that and I'll be back to where I was a month ago.
I stayed pretty unemotional throughout the week. I barely even monitored things today. It was a pleasant surprise when I looked over things after the close. I wasn't quite sure where I would end up at the end of the week.
I have no idea where things are headed, and there are a lot of folks out there that are still very concerned, but I'm feeling better about keeping my money active.
I made a mistake with a trailing stop I set today, but otherwise I stuck to the program. I was down 1.35% today.
I was hoping the jump at the open would continue throughout the day but no such luck. Things still look pretty solid if you ask me so I'm planning on sticking with things until I get some bad feelings about where things are headed.
It's been a month and a half since I've made over 2% in a day. Today I was up nearly 3%. Man, that felt like more like 6 months than 2.
Things are starting to click again, and it looks like the market is getting its legs back after a good punch in the nozzle. There is still a lot of uncertainty and confusion out there, but we are starting to see a lot more stability.
Another OK day today. I made some money again. Things continue to feel "right" and I'm nearly fully invested right now. The market still seems a bit skitterish but I haven't noticed any gut-wrenching swings that were common the last few weeks.
For the first time since July 27th, I made some money. That's almost one whole sucky month. It wasn't much, but it felt good to finally make some decisions that weren't to my detriment.
I have a better feeling about the market. It feels more like it did before the dark times. We'll see.
I'm planning on putting some money to work this week. My gut tells me that the worst is behind us for a while, but then again, what do I know. Every stock on my screens is a bit beat up, so hopefully over the next few weeks they'll recover a bit.
Looking back over the last four weeks, I think my lack of patience is what hurt me. I got a little too cocky about being up 43% and doing well during the first week of the downturn. The second week bumped me out of all of my stocks, but I was so hurried to get back in and catch the bounce that I got my clock cleaned on several buys.
I did the same thing in March when the market corrected a bit. I jumped in the next day after the big drop thinking that I was going to capitalize on a bounce back up. I got burned badly that time too (but apparently not bad enough that it taught me a lesson).
I think it would be good to take a longer break after my stops trigger. The market isn't going anywhere, and it will welcome me back after sitting out a few weeks.
Thanks to those of you who voted in the StockPunk Poll last week. There were no big revelations. Some of us have lost a lot and some haven't during the last few weeks. Congratulations to the 15% of you who have made money in the last month.
If anybody would like to write in and share with StockPunk readers how you made money or some of the mistakes you made (like me) please do. Just e-mail me your story and I pick some good ones to post to the blog.
The last few weeks have been tough for me. It has seemed like every move I make has been the wrong one. I felt pretty confident at the beginning of this week that things were changing for the better and they ended up getting awful by Thursday. Then things seemed to turn around and I felt that I could put a bit of cash to work this morning. Unbelievably, I lost more money today--1.57%. I can't seem to make money even when the market does.
For the week, I lost 5.87%.
I haven't been as excited about receiving my finance magazines lately. A few of them are starting to bore me. I guess there are just so many ways that you can say "Stay out of debt and own stuff."
There's a good article (with reviews) about the personal finance magazines that I subscribe to at Get Rich Slowly. Take a gander.
Even members of Charles Kirk's Kirk Report have been getting dribbles of information during his vacation. He's off hiking with his wife somewhere in Minnesota while the market roils. Can't he use his trusty Blackberry to help us through this time of trouble?
I hate it when he goes on vacation. I feel like I need a voice of reason when the market sucks. I obsessively click on his RSS feed only to see "Forced Selling=Opportunities" over and over.
Help us Charles Kirk, you're our only hope.
I felt reassured as stops triggered on the way down. WOW! It was ugly. And then things turned around. I had a couple of buy stops that I canceled amidst the carnage. They were down 5%. Of course the ended up +15%.
I had two sell stops trigger and they came roaring back as well.
Pradeep said things would bounce soon, but nobody really knows if this is the end of the stinky market, or just a short stop on the way down. I know I sure don't.
I was pretty confident that I would stay out of things tomorrow, but now I'm not so sure. What's wrong with me?
It's times like these that separate out people who beat the market and those who don't. Wimpy traders will be disheartened by several frustrating weeks and quit--possibly forever. They often jump to another strategy that continues to lose money and they grow even more frustrated. It's easy to do, but it is one of the worst things you can do.
The thoughts are difficult to stop. I know that over the long term, my strategy blows away the market. Even though I know that, these last few weeks have shaken my confidence a bit. We tend to have built-in biases that emphasize the downturns and obsess over losses. It's all part of trading, and the sooner you're able to handle a loss with the same emotions that you handle a gain the better off you'll be.
I've learned a ton during the last few weeks. Hopefully, I'll be able to use what I've learned and become a better trader in the future.
I have not had this many consecutive losses in years. This is the worst my screens have ever done. Today I was down another 1.57%. I have not had a positive day since August 2nd. Things look kind of bleak.
On the bright side, I'm still up over 25% while the S&P has just gone negative for the year. I couldn't have achieved that if I hadn't managed risk during the last 4 weeks. So I see that as a positive change in my trading.
I have never traded in a market like this and it has thrown me for quite a loop. I was pretty sure things would recover this week, and so far I've been quite wrong. All I can say to everybody is hang in there. If things do recover, there might be some amazing opportunities out there.
I made a decision to put some money to work on Monday. I should have waited, but I was feeling pretty good about the immediate future and I think my decision was sound. Things just haven't panned out the way I had thought they would yet.
I lost 1.80% today and .50% yesterday. I can't remember the last time I was on this kind of losing streak. As long as I am following my plan, there's no reason to freak and feel bad about my performance. No one has this thing figured out despite the many claims to the contrary. Losing money is all part of the game and the best traders are the ones who don't let it get to them.
I like to track the performance of other folks to benchmark mine. Two newsletters that I look at every week are StockSuperstars and The Prudent Speculator. They both post their YTD performance and it is my goal each week to stay ahead of them.
There are bright guys and gals managing these portfolios, so if you're keeping up with them you should give yourself a pat on the back. Both of them are struggling right now, so it gives me a good indication that things are tough all over right now.
I look to a few guys for their take on what's happening each day. Both Charles Kirk and Pradeep Bonde are on vacation now and their posting has been erratic. It makes me realize how much I read their stuff every day.
I have no idea what Monday will bring. Stocks in my new screens did really well on Friday, but in this market, there's no guarantee that things will continue positively. I'm ready to get back in, but I'm holding out for some strong performances. I've got 7 stocks ready to go. I'm waiting to see if each one continues to show strength. I have price targets set on each and if they blow through those, I'll buy.
There's still a chance that I'll get slapped around like I did the last two weeks, but I'm seeing some strength in some of the momentum stocks that got beat up over the last few weeks. I'm willing to take a bit more risk now.
I've noticed over the last three years (I know that's not a lot of time) that two to three awful weeks with my screens often are followed by a few really good weeks. We'll see what this week hold for all of us. Good trading everybody!
What a ride. This was a frustrating week for me. EVERYTHING that I tried failed miserably. I'm all cash going in to this weekend. I lost 3.17% this week despite barely trading at all.
I almost wish things would have been worse today. I could use some confirmation that I'm doing the smartest thing by staying on the sidelines. There were several of my watchlist stocks making 5% or more today and that bothered me a bit. That makes Monday difficult to judge.
I'm not convinced we're out of the woods yet. My best bet is to take next week off and re-evaluate things next weekend. We'll see if I can hold out that long.
Despite the general market's slide, several of my watch list stocks are showing some pizazz this morning. What I need to learn, however, is that one day doesn't mean much. My lack of patience has caused me to lose too much over the last couple of weeks.
If you read the blogs of successful traders (ie Charles Kirk, Pradeep Bonde) you'll see that they aren't stressed about not being in the market. They barely batted an eye during the huge gains at the beginning of the week. They're just waiting for things to turn around. There is no hurry to get back into this thing.
Don't ask me how, but StockPunk got a tiny, insignificant, blink-and-you-miss-it mention in an article in the Wall Street Journal online. Laugh if you will, but I thought that was pretty cool. Here's the link. Look for it in the "Related Articles and Blogs" section at the bottom of the page.
Well, that was sure ugly. I finally have a day that legitimizes some of my decision making. I had one stock left this morning, and it's gone now. Down .50%. I still haven't gotten things figured out.
I almost jumped back in this morning. There were quite a few indicators that things were looking much better. It didn't take much to get the market all skittered. My screens are doing horribly with several stocks losing over 10% so far this week. VSEC was down 20% today and that was my most interesting candidate.
This is the first time since I started trading back in 2003 that my performance is beating most of my screens. Usually the dumb screens make me look foolish for trying to manage them. These last few weeks have ingrained in my brain the importance of risk management.
I hope everybody out there is using this craziness as a learning tool. I learn the most when thing are working against me. It's good to reevaluate and think through your trading philosophies. Don't be discouraged by this (unless you've lost everything). There are plenty of opportunities coming our way. Take a break and enjoy life and let the market take care of itself.
I'm sorry to say that I have been unable to capitalize on this mini-rally that's taken place this week. Today I lost another .36%. My watch list continues to show wide swings with some stocks up 5% and some down 5%. I haven't been able to get a handle on what direction to take so I'm trying to be more of an observer than a participant.
STMX was down over 30% at the market open today and never recovered. Ouch. I'm glad I didn't own any of that one.
I'll be interested to see how my screens change this weekend. This has been kind of a wacky week, and if we're headed back up, I hope I can catch a piece.
I'm keeping a close eye on Stockbee because he's got some interesting indicators that he uses to tell him when to fold and when to hold. Today he's saying that things are looking more positive.
I'm mostly in cash and the market has had two positive days in a row and I'm STILL losing money. Today I was down .14%.
A few stocks on my watch list had OK days today, but I'm still not seeing the type of gains that would indicate to me that I should jump back in. It's a lot easier to watch the market swing when you're standing on the sidelines, but to be honest, I'd prefer it to stay down when I don't own many stocks.
Charles Kirk wrote about the market's uncanny ability to read your mind and make you look like an idiot. That's what happened to me today. Despite a huge bounce today, my portfolio took a beating. It seemed like I got outfoxed at every turn. I was down 2.17% today.
Somebody made this comment on my post earlier today:
Do you really judge your trading by what happens within a few hours of putting on a trade? Reread Faith's section on outcome bias in his book.
My answer: No, I don't usually judge my trading that way. But when I trade for the wrong reasons (like worrying that I'm going to miss out on a big rally for example) I make major mistakes. That's what happened this morning. I saw a couple of stocks holding their own amidst the carnage of my watch list. I had planned to stay away from things and let them settle down a bit before trading again. Instead, I made some knee-jerk buys at their absolute highs and watched them quickly crumble. I even stopped out of one of them on a day the DOW rose 287 points. The problem wasn't with the trades I made. The problem was with the reason I made them.
My emotions suck. Despite all of my ranting about taking time, being patient, waiting for the right opportunity, I jump back in on a couple of stocks from my screens that seem to be bucking the trend. They both shot ahead over 5% in the early going as the market itself looked like it was going to have a pretty good day.
They held up when things very quickly went south. I'm a genius in ANY market I told myself. I then watched them plummet.
The day is far from over, but I wish that I would have taken my own advice and quit being so desperate to recover a little loss. I know better.
A few of you have directed me to the video of Jim Cramer's rant on the Federal Reserve's blindness to the struggles of the current market. CNBC has since posted a clarification of his comments on their website here.
I think people took his emotionalism a little too seriously. In his second interview he presented his case a little more rationally.
Although I'm not sure if this is the time to be buying stocks, I don't think that we need to blindly sell all of our holdings either. It won't be more than a few weeks (maybe months--who knows?) until our screens are "working" again and we're back to making money.
Let me stress again the importance of managing your trades. Despite my disappointment in some of my trading decisions, I've only lost 2.5% in the last two weeks. No big deal. The world is not over.
The advantage we have as individual traders is that we don't have to go with the flow. We can maneuver in and out the market pretty much at will. So use that huge advantage to make the most of these uncertain times.
More stocks are showing up on my screens as the market struggles. That's usually a good sign. However, after getting knocked around last week, I'm very hesitant to jump back in this week. We'll have to see how things play out. It's harder right now to determine whether a bounce back up is going to last, or if we're in a losing trend for a while longer.
There are a lot of folks screaming out there about losing 20% or more over the last couple of weeks. That's probably what would have happened to me a while back. Controlling your position sizes and the risk of each trade is EXTREMELY important during times like these. When the market is pushing ahead as a whole, it's easy to think you've got things figured out and that you don't need to protect yourself from risk. There is a lot of uncertainty out there right now and thinking that you know what's going to happen is a sure recipe for disaster.
VSEC has appeared back on my screens this week. It lost 9% last week, and looked like it was recovering until Friday. I'll keep my eye on it.
SMTX still shows up on my "To The Moon" screen despite losing 50% since I sold it in mid-July. I'm starting to see why mechanical investing can create problems for a trader.
It should be a very interesting week this week. I still have a couple of positions open that I'm sorry that I took last week. They are very close to triggering their stops so we'll see if the portfolio is all cash by the end of the week.
I guess if this was a stellar week and the bulls had come roaring back, I would have been upset that I had stayed out of the market and would have been cursing my timidity. Instead, I jumped back in on Monday and Tuesday based on my emotions and very little data and now I'm cursing my lack of patience.
Luckily, I had to wait for a portion of my portfolio to settle for three days so I didn't cause as much of a disaster as I could have. I would have been wise to follow the advice of Stockbee (and other intelligent traders) who called this week pretty accurately.
For the week, my portfolio lost 5.44%.
There's not much good that can be said for this week's insanity. Today was just plain ugly. My portfolio was down 1.54%.
Over at Value Blog Review he's posted a list of the Best Stock Blogs. StockPunk is number 11 right now. I'm guessing the thing is broken or something.
I just got done reading Way of the Turtle: The Secret Methods that Turned Ordinary People into Legendary Traders. It was interesting, but to be honest, any time someone writes about trading coffee futures my eyes glaze over. There wasn't a lot of meat in the book for somebody looking for interesting takes on the market or looking for better ways to trade.
A book I liked better that I read recently is Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom. There seemed to be quite a bit of information that I found very useful. I went back and read several parts two or three times and I don't do that very often with books I read.
Today I was up a little bit .19%. I haven't been able to figure this thing out yet. A few of you are ticked off because I appear to be "market timing", and I've whined about how that hasn't worked in the past. But it's so dang hard emotionally to stay on the sidelines. I'll discuss my internal struggles more this weekend.
The market has not been nice to me. Who can figure this thing out lately? It came roaring back late today but my portfolio barely noticed. I almost wish the market would just keep falling so that I could be sure I made a mistake by getting back in.
Today I was down again, 1.62%.
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