I wish the month had ended on June 18th. I was up over 9% for June on that day. Unfortunately, I ended the month with only a 2.8% return. I guess it's better than losing.
This was a rough week for me. I ended up down 3.20%. My worst screen lost 4.82% (Punk's Zweig RS 5) and the best made .82% (To The Moon). You can probably look at my returns and tell which screen I'm focusing on lately. VSEC rallied a bit today which tempered my losses, and I avoided buying SYNL on Monday (thank goodness).
I'm glad the week is over and we'll see if I've got some new prospects for this next week.
Pradeep has a good post about trading goals. He's right. I've spent time finding the "perfect way to trade" and never have. During that time, I've passed up opportunities to make a lot of money. There have been times when I talked myself out of some trading rules because I thought, "This can't possibly work. It's too easy. If it worked everybody would be doing it."
I've shown my Dad the way I trade and the returns I've made. He's not interested and skeptical. He always asks, "If it's as easy and lucrative as you say it is, why isn't everybody doing it?" I think the answer to his question is that it's NOT easy. Until you've been doing it a while, it is incredibly hard to handle the ebb and flow of the market. Every loss punches you in the gut. You feel like you are being irresponsible--like you don't know what you are doing--like you're gambling away your hard-earned money.
There are ways for individual traders to take advantage of the market. If you find something that works (and anything that beats the market works) then stick with it. Don't chase after the newest idea, newsletter, hot stock or whatever. Have confidence in your system and make some money.
I've been getting hammered this last week. Last year I would have been sick to my stomach (and I was because I got hammered last summer too). This year, I've been able to look at things differently. There are a lot of people that are focused on the minute to minute fluctuations of the market (I am too--way too often). But when I am able to step back and look at the big picture, crummy weeks don't look so bad.
Charles Kirk linked to a good article about persistence. I'm learning that persistence is the key to making money in the stock market. When I dump a screen because it has lagged in performance for a month, I invariably end up losing more than I would have if I had just stuck with it for the long term.
If you look at my performance in 2005, you can see the result of constantly jumping from idea to idea, chasing good performing screens and dumping screens that were having bad weeks or months. In 2005, one of my screens made nearly 1,000%. I followed that screen for a few weeks and it tanked miserably during that time. I bailed and the screen went on to go nuts the rest of the year. I was petrified to jump back in because of the loss in that short period of time. My fear (and stupidity) kept me from doing well.
So, if you're having a tough couple of weeks like me, hang in there. Persistence pays off.
Ouch! I've lost 6.33% since last Monday when the portfolio gained 4.48%. It always seems like a losing streak comes right after a good week or two.
Today the portfolio lost 2.09%. That was worse than any of my screens because of my decision to weight VSEC more heavily.
Here's an old Motley Fool article about mechanical investing that I enjoyed reading recently.
Not the best day to reveal my stock screens. The "To The Moon" screen was the only screen to make money today thanks to SMTX. I bought some this morning, but not enough to keep my portfolio out of the hole. I was down a bit over 1%.
That was quite a reversal. I looked at lunch time and I was up about a percent. I ate a sandwich and looked again and I was down a percent.
Many StockPunk visitors have shown interest in the way I screen and how I trade stocks. I was a bit hesitant at first to reveal exactly what I was doing because of the irrational fear that if I revealed how I did things that it would stop working. That's silly. The market is too large and too complex to work that way.
I wouldn't be able to trade the way I do without what I've learned from others. Most of what I have learned has been from others sharing their wisdom for free. I think the constant sharing of information is what makes the internet an incredibly powerful tool.
Each week I will post my screens for the week along with their YTD returns and the compounded returns since I began tracking the screen. The results are from my own calculations of screens that I've followed on a weekly basis since 2005.
Since I don't have much time for analysis and I get distracted easily when I have a large list of stocks to look over, I concentrate on just a few stocks each week. My main focus has always been the Zweig screen that AAII has been tracking since 1998. My goal continues to be to use my own ideas to experiment with the Zweig screen to create my own screening technique that beats the basic screen. My goal has also been to limit my portfolio to between 5 and 10 stocks so that I can easily track and research each stock with the limited time I have.
I think it will be helpful to show the weekly fluctuations of the screens to give everybody an idea of what they could expect from their own small portfolio of stocks.
Many of you have expressed a great deal of interest in my use of Zack's Research Wizard as well. I've developed my own screens with RW as well and will post those screens on a weekly basis. The results of those screens are from backtesting and the verdict is still out on how accurate Research Wizard is in its backtesting algorithms.
Changes to the screens will be posted on Monday morning before the market opens.
A good Monday kept me from having a crummy week. I ended up for the week by 1.27%. I think I'm learning to keep my emotions in check. I feel I handled this week pretty well. SYNL went on to loose more today and I avoided an emotional buy in the morning.
I've learned that it is best to set up rules that I don't break. It's when I break rules that I
become emotional and stupid. For example, this week with SYNL I set up a rule that if it lost more than 2% of my total portfolio value that I would sell. I set up a trailing stop because SYNL had been really strong the week before and I wanted to make sure that major weakness would get me out of the stock. After a few weak days, SYNL plummeted hard on Thursday. Today it continued downward and I was happy to be on the sidelines.
I'm back home now and should have more time to post this weekend. My plan for next week is to start sharing some of my best screens on a weekly basis. Instead of just a list of "Punky Stocks", I'll be letting you in on specific screens that I use and the stocks the currently qualify in those screens. I'll be posting the weekly gains or losses of each screen along with the cumulative return of the screen.
SYNL triggered a stop today when it dropped nearly 8%. It came back and ended up mocking me by losing only 2.85% at the close. I'm still a bit up for the week but I lost over 1% today. I'm hoping for a wimpy day tomorrow because I hate it when stops trigger and things rally the next day (which seems to happen to me 99% of the time).
At least I drug everyone down with me today. If you made money, I congratulate you. I lost about 1.5% today. I am still up for the week but another day like today will wipe out my gains for the week. This was the first day this week that I was able to monitor the market all day, and I've been reinforced to avoid doing that anymore (those of you who know me are chuckling under their breath).
This vacation has been good for me. I've read 3 books so far, and I've been able to get caught up in school. I have some assignments due tonight, so I'm dragging my feet--I'm on vacation dang it.
There was some profit-taking on the stocks that were screaming yesterday. No big deal -- the
portfolio was down .51%. I toured downtown Chicago with family and friends today and saw the new Millennium park -- pretty nice. I liked the shiny giant "bean" and the glass brick waterfalls with the animated faces were pretty cool as well. The Field Museum hasn't changed much since I was last there--1988.
I've finally worked my way into a position where the daily fluctuation's are bothering me less and less. It's nice to build up a bit of a buffer and let things work themselves out. Endurance really is one of the best attributes a trader can have.
I'm in Chicago and I found some bandwidth to steal. Thanks, kind neighbor. It was a good day for the portfolio--up 4.48%. I don't have my regular computer with me so I don't know how that fits in with my historical returns but I'm guessing that it is pretty good for one day. It was nice being unable to obsess over things as I sped down the Interstate.
On the way, I read a good book (my wife was driving) about alternative energy and the harm gasoline engines have done to people over the years. It's called Internal Combustion by Edwin Black.
My screens didn't vary much this week so I'm continuing with the portfolio the way it was last week. I'll be in Chicago all week this week, so I'm not sure how easy it will be to follow things. I'm staying with a friend who makes retro amplifiers and he has a terrific website http://www.gabtone.com/, but he has no internet access at his home, the crazy guy. So I'll have to see if any of his unsuspecting neighbors are willing to share their bandwidth. If they aren't, my posting will probably be pretty spotty next week. So to the both of you who read this blog, have a good trading week.
This was my best week in a long time--since May of 2006. The portfolio moved ahead 7.02%. I implemented more of a weighted strategy this week and it worked out well. My best screen made 3.48% and the worst made 2.32%.
Even though AZZ made an impressive comeback today, it ended up losing 10% for the week. My decision to keep AZZ out of my portfolio paid off well. My screens would have come closer to my performance if some of them hadn't included AZZ.
SYNL had a good week this week making 15.84%. As I said before, I weighted SYNL heavier in my portfolio and that paid off this week. I plan to continue to use this strategy in the coming weeks. It has proven itself in the past, but I've been working on ways to keep the risk level from being too extreme.
Another good day. I'd like to have one of these days when the market it drifting lower, but heck, I'll take it. The portfolio was up 3.09%. With the exception of Tuesday, this week has been exceptional. Today was my largest one day gain since February 8th.
I was helped by a big gain in SYNL which is my highest relative strength stock this week.
You'd have to be feeling pretty crunchy today if you didn't do well. Even though volume wasn't extreme there were a LOT of stocks making impressive gains today. My portfolio was up 2.41%. I'm starting to creep back after my thumping last week. If I can maintain a 20% return through July I'll be very happy.
A wild day. I lost all of yesterday's gains in the morning, came back to break even by lunch, and then ended up down .86% at the close.
I can chalk up my decision to NOT buy back AZZ as one of my better choices of the year. I know I was whining about how it gained 8% last Friday, but I made the right decision to stay out of it. I should label this post with "good decision" to help me keep better track of them. On the other hand, I average about two good decisions a year, so I guess I can kind of keep track on my own.
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