Month in Review -- April 2008

I'm learning that every time I have a terrific day (or week) and I get a bit too cocky, the market ALWAYS kicks my buttocks and makes me re-think everything. Once again, the pattern continues. I was euphoric about my best day ever on April 16th, and then I managed to allow the market to siphon off 6% by the end of the month.

I still managed to meet my goal of making 4 times my risk this month. That is my new measure of progress since percentage gains really doesn't reflect the accomplishment of my trading system. I was up around 10 times my risk a few weeks ago, so once again, the market humbles me. Maybe one of these days I'll be able to keep my gains. Probably not.

For the month of April, the screens looked like this:

To the Moon: 5.39%
Zweig MACD: 10.79%
Zweig and Zacks #1: 10.63%
Zweig Relative Strength 5: 12.9%

My returns for the month were 9.68%.

Month In Review

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.

Month In Review--April 2007

The month of April wasn't too shabby, but with the gains of the market as a whole, I should have expected to do OK. The portfolio made 7.02% this month. That was OK compared to my different screening approaches. Here are the results of four approaches I'm monitoring right now. Each combines the Zweig screen with a "qualifier".

• Zacks #1 stocks--4.08%
• The 5 highest in Relative Strength--14.16%
• The 5 highest in ReturnGrades--8.47%
• Zweig alone (buy & hold for the month)--5.95%

The highest Relative Strength stocks tend to perform very well in bull markets like this one. Since October 2006, the Relative Strength Approach is up 73%. The Zacks #1 stocks are up 38.56% for the same period.

I've beat a couple of my yearly goals so far, so I hope things continue. I wanted to make over 20% this year, so if I can hold on to things for the remaining 8 months, I'll be able to check that off. It looks like I'm on my way to another +60% year, but I'm not going to count my chickens just yet. There's at least one guy saying that everything in the whole world is in a bubble right now. I wish I was smart enough to know. I'm just plugging away with what I do know and we'll see how that turns out.