Wave Chasing

and what a total suckass quarter it was. Various and sundry trading & investment accounts down 3.22%, for an annualized return of -12.88%. Um, not so hot.

At Q4 will be starting off with 2.66% of dividends waiting to hit.

Q/Flat %/Annualized:

Q1: +.62%, 2.48%
Q2: +7.03%, 28.13%
Q3: -3.22%, -12.88%
Q4TD: 2.66%, 10.65%

YTD: 7.33%, 9.77% – Not quite beating the street, but close – the next quarter will change that.

For Comparison – SPY (Flat/Annualized):
Q1: 0.67%, 2.66%
Q2: 6.40%, 25.58%
Q3: 1.91%, 7.64%
YTD: 9.15%, 12.20%

Not in my port, at least. Even with end of month and end of quarter, volume was off and trading uninspired. And then Poole had to go and mouth off and we took a nice little tank at the end of the day.

At least it gives me something to come back from in Q4…

Overall, September was still a damn good month, which sure was nice after July and August. Hitting 74% of targets is fine in my book.

Have a wonderful weekend and here’s to getting Q4 off to a great start on Monday and a quarter where I can stop trading in mid-December. :)

Opened:
[a] IMCL

Month to Date:
Main trading port: -2.46%
Retirement port: 1.79%
Brokerage: 4.08%
BBE Overall: 3.04%
% of Trading Targets reached: 74.83%
I’m fucked ratio: 3.3 to 7.6
Long to Cash %s: 92.62% to 7.38%

YTD Pick Service (includes unrealized losses, not unrealized gains)
Dividend Plays: +.66% per trade, average hold of 3 days, 65% annualized, 46 trades
GTrades: +.73% per trade, average hold of 11 days, 16% annualized, 122 trades
AAP: +.81% per trade, average hold of 10 days, 20% annualized, 15 trades
Stockpickr 3×2: +.57% per trade, average hold of 4 days, 40% annualized, 11 trades

~~~
[a] Stockpickr 3×2

I’ve been thinking about how I’ve been setting my targets and measuring my progress. At the moment, it’s based on YTD results and basically I’m attempting to “make up” for prior bad months. This makes me wonder if I am overreaching on some of my targets. This is the first full year I’ve been trading, and yes, I’ve made some errors along the way, but with each error, I get better.

The timing of these musings is a good one – given that we’re right at quarter end, I think that for Q4 I am going to base my targets on the Q4 performance only and leave the first 3 quarters behind. It wouldn’t be that I am just sweeping those results under the rug, just more staying in the present so to speak. So, if I’m shooting for a 30% annualized return, I’m not going to muck around with trying to make up for Q1-3, just shoot for a 30% annualized return in Q4. And if I hit it and/or go above it, trading ceases.

Had I used this strategy all year, I probably would have missed out on a lot of the July pain.

I’ll still be doing the pick service report card on YTD numbers, cause that spreadsheet hooks into another calculation, and I don’t want to have to reinvent the wheel on that one. It will only require a few minor adjustments in my main calculations. I think this could work better for me on many fronts. So, I guess I have my project for the weekend getting all everything switched over to QTD calculations. Nice that Q3 ended on a Friday, isn’t it?

I’d also considered only working on a MTD basis, but that seems too narrow. I realize the daily postings show MTD progress, but those are just “how things have changed over the course of the month” and do not factor into how my targets are calculated – this change will be on how I calculate my targets and if/when I stop trading for the quarter, as well as for comparisons against my broker & SPY on a QTD basis. Also, average hold times will be based on QTD trades, not on YTD, which is important as my hold strategy has changed over time and I don’t feel that it is fully being taken into account.

The only wrench I see getting thrown into things this quarter is the sale of my townhouse. That influx of cash is going to push down my returns, but there are much worse reasons to have returns go south.

And hopefully we’ll have a big honkin’ up day to start off the new quarter.

ETA:  And yes, there is the mental aspect of starting off with a clean slate quarterly vs annually that has a lot of appeal.

Can’t really complain since the month as a whole has been so good.

Closed:
[a] THO, +1.01%, held 4 days
[b] DCP, +1.32%, held overnight

Opened:
Gtrades pick

Month to Date:
Main trading port: -0.20%
Retirement port: 1.88%
Brokerage: 4.17%
BBE Overall: 3.47%
% of Trading Targets reached: 84.13%
I’m fucked ratio: 2.8 to 8.2
Long to Cash %s: 83.02% to 16.98%

~~~
[a] Dividend plays
[b] GTrades

GM and the UAW kissed and made up, consumer numbers kinda sucked, and Warren Buffet may be taking a 20% stake in Bear Sterns.

In other words, rangebound again.

Closed:
[a] AHR +1.31%, held overnight
[a] GHS +1.62%, held overnight
[a] CRZ +1.03%, held overnight
[a] RSO +1.02%, held overnight
[b] AXCA +1.04%, held 3 days

Opened:
2 GTrades picks
[a] NCT

Month to Date:
Main trading port: 2.97%
Retirement port: 1.87%
Brokerage: 3.38%
BBE Overall: 3.53%
% of Trading Targets reached: 84.86%
I’m fucked ratio: 2.3 to 8.9
Long to Cash %s: 93.30% to 6.70%

~~~~
[a] Dividend plays
[b] GTrades

But I have a contract on my townhouse!!!

Opened:
[a] RSO, JRT, CRZ, GHT, AHR

Closed:
[a] ACAS., +.25%, held 16 days. This one had poorly-received news the day it went ex-div and recovery has not been quick – just wanted to get out once I was ahead again.
[b] PAY, +2.6%, held 10 days – nice pin action of the Vonage lawsuit today
[b] WFR. +3.54%, in/out today

Month to Date:
Main trading port: 5.19%
Retirement port: 1.65%
Brokerage: 2.71%
BBE Overall: 3.56%
% of Trading Targets reached: 81.41%
I’m fucked ratio: 2.1 to 9.7
Long to Cash %s: 105.65% to -5.65%

~~~
[a] Dividend plays
[b] GTrades

OK, I’ve decided not to continue with ChannelingStocks.com. Though I’ve made a couple trades off of them that did well (+1.32% average w/a 2 day hold), I just don’t really need to be paying for another service and it’s not adding enough value for me for the extra time it requires. Nothing wrong with the service, I’m just doing well enough off the other services/methods I use.

But, here’s where the rest stand:
Dividend plays: +.82%, 2 day average, 92.25% annualized
GTrades: +.74%, 12 day average, +16.01% annualized
AAP: +.81%, 3 day average, 20.56% annualized
Stockpickr 3×2: .65%, 4 day average, 46.26% annualized

Don’t see the need to add more to the mix.

Seriously, I was bored out of my skull today with the market action. Main port up, retirement port up, brokerage off fractionally.

Have FIFTEEN potential dividend plays tomorrow. Of course, I do not have enough cash for fifteen plays.

Good news – I may have an offer on the townhouse.

Closed:
[a] TY, +2.08%, held 13 days

Opened:
[a] THO, GCT
GTrades pick

Month to Date:
Main trading port: 0.00%
Retirement port: 2.16%
Brokerage: 2.70%
BBE Overall: 2.28%
% of Trading Targets reached: 64.43%
I’m fucked ratio: 2.9 to 7.9
Long to Cash %s: 83.05% to 16.95%

~~~
[a] Dividend plays

Rangebound and a damn boring day overall. Two dividend plays on tap for Monday.

Opened:
GTrades pick

Month to Date:
Main trading port: -0.93%
Retirement port: 1.84%
Brokerage: 2.86%
BBE Overall: 2.57%
% of Trading Targets reached: 51.69%
I’m fucked ratio: 3.2 to 7.1
Long to Cash %s: 68.85% to 31.15%

Fairly quiet and drifty day – not surprising given the last two crazy good days. Have had a lot of good trades close in the past 3 days, so I’m cash heavy, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I like being fully in the market. Have one GTrades potential pick for tomorrow, and waiting to see if the 3×2 screen has any potential trades out there for tomorrow. CS came out with their new list this evening and I’m going through that as well to see what might work for me. Sadly, no new dividend plays on tap.

Closed:
[a] STP, +1.01%, held overnight
[a] HLF, +2.21%, held 8 days
[b] BRT, +1.19%, held overnight

Opened:
GTrades pick

Main trading port: -0.53%
Retirement port: 1.98%
Brokerage: 2.41%
BBE Overall: 3.06%
% of Trading Targets reached: 49.11%
I’m fucked ratio: 3.2 to 7.1
Long to Cash %s: 59.51% to 40.49%

~~~
[a] GTrades
[b] Dividend plays