if the CEO of TheStreet.com reads his emails over the weekend.
If you’ve got a complaint, might as well take it straight to the top.
Hey, I sent two very nice emails to Stockpickr.com’s support email with absolutely no response whatsoever – where would you go next?
Considering how wild November turned out to be, I’d say ending the port damn near even isn’t too bad – SPY was down near 4%.
Looking forward to a new month – hopefully better than November! It would be nice to end the year on a really positive note. At the moment, it looks like we’ll be getting our rate cut on the 11th and steps are being taken to get this subprime nonsense under control once and for all. It will be an abbreviated trading month for me as I’ll be heading out west for 10 days – I’ll have internet access, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to do any trading at all – as I said before, I may be updating things at 2AM…
Have a great weekend and see you on Monday!
Closed:
[a] OSIP, +6.48%, held overnight
Opened:
GTrades pick
Month to Date:
My ports: -0.61%
Brokerage: -4.25%
BBE Overall: -2.32%
% of Trading Targets reached: -48.21%
I’m screwed ratio: 3.8 to 14.2
Long to Cash %s: 56.44% to 43.56%
~~~~
[a] GTrades
Just what we needed today – in my mind, this does confirm that the rally was in fact “real” and hopefully we’re not going to give back those 500+ points on the Dow tomorrow. Granted, this also depends on what Bernanke has to say this evening – some poorly chosen words and we could have one crappy morning tomorrow.
However, what *is* killing me right now is that I don’t feel like I am ever going to get an entry point on BRK.B, given that it hit another 52 week high today. The last time it was down 3 days in a row was over a month ago. In the past year, there have only been 23 entry points if you use a 3 down day signal, 81 if you only go with 2 days. May have to think about going the 2 day route just to save my sanity.
Big design changes over at the Stockpickr.com site – lots of confusion and craziness today, but I suppose things will shake out. The port tracker still blows chunks in my mind, but you can’t fix everything at once.
Opened:
2 GTrades picks
AAP pick
Closed:
[a] ABT, -4.73% in/out – bad news after hours, bailed cause I think the fallout will be much worse and I didn’t want to stick around and see it. I could be totally wrong, but that’s OK.
Month to Date:
My ports: -0.82%
Brokerage: -4.70%
BBE Overall: -2.55%
% of Trading Targets reached: -56.01%
I’m screwed ratio: 4.3 to 13.3
Long to Cash %s: 56.96% to 43.04%
I’ll admit I certainly did NOT expect things to shake out like this today, but I’m not going to argue! I really thought we’d have a pullback after yesterday’s rally. Of course, I also didn’t know the Fed was going to come out with words that seem to indicate that we’re going to get our December rate cut after all. I guess we can’t say we’re insanely oversold anymore – at least for now.
Tomorrow Bernanke speaks – may give us a nice buying opportunity since he tends to put his foot in his mouth and spook the markets every swingin’ time he talks.
But that is tomorrow, today I bask in the glow of a kickass rally.
Closed:
[a] XMSR, +3.01%, held 3 days
[b] HPQ, +2.91%, held 8 days
Opened:
GTrades pick
My ports: -0.74%
Brokerage: -4.81%
BBE Overall: -2.49%
% of Trading Targets reached: -55.65%
I’m screwed ratio: 4.2 to 13.7
Long to Cash %s: 42.94% to 57.06%
~~~~
[a] 3×2
[b] AAP
This is my very favorite Christmas shopping every year – Child’s Play – I can’t think of much that will make you feel more warm and fuzzy than knowing sick kids that are stuck in the hospital at Christmas will have some cool toys.
When I came into the funds that allowed me to work for myself, I decided that 1% of my net worth each year would go to charity. Today I finished off that amount at Amazon.com doing this shopping and yes, it’s selfish to say – it feels SO good!
Shocked the hell out of me, but we managed to actually hold the rally through to the close. Was looking a little shaky there in the afternoon when Citi announced they’re not going to put their SIV’s on the balance sheet, but it was like the market said, “Screw it, we knew that anyway, and didn’t realistically expect anything different.” and decided to continue back upward.
Be interesting to see if the folks from Abu Dhabi are smarter than Alwaleed bin Talal has been – let’s not forget he wanted Chuck Prince to stay on board. Seems to be some consternation in this investment – obviously these folks feel that there is value here – they’re in the job of making money, and they think C will do that for them. Nothing wrong with that. And honestly, I can’t help but wonder if the reaction would be different if this investment was coming out of Czechoslovakia or somewhere like that.
Now, the big question is – can we actually get two up days in a row??
Closed:
[a] BRL, -4.77%, held 16 days
[b] APOL, +2.13%, held 3 days
[c] VRGY, +2.80%, in/out
[c] SNDA, -3.62%, in/out
Opened:
GTrades pick
Month to Date:
My ports: -1.75%
Brokerage: -7.10%
BBE Overall: -4.01%
% of Trading Targets reached: -95.13%
I’m screwed ratio: 7.2 to 10.8
Long to Cash %s: 49.48% to 50.52%
~~~~~~
[a] GTrades
[b] 3×2
[c] EW
What the hell happened at 3:50??
We were in a meandering range there for a while today, and then we got our usual last 2 hour selloff. More financial stuff, no one can decide if Black Friday was good or not, oil up to $99, etc, etc. When will we have all the bad news actually out there? Just a little nuts to say the least.
Closed:
[a] NVDA, +2.49%, held 2 days
[a] CKFR, -0.28%, held 2 days
[b] HAIN, -8.70%, held 24 days*
Opened:
[a] XMSR
*This was a dog. In my research I somehow managed to miss the fact that they’ve missed filing deadlines and if they don’t get their act together, they’re going to be delisted from the Nasdaq. I really don’t know HOW I missed this, but had I seen it, I never would have stepped into this issue.
Month to Date:
My ports: -2.49%
Brokerage: -8.19%
BBE Overall: -4.83%
% of Trading Targets reached: -118.55%
I’m screwed ratio: 8.8 to 10.2
Long to Cash %s: 55.56% to 44.44%
~~~~~~~~
[a] 3×2
[b] C/MM
Frankly, this was the type of action I’d expected to see all week, not just today. Not necessarily up near 2% a day, but at least *up*. But let’s face it, the markets don’t always behave the way we think they should.
Enjoy the weekend and maybe today will carry through to next week!
Opened:
[a] NVDA, CKFR, APOL
Closed:
[a] KLAC, +0.17%, held 5 days
[b] NYX, +2.80%, held 3 days
[c] CYT, -7.94%, held 14 days
Month to Date:
My ports: -1.88%
Brokerage: -6.61%
BBE Overall: -3.66%
% of Trading Targets reached: -95.33%
I’m screwed ratio: 6.6 to 10.8
Long to Cash %s: 68.40% to 31.60%
~~~~~
[a] 3×2
[b] AAP
[c] GTrades
Gotta love the early close. Well, if it’s like today and we’re up 1.7% on the S&P and 1.42% on the Dow.
Don’t know about you, but I’m celebrating “Buy Nothing Day“. OK, not really, my brother & I are passing on our traditional Black Friday lunch & window shopping cause we’re both tired, it’s really cold out and since Christmas is going to be all travel, there’s not much actual shopping to be done between now and the holiday.
So, if nothing else, this is a good time to think about long term. Though I trade, I still have to think long term. It’s not like I’ll be trading forever, and I need to think about where I want my long term equities so I don’t have to think about them too much. I don’t mean only look at my brokerage accounts once a quarter, but where I am not having to constantly re-evaluate things.
The first challenge is deciding exactly what is long term money vs. trading capital.
I have one big chunk of long term money that is managed by my broker. It’s doing well enough, beating the S&P for the year and all that. I still can’t decide if I like it or not. I don’t *dislike* it, and I’m not uncomfortable with it by any means, but what can I say – I like control. But, that is long term money.
Retirement accounts? Somewhat harder call. Yes, it’s long term by it’s very nature, but I also trade in those accounts. Should I be trading in those accounts? Well, there is the tax advantage, which is a plus. But, it would be bad to piss away my retirement on a bunch of bad trades.
Having given it quite a bit of thought of late, I’ve come up with a rough calculation of what my long term money is. Total assets less the brokerage money, less the profits from the townhouse sale, less required cash/fixed income = long term money. As a result, profits get rolled into long term, I’ll be building a stable long term base and as that port grows, it’s all good. Any additional income from any source would be split between long term and trading capital.
The other big question is – where to put that long term money??
My long term holdings (other than the managed money at the brokerage) are in ETF’s. Oh so sexy! At the present time, it’s SPY, DIA & QQQQ. I know that there is a lot of overlap between SPY and DIA, but I like the monthly dividend on the DIA. I am thinking about adding one more issue to the long term stuff when the next “buy for long term” window comes around. It’s not an ETF, but in my mind it might as well be – and that is BRK.B. (That’s why it’s now in the Lazy Port – trying to get a feel on price movement on it.) Sure, I’ll probably be only buying a share or two at a time, but Warren Buffet is obviously doing something right, and I’m hard pressed to try and argue with the man. The allocation I am aiming for is 10% in DIA & QQQQ, 55% in SPY and 25% in BRK.B. No buying all at once – scaling in, and only after 3 down days.
Like I said, I’ve been giving the long term picture a lot of thought, so none of this is a snap revelation by any means, but it feels good to have a firmer handle on the long term plan.
The final hour slide was right on schedule. So predictable – the bears are just phoning it in.
Made a couple changes to the LazyPort – take a look and you’ll see.
Have a lovely Thanksgiving everyone.
Opened:
AAP pick
Month to Date:
My ports: -3.11%
Brokerage: -7.92%
BBE Overall: -4.91%
% of Trading Targets reached: -125.68%
I’m screwed ratio: 9.3 to 9.8
Long to Cash %s: 74.72% to 25.28%
