Week of 2011 AL 21

My account rose 0.8% this week, while SPY rose 1.3%.  Over the last month my account has risen 1.5% while SPY has risen 1.8%.  At this rate, I would be lucky to reach 106% for the year, which seems inadequate for the amount of effort expended.  Hopefully there are further improvements that can be made to the stock-picking program.

And… we have our first losers from the new program!  EK is the first weekly-scan loser and DUG the first loser from the daily-scan. 

Markets are closed 2011 AL 22 for Good Friday.

			│	Daily % gain					│	Stop %		│	Realized Gain
Symb	size	when	│	Fri	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	│	Beg	End	│
UDN	12%	MR22	│	0.5	-0.3	0.2	1.1	1.3	│	-1.3	-0.5	│
IAU	12%	MR24	│	3.1	3.7	3.8	4.2	4.3	│	-1.5	-0.5	│
DRETF	16%	MR30	│	-2.5	-1.8	-0.9	0.1	0.8	│			│
EK	6%	AL04	│	1.1	0.2	-0.7	-1.3	-3.4	│	-3.4	-3.4	│	−3.3%
TS	6%	AL04	│	-2.4	-5.3	-3.6	-2.4	-1.8	│	-8.3	-7.2	│
REX	6%	AL04	│	1.3	0.6	-1.2	0.5	1.5	│	-8.4	-7.2	│
CYD	6%	AL04	│	-2.0	-3.0	-2.5	1.1	5.6	│	-8.3	-8.3	│
PVH	6%	AL04	│	-0.4	-1.0	-0.6	3.2	3.3	│	-8.3	-8.3	│
QTM	6%	AL11	│	10.0	7.9	8.4	8.9	10.3	│	1.1	2.8	│
DUG	6%	AL13	│	-2.4	0.6	-1.6	-5.8	-6.9	│	-4.0	-2.0	│	−5.1%
JBHT	6%	AL18	│		-2.2	-2.8	-1.6	-1.2	│	-5.3	-2.9	│
LRN	6%	AL20	│				1.3	0.8	│	-5.4	fail	│
ATML	6%	AL21	│					1.6	│	-8.3	-6.5	│
KBALB	6%	AL21	│					-3.6	│	-5.3	-5.3	│
SPY			│	0.0	-1.1	-0.6	0.8	1.3	│			│
me			│	0.0	-0.4	-0.3	0.4	0.8	│			│
(Average)			│						│			│	−4.2%

UDN: Finally went up enough to sell ¼, but even so the stop is still underwater.

IAU: One more week until my stop is above water!

DUG: Each day I raised the stop, but in the end it didn’t matter: DUG gapped down and grabbed the full 5% initial risk, same as if I hadn’t adjusted the stop at all.  Oh well.  DUG is a gainer only 50% of the time and this wasn’t one of those times.

QTM: Sold ¼ on Monday, which raised my effective stop to +2.8%.  Hopefully this is enough stop-height to ensure that I won’t end up with a loss no matter what QTM does next.

ATML: This showed up on a daily scan!  I’ve had my eye on ATML for two months, wondering when the next good entry point would be.  I’ve given it an 8% trailing stop.  It went up the first day, so the stop automatically went up as well.  Nice!  But really I should recode my analysis program to see whether trailing stops are a good idea and how deep they should be.

DRETF: This week's gain figures for DRETF (but not for the account as a whole) include +0.5% for the dividend that was declared Monday.  Record-date will be AL29 and pay-date MA15 but probably a few days later for this "foreign" stock.

KBALB: Why is it that almost everything drops the day I buy it?  Maybe my analysis program should be looking a little further back, buying things that were good candidates two days ago rather than yesterday.

New rule: Don’t buy stocks that are below their 200-day (40-week) moving average.  This would eliminate EK and DUG but none of the others.  REX and QTM both rose above their 200-day averages during the week before I bought them, while PVH had passed through that goalpost two weeks before purchase.

IBIO: This was a buy-failure last week.  As it turned out, it would have been a -3.5% loser after four days.  Today’s price would be a -7.6% loss.  Good thing I didn’t give it a higher limit!

LRN: Buy-failure this week.  I held LRN for five days last month, gaining +0.8%.  When it showed up on the daily scan, I hoped for a repeat this month.  Oh well.

Weekly scan:  No pick this week.  I bought ATML instead.

Daily scan:  No pick for Monday, because there won’t be enough cash available until DUG and ¼UDN settle on Tuesday.