Week of 2011 JN 03

My account lost 0.4% for the week, while SPY lost 2.3%.  SPY has lost all its gains of the past four months, while my account has hit a new low.

Last week I predicted that the market would fall on Monday and rise for the rest of this week.  What actually happened was that the market fell for the first hour on Monday, rose for the day, then fell sharply for the rest of the week.  So I was only off by an order of magnitude!  Thursday was especially bad: stocks, bonds, commodities, and real estate all fell simultaneously.  I guess it was some sort of Global Deflation Day.

In the table below, the parenthetical realized gains are for ¼ sales.  Including these makes the column look better because now it has more green than red, but creates problems for the “Average” line.  For now I think I’ll include both the overall gain and the final-quarter gain in those weeks when I close a position in a stock from which quarters had been sold.

			│	Daily % gain					│	Stop %		│	Realized Gain
Symb	size	when	│	Fri	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	│	Beg	End	│
IAU	19%	MR24	│	4.7	4.6	4.8	4.6	4.9	│	+0.2	+2.2	│	(+1.8%)
DRETF	20%	MR30	│	0.1	0.9	0.0	-0.7	0.1	│			│
PALL	6%	MA06	│	3.9	5.6	5.5	5.3	6.2	│	−1.7	+1.6	│	(+7.5%)
VSR	6%	MA23	│	-0.6	0.4	-0.2	0.0	-1.0	│	−3.6	−3.6	│
TLT	11%	MA25	│	0.1	0.4	1.4	-0.6	0.0	│	−2.7	−2.7	│
TZA	6%	MA31	│		-1.2	8.2	8.3	13.3	│	−2.3	+0.7	│	+0.7%
FRED	6%	MA31	│		2.4	-0.1	-0.2	-1.0	│	−11.6	−11.2	│
BRLI	6%	MA31	│		0.4	-2.5	-2.8	-5.9	│	−3.4	−2.4	│	−2.4%
SWY	6%	JN01	│			-6.3	-8.2	-9.9	│	−4.4	−4.4	│	−4.4%
BAL	6%	JN02	│				-0.6	-2.6	│	−9.3	−9.3	│
SPY			│	0.0	1.0	-1.2	-1.3	-2.3	│			│
me			│	0.0	0.5	-0.1	-0.5	-0.4	│			│
(Average)			│						│			│	−0.7%

IAU: Sold ¼ on Wednesday.  The parenthetical gain is small because I told Schwab to sell some of the shares I bought last week, not the cheaper shares I had bought in March.  This increases the likelihood that the final ¼ sale will show a gain even if the price falls from here.

DRETF: On Tuesday the price of D.UN was down, but the USD/CAD exchange rate was up, so I gained!  Some say that the loonie has peaked and will fall for the summer, which will be negative for DRETF.  On Thursday, Dundee REIT fell below the strike price for its new shares to be issued JN14; then on Friday it popped back up.  It’ll probably go nowhere next week.

PALL: Sold another ¼ on Tuesday.  Palladium is doing very well and the stop gain is now positive.  Maybe I should buy more at the next dip.

VSR: Looks like the uptrend is over.  I’ve put out another limit sale at $3.43.  Hopefully I can get out of this one with my shirt intact.

TLT: Looked bad on Thursday, but I’d like to keep this for the summer, so I reset the 3% trailing stop.  Then it rose back up a little.

TZA: First try of the new TNA/TZA day-trading system—and it’s a winner!  It was a small gain on a small bet, but at least it’s positive.  This turned out to be a great week for TZA, but I didn’t want to bet on that.

FRED: Popped the day I bought it!  Then fell back down.  I still have hopes for this one.  I am raising the stop by only 5.45¢ per week, following the trendline of the spike-lows.

BRLI: I decided not to buy SDRL (which was down 0.1% for the week) because it doesn’t seem to have any noticable earnings-swings; also the CEO is under investigation for insider oil trading.  So instead I bought BRLI which had a bad week.

SWY: Another 16-day osc pick; another loser.  Fell straight down from the moment I bought it, with no mini-rallies.  Looks like the 16-day osc program needs more work.

BAL: Looks like it’s finished its correction and is headed back up—but of course it fell as soon as I bought it.  Oh well; PALL did the same thing to begin with.

Review of last week:  Of the stocks sold last week, all are worth less now than then, except BPI (which I no longer want to be associated with) and SH.

Weekly scan:  Buy nothing.  There are no hits except AMAG (too volatile) and NAUH (reminds me of BPI).

16-day oscillator:  Buy nothing.  There were no hits this week except SWY.

TNA day trades:  $RUT was down 3.4% for the week, so buy TNA on Monday.  Expected gain is about 2½% for a one-day trade, so this week I will bet 11% of the account on it.

SPY reaction trades: Moby Waller offers an analysis of VIX that looks like the sort of thing I do, so it probably doesn't work.  He says that when VIX jumps by 15% (as it did on Wednesday), then SPY will reliably be higher two weeks later.  On the other paw, Claus Vogt says that SPY is going down and one should buy SH for $40.80 with a stop at $38.80.  They could both be right: if SPY rises the average amount of 3.7% over the next two weeks, then SH will not fall far enough to trigger that stop.  I think I'll watch this one from the sidelines.