Week of 2012 AL 27

SPY rose by 2.0% this week, while my account fell by 1.5% to its lowest value ever.  My loss floor dropped by 3.5%.

US market news: Tuesday night, Apple released their earnings, which were very good indeed.  Wednesday morning: the market zoomed!  Thursday night, Amazon released their earnings, which were pretty good.  Friday morning the market dropped, then recovered.  I expect continued upward momentum next week, because Apple is basically driving the entire US market these days and typically the post-earnings euphoria lasts 8‒10 days.

Thursday’s cash allocation:

Daily % gain size │ Max loss │ Final Gain Sym  Buy │ Fri Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri │ Beg   End │   TNA#0  AL17 │ -3.7  14 -7.5  14 -5.5  0 │ │ -6.0% TZA  AL23 │ -1.3  15 -3.4  14 -7.9  14 -10.7  13 -12.9  13 │ -9.8 -9.8 │ -9.9% SRTY  AL23 │ -1.3  15 -3.4  14 -8.1  14 -10.5  14 -12.8  0 │ -9.9 -9.9 │ -3.1% TNA#1  AL26 │ +1.0  15 +3.6  15 │ -11.4 -9.3 │ SPY │ +9.9 +9.0 +9.4 +10.9 +11.7 +11.9 │ │ me │ -4.8 -5.2 -5.9 -6.5 -6.7 -6.3 │ │ floor │ -4.8 -7.9 -6.8 -6.8 -8.6 -8.3 │ │

This week I had my fifth and sixth losses in a row!  I am really getting tired of all these losses.  When will the market make up its mind whether it’s going up or down?  Typically, April or May is supposed to be an intermediate top, followed by lower prices for the summer; but this has been true for only four out of the last ten years.

Stock-trading robot

Ticker Symbol		Buy date			Buy price			Sell date			Sell price			Acct Profit
		Model	Actual		M	A		Model	Actual		M	A		M	A
TZA		AL 23 10:00	AL 23 13:00		$20.34	$20.16		AL 25 10:00	AL 26 12:11		$18.60	$18.20		-1.3%	-1.5%
SRTY		AL 23 12:00	AL 23 13:00		$10.05	$10.04		AL 24 11:00			$9.76	$9.74		-0.4%	-0.5%
TNA#1		AL 26 12:00			$58.55	$58.51		(Not yet)

SRTY: First trade using the new model was a loser.

The robot trader did not work well this week:
      Monday: Both TZA and SRTY models triggered Monday morning.  Due to a bug introduced last weekend, the robot didn’t actually buy anything, so I bought manually several hours later (and for better prices, as it happened).  I also set the stop-orders manually—but for the wrong prices!
      Tuesday: Automatic stop-update didn’t work, due to a different bug introduced last weekend.  Since it looked like the stop prices shouldn’t actually change today, I didn’t bother rerunning the code after fixing the bug, so once again I didn’t notice that Monday’s stop prices were wrong.
      Wednesday: TZA was supposed to stop out around 9:40am or so, but that didn't happen because I had used 29 hours instead of 15 for Monday’s stop-setting and then Tuesday's update didn't happen.
      Thursday: The TZA stop was at $18.20.  Price got down to to $18.24 at 10:07am; $18.23 at 10:18 and again at 10:49; $18.22 at 11:29 and again at 11:37; finally hit $18.20 at 12:11pm.  Meanwhile, the robot bought TNA at noon, so for 11 minutes I owned two opposing bets that cancelled each other out.
      Friday: Automatic stop-update was successful, but didn't reduce my risk much.  Monday morning’s update is predicted to be a big step up, to -3.1% max loss for TNA.  In the best case, the stop price could be above break-even by next Thursday.