Week of 2012 AU 24

SPY fell by 0.5% this week, while my account rose 0.5%.  The loss-floor is now -11.5%, the same as its value on June 22nd.

Friday’s allocations:

Daily % gain size │ Max loss Sym  Buy │ Fri Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri │ Beg   End   IAU  AU14 │ +0.1  14  +0.1  14  +0.3  14  +0.4  14  +0.5  14  +0.5  14  │ -0.4 -0.4 SRTY  AU22 │ -0.1  15  +0.2  16  +0.1  16  │ -0.9 -0.3 TZA  AU23 │ -0.1  15  -0.2  15  │ -1.2 -1.2 URTY  AU23 │ +0.1  15  +0.1  15  │ -0.8 -0.8 SPY │ +13.3     +13.3     +13.0     +13.0     +12.1     +12.8 │ me │ -9.1 -9.1 -9.0 -8.9 -8.5 -8.6 │ floor │ -9.6 -9.6 -9.6 -10.5 -12.5 -11.5 │

IAU: Doing great!  Already over halfway to the +0.8% gain level, when the trailing stop will take over and start raising the max-loss floor.

floor: Once again, the loss floor went briefly below -12% during the week, then popped back up by the weekend so I didn’t have to lower the bottom of the chart above.

Stock-trading robot

OptionsXpress: Asked them how to apply for API access.  Reply: “At this time we are no longer providing access to our API.  The information regarding our API that is displayed on our website is currently in the process of being removed.”  I have cancelled my application to open an account with them.

InteractiveBrokers: These guys seem to be the only ones left still offering an API to retail customers in Canada.  Their gateway wants to run as a daemon and have the access password re-entered manually each time it starts, so not suitable for my current hosting service (I would need a virtual private server).  Haven’t called them yet.

Ticker Symbol		Buy date			Buy price			Sell date			Sell price			Acct Profit
		Model	Actual		M	A		Model	Actual		M	A		M	A
SRTY		AU 22 11:00			$41.47	$41.64		AU 24 11:00	AU 24 11:02		$42.27	$42.11		+0.2%	+0.1%
TZA		AU 23 13:00			$17.02			(Not yet)
URTY		AU 23 13:00	AU 23 13:01		$61.13	$61.07		(Not yet)

SRTY: Another winner!  But it could have been better: on Wednesday, the robot did not get its “buy” order entered until 11:00:43am, by which time the market had moved significantly from the top of the hour.  On Friday, the 11am quote-fetch timed out, so the “sell” order was not entered.  I put in a market order two minutes later, but (as usual) a limit-order would have been successful — and it would have salvaged the +0.2% expected gain for this trade.

TZA: Normal swing trade in progress.

URTY: The “buy” order was entered late because the robot took so long entering the TZA order just before it.  I really need to investigate whether I can switch to InteractiveBrokers for faster quote-fetching.  As usual, it looks like the URTY model bought too soon.  I might have to sit on these shares for a week before the price starts moving upward.

Surfing the oscillations

Here is a chart of the last 20 years, showing what happens if you buy gold and sell the Russell 2000.  The charts for S&P500 and Dow Jones Industrials look about the same.  The blue line shows a parabolic curve.  I expect that this trend will continue until the year 2015 or so, when “Kondratiev winter” ends.

As of today, this is the only long-term investment idea I have.  Buy gold, sell equities, wait.  It’s so simple!