Week of 2013 DE 27

IWM rose by 1.5% to a new all-time high. My account rose 2.8% to its highest price since February.  The loss-floor has risen to -5.1%, its highest value since October.

Market news: The Santa Claus rally continues!  Markets were closed on Wednesday for Christmas Day.  Tuesday was a half day.

End-of-year report:  This is the last Friday of the year and the first time I have ever ended a year with a profit.  Unfortunately, my profit is a measly +0.8% while people who just bought IWM and held it all year got +39.5%.  My profit is smaller than the amount of money I took out to put food on the table for my family, so I end the year with less money than I had to start with.  Still, it’s progress.

End of week allocations: 131% long equities, 28% cash

% gain size │ Max loss Sym  Buy │  Fri  Mon  Tue  Wed  Thu  Fri │ Beg   End   FRED OC24 │ +0.5 10 +0.9 10 +1.0 10 +0.9 10 +1.0 10 │ -0.6 +0.1 FNSR DE05 │ +0.9 9 +1.0 9 +1.2 9 +2.0 9 +1.9 9 │ -0.8 -0.5 URTY DE13 │ +1.1 11 +1.5 12 +1.6 12 +1.7 12 +1.6 12 │ -0.4 +0.3 TNA DE16 │ +0.9 21 +1.7 22 +1.9 22 +2.0 22 +1.9 22 │ -0.9 +1.1 ATML DE18 │ +0.1 10 +0.3 10 +0.5 10 +0.5 10 +0.5 10 │ -0.8 -0.6 IWM │ +38.0 +39.1 +39.6 +39.6 +39.5 │ me │ -2.0 -0.1 +0.8 +0.7 +0.8 │ floor │ -8.9 -8.0 -6.7 -6.4 -5.1 │

Max-loss: It is nice to see all those positive values in the “End” column!  Even if everything I own stops out, I’ll still have a net profit from all these trades.

Stock-trading robot

No trades this week.  There were several attempts to buy YHOO and one attempt to buy AGQ, but my limit prices were not reached.  The robot will try again on Monday to buy AGQ.

Week of 2013 DE 20

IWM rose by 4.8%, for its biggest weekly gain since January and now at its highest price ever.  My account rose 2.8% for its biggest weekly gain since September of 2012 and now at its highest price since May 2013.  The loss-floor has fallen to -8.9%, its lowest value in five weeks.

US news: On Wednesday, outgoing Fed Chairman Bernanke announced that the Fed will taper its money-printing slightly, from $85 billion a month to $75 starting in January.

Market news: Looks like we have ourselves a Santa Claus rally!  If this continues next week as is typical, I will have had a profitable trading year for the first time ever.  Meanwhile, the buy-and-hold folks will be up 40% for this year.

End of week allocations: 125% long equities, 30% cash

% gain size │ Max loss Sym  Buy │  Fri  Mon  Tue  Wed  Thu  Fri │ Beg   End   FRED OC24 │ +0.2 10 +0.3 10 +0.2 10 +0.4 10 +0.3 10 +0.5 10 │ -0.6 -0.6 FNSR DE05 │ +0.4 8 +0.5 8 +0.7 9 +0.7 9 +0.8 9 +0.9 9 │ -0.8 -0.8 URTY DE13 │ +0.1 11 +0.5 11 +0.4 11 +0.9 11 +0.6 11 +1.1 11 │ -0.8 -0.4 TNA DE16 │ -0.0 10 -0.1 10 +0.3 11 +0.0 21 +0.9 21 │ -0.6 -0.9 ATML DE18 │ +0.0 10 +0.0 10 +0.1 10 │ -0.8 -0.8 IWM │ +33.3 +35.1 +34.9 +36.9 +35.7 +38.0 │ me │ -4.8 -4.3 -4.3 -3.2 -3.7 -2.0 │ floor │ -7.5 -7.6 -7.5 -8.3 -8.7 -8.9 │

URTY: Jumped above its 180-hour average on Monday, causing a sudden increase in my stop-price.

YHOO: Yet more attempts to buy this thing, but it never dips down to its 10-day moving average on a day when I have a “Buy” signal, so the purchase-attempts never succeed.  Oh well; I’m overweighted on equities anyway.

SCHA: First attempt at a non-robot trade in quite some time.  It seemed obvious that the market would dip on Thursday and that one should “buy the dip”, so I set my limit-price for a 38% retrace.  Well, IWM did indeed retrace on Thursday 38% of its rise from Wednesday’s lows to Wednesday’s highs, but SCHA (which is supposed to be roughly equivalent to IWM) didn’t quite get down that low, so no purchase.  Meanwhile, the robot bought more TNA on Thursday so it’s all good.

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
FRED		OC 18	OC 24 09:30		$16.11	$16.59		(Not yet)
FNSR		DE 05	DE 05 09:40		$20.54			(Not yet)
URTY		DE 13 11:00			$75.60	$75.66		(Not yet)
TNA		DE 16 14:00	DE 16 15:00		$68.86	$69.19		(Not yet)
		DE 19 11:00			$70.78	$70.85
ATML		DE 18	DE 18 09:30		$7.32			(Not yet)

TNA: Slight inaccuracy in Schwab’s real-time price-feed caused the robot to issue its buy-order slightly late on Monday.

ATML: Sold last Friday for $7.37, bought back this Wednesday for only $7.32!

Week of 2013 DE 13

IWM fell by 3.0%, for its biggest weekly drop since August. My account fell only 0.5% this week.  The loss-floor has risen to -7.5%.

End of week allocations:

% gain size │ Max loss Sym  Buy │  Fri  Mon  Tue  Wed  Thu  Fri │ Beg   End   FRED OC24 │ +0.3 10 +0.2 10 +0.1 10 +0.1 10 +0.2 10 +0.2 10 │ -0.6 -0.6 ATML NO15 │ +0.3 10 +0.2 10 +0.3 10 -0.2 10 +0.2 10 +0.2 10 │ -0.7 -0.6 URTY ¹ NO21 │ +0.3 11 +0.3 11 +0.3 11 +0.3 11 +0.3 11 +0.3 0 │ -0.6 -0.6 FNSR DE05 │ +0.4 8 +0.7 9 +0.3 8 +0.3 8 +0.3 8 +0.4 8 │ -0.8 -0.8 TNA DE06 │ -0.1 10 -0.2 10 -0.4 10 -0.5 10 -0.5 10 -0.5 10 │ -0.7 -0.5 SRTY ¹ DE11 │ +0.0 11 +0.0 11 +0.0 11 │ -0.8 -0.8 URTY ² DE13 │ +0.1 11 │ -0.6 -0.8 SRTY ² DE13 │ -0.1 10 │ -0.1 -0.1 IWM │ +36.3 +36.3 +35.1 +32.8 +33.1 +33.3 │ me │ -4.3 -4.1 -4.8 -5.0 -5.1 -4.8 │ floor │ -8.7 -8.7 -7.6 -8.4 -7.6 -7.5 │

Another “nothing” week.  My realized gains (the red and orange %gain numbers above) add up to just -0.1%.

On Wednesday, the broad market (IWM) fell 2.3%, but my account (me) fell only 0.2%!  I would have gained for the day if only SRTY ¹ had been purchased several hours earlier.  Its trading model needs more work.

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
FRED		OC 18	OC 24 09:30		$16.11	$16.59		(Not yet)
ATML		NO 14	NO 15 09:41		$7.19	$7.20		DE 13 09:30			$7.37			+0.20%	+0.19%
URTY ¹		NO 21 12:00			$78.74	$78.73		DE 10 11:00			$80.45	$81.01		+0.29%	+0.26%
FNSR		DE 05	DE 05 09:40		$20.54			(Not yet)
TNA		DE 06 12:00			$73.30			DE 11 10:00	DE 11 09:46		$69.92	$69.90		-0.50%
SRTY ¹		DE 11 14:00	DE 11 14:11		$12.59	$12.67		DE 12 10:00			$12.77	$12.76		+0.13%	+0.04%
URTY ²		DE 13 11:00			$75.60	$75.66		(Not yet)
SRTY ²		DE 13 13:00			$12.47			DE 13 14:00	DE 13 13:04		$12.44			-0.05%

FRED: This trade is getting very long in the tooth.  It hasn’t gone anywhere in almost two months!  But it’s not like there’s some better place I could park my money.

ATML: Fell 1.9% on Friday — *after* I sold it!  That would have eliminated all the profit I got.

TNA: Stopped out.

URTY: Sold it on Tuesday, bought it back on Friday for a better price!

SRTY ¹: Another Schwab hiccup.  Bought it manually.

SRTY ²: The trading model came up with a stop price that was ridiculously close to the purchase price (because trading had become stuck in a narrow range for many hours), so this one stopped out almost immediately.

Week of 2012 DE 06

IWM fell by 1.4%, as is usual for the week after Thanksgiving. My account fell 0.5% this week.  The loss-floor has fallen to -8.7%.

End of week allocations:

% gain size │ Max loss Sym  Buy │  Fri  Mon  Tue  Wed  Thu  Fri │ Beg   End   FRED OC24 │ +0.4 10 +0.3 10 +0.2 10 +0.2 10 +0.3 10 +0.3 10 │ -0.7 -0.6 ATML NO15 │ +0.6 10 +0.6 10 +0.5 10 -0.4 10 +0.4 10 +0.3 10 │ -0.8 -0.7 URTY NO21 │ +0.6 11 +0.3 11 +0.2 11 +0.1 11 +0.1 11 +0.3 11 │ -0.8 -0.6 UWM DE02 │ -0.2 10 -0.3 10 -0.4 10 -0.3 10 -0.1 10 │ -0.8 -0.7 FNSR DE05 │ +0.4 8 +0.4 8 │ -0.5 -0.8 TNA DE06 │ -0.1 10 │ -0.7 -0.7 IWM │ +37.7 +36.2 +35.5 +35.1 +35.2 +36.3 │ me │ -3.8 -4.3 -4.8 -5.0 -4.5 -4.3 │ floor │ -7.6 -7.9 -7.8 -7.8 -8.5 -8.7 │

RYOCX: This leftover position is so small that I generally treat it as part of “cash”.  On DE 02, I received a long-term capital gains distribution which increased my account by 0.04%, which I only noticed because it made the total size of the “allocations” pie chart add up to only 99.96%.  I adjusted the “cash” item to account for this additional money.

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
FRED		OC 18	OC 24 09:30		$16.11	$16.59		(Not yet)
ATML		NO 14	NO 15 09:41		$7.19	$7.20		(Not yet)
URTY		NO 21 12:00			$78.74	$78.73		(Not yet)
UWM		DE 02	DE 02 09:46		$81.67			DE 06 09:30			$80.75			-0.14%
FNSR		DE 05	DE 05 09:40		$20.54			(Not yet)
TNA		DE 06 12:00			$73.30			(Not yet)

UWM: Sold at Friday’s open.  Bought TNA hours later for a higher equivalent price (but the TNA trade is on an hourly “leash” while UWM was daily).

FNSR: Bought Thursday morning based on technical indicators as usual.  After Thursday’s close, FNSR announced quarterly results: 43¢ per share, beating estimates of 30¢.  The stock jumped!

YHOO: Multiple “Buy” signals this week, but price never got down to my limit.  Tim Knight thinks it will drop soon (because of a chart-pattern from eight years ago), but I will let my robot buy it if a suitable opportunity arises.