Week of 2012 NO 02

SPY rose by 0.2% this week and has returned to its value as of August 24th.  My account fell 0.4% and is still above its value from August 24th. The loss-floor rose to -6.4%.

US markets: Hurricane Sandy forced the evacuation of Wall St., so markets were closed on Monday and Tuesday.

Friday’s allocations:

Daily % gain size │ Max loss Sym  Buy │  Fri  Mon  Tue  Wed  Thu  Fri │ Beg   End   IAU  AU14 │ +0.8  14  +0.9  14  +0.8  14  +0.6  14  │ +0.1 +0.1 SRTY  OC26 │ -0.2  15  -0.3  15  -0.3  15  -0.3  15  │ -0.8 -0.8 SPY │ +12.6             +12.6     +13.8     +12.8     │ me │ -5.6 -5.6 -5.7 -6.0 │ floor │ -6.8 -6.4 -6.4 -6.4 │

IAU: Gold fell yet again this week.  Daily MACD is still roughly unchanged from a week ago.

SRTY: Yet another loss.  This week is the first time in a month when the robot didn’t buy SRTY on Friday afternoon — because the slower of the hourly MACD’s didn’t go negative until the close.

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
SRTY		OC 26 13:00			$40.74			OC 31 10:00			$39.85	$39.83		-0.3%

The robot did not properly detect that the market was closed on Monday and Tuesday.  When I first wrote the robot, Schwab was resetting their daily volume to zero when the market was closed, but now they’re leaving the previous day’s final volume up.  The robot is currently collecting volume at 4:00pm, but volume continues to change until after 4:05 or so.  I should move the final volume-check to 4:20 so it happens at the same time as the barchart.com recheck of prices, then treat the market as “closed” if volume is either zero or unchanged from yesterday.

Week of 2012 OC 26

SPY fell by 1.7% this week and is now basically unchanged over the last eight weeks.  My account fell 0.5% and is roughly unchanged over the last seven weeks.  The loss-floor rose slightly, to -6.8%.

US market news: IBM, Google, Amazon, and Apple (among others) have all reported disappointing earnings.  Each time, the market fell after the news and then partially recovered.  It seems the market participants continue to believe that the “Bernanke put” will prevent any serious downturn until after the US election.

Friday’s allocations:

Daily % gain size │ Max loss Sym  Buy │ Fri Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri │ Beg   End   IAU  AU14 │ +0.9  14  +1.0  14  +0.8  14  +0.7  14  +0.8  14  +0.8  14  │ +0.1 +0.1 SRTY ¹  OC19 │ -0.1  15  -0.1  15  -0.1  15  -0.1  15  -0.1  0  │ -1.2 -1.2 SRTY ²  OC23 │ -0.2  15  -0.1  15  -0.1  15  -0.1  0  │ -1.1 -1.1 SRTY ³  OC26 │ -0.2  15  │ -0.8 -0.8 SPY │ +14.3     +14.3     +12.7     +12.4     +12.7     +12.6     │ me │ -5.1 -5.0 -5.4 -5.5 -5.4 -5.6 │ floor │ -6.9 -5.8 -6.1 -6.1 -6.1 -6.8 │

IAU: Gold fell again this week.  Daily MACD is unchanged from a week ago.

SRTY: This is now the third week in a row where I have bought SRTY Friday afternoon, as a bet that the market would fall over the weekend.  The previous two bets were losers.  Maybe the third time will be the charm?

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
SRTY ¹		OC 19 14:00			$39.43	$39.44		OC 22 10:00			$39.20	$39.19		-0.1%
SRTY ²		OC 23 10:00			$40.62			OC 23 14:00			$40.00			-0.2%
SRTY ³		OC 26 13:00			$40.74			(Not yet)

The robot seems to be functioning properly, but it doesn’t make any profits.  Tim Knight reports that his profits are very small, even though he is a bear and the market has been falling, because the market action has been very choppy and hard to predict.  It’s nice to know that people with much more experience than I are having similar difficulties.

Week of 2012 OC 19

SPY rose by 0.4% this week. My account fell 0.5% but is still above its value from SE 7.  The loss-floor fell to -6.9% and has returned its peak from JL 13.

IAU: Fell again this week.  Pundits are still calling for the slide to end around $1650/oz, which is above my stop price.  Still waiting for a positive daily MACD before buying more gold.

Friday’s allocations:

Daily % gain size │ Max loss Sym  Buy │ Fri Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri │ Beg   End   IAU  AU14 │ +1.2  14  +1.0  14  +1.1  14  +1.1  14  +1.1  14  +0.9  14  │ +0.1 +0.1 SRTY ¹  OC12 │ -0.0  15  -0.2  15  -0.2  15  -0.2  15  -0.2  0  │ -0.7 -0.7 SRTY ²  OC19 │ -0.1  15  │ -1.2 -1.2 SPY │ +13.9     +14.8     +16.0     +16.5     +16.2     +14.3     │ me │ -4.6 -4.8 -4.7 -4.7 -4.8 -5.1 │ floor │ -6.3 -5.7 -5.7 -5.7 -5.7 -6.9 │

SRTY: Last week, I placed a bet that the market would go down over the weekend.  It did not.  This week, I placed the same bet again.

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
SRTY ¹		OC 12 14:00			$38.92			OC 15 12:00			$38.55	$38.54		-0.14%	-0.16%
SRTY ²		OC 19 14:00			$39.43	$39.44		(Not yet)

Another boring week when nothing happened.

Week of 2012 OC 12

SPY fell by 2.5% this week. My account fell 0.3% but is still above its value from SE 21.  The loss-floor fell to -6.3% but is still above its peak from JL 13.

IAU: Fell this week.  Still waiting for a positive daily MACD before buying more gold.  Still expecting a rise before the election.

Friday’s allocations:

Daily % gain size │ Max loss Sym  Buy │ Fri Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri │ Beg   End   IAU  AU14 │ +1.4  14  +1.3  14  +1.2  14  +1.2  14  +1.2  14  +1.2  14  │ +0.1 +0.1 TNA  OC05 │ -0.5  15  -0.7  14  -0.9  14  -0.9  14  -0.9  14  -0.9  0  │ -0.9 -0.9 SRTY ¹  OC08 │ +0.0  15  +0.4  15  +0.4  15  +0.4  15  +0.4  0  │ -0.8 -0.8 SRTY ²  OC12 │ -0.0  15  │ -0.7 -0.7 SPY │ +16.4     +16.0     +14.9     +14.2         +13.9     │ me │ -4.3 -4.6 -4.5 -4.5 -4.7 │ floor │ -6.0 -6.8 -5.6 -5.6 -6.3 │

I forgot to do my daily update on Thursday.  It didn’t seem to matter enough to try to reconstruct what the daily values should have been for SPY/me/floor (and the others were obvious).

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
TNA		OC 05 11:00			$65.03	$65.01		OC 09 11:00	OC 09 10:46		$61.01			-0.9%
SRTY ¹		OC 08 11:00			$36.76			OC 09 15:00			$37.96	$37.93		+0.4%
SRTY ²		OC 12 14:00			$38.92			(Not yet)

TNA: Stopped out.

Week of 2012 OC 05

SPY rose by 1.7% this week. My account fell 0.9%, losing *almost* all its gains from last week.  The loss-floor fell to -6.0%, remaining in roughly the same neighbourhood for a third week.

World news: Turkey has declared war on Syria, although it remains unclear whether the entity that is attacking Turkey is actually the Syrian government or rogue bands of Al Qaida members.  For now the war remains cool, but Turkey’s Parliament has authorized its prime minister to invade Syria when/if he deems appropriate.  Turkey would like to drag NATO into the war, but the NATO countries have their own problems right now.

IAU: Yet another week of almost no movement.  Might be time to buy more soon, maybe when daily MACD goes positive, but I still haven’t written up a model to test that.  Or the bottom could drop out of the stock market and drag gold down with it.

Friday’s allocations:

Daily % gain size │ Max loss Sym  Buy │ Fri Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri │ Beg   End   IAU  AU14 │ +1.3  14  +1.3  14  +1.3  14  +1.3  14  +1.4  14  +1.4  14  │ +0.0 +0.1 TZA  SE24 │ +0.6  15  +0.1  15 +0.1  15  +0.1  15  +0.1  0  │ -0.5 +0.1 TNA  OC05 │ -0.5  15  │ -0.9 -0.9 SPY │ +14.7     +15.0     +15.0     +15.6     +16.4     +16.4     │ me │ -3.4 -3.9 -3.9 -3.9 -3.8 -4.3 │ floor │ -5.8 -5.1 -5.1 -5.1 -5.1 -6.0 │

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		SE 24 14:00			$14.27			OC 01 11:00	OC 01 10:02		$14.39	$14.38		+0.1%
TNA		OC 05 11:00			$65.03	$65.01		(Not yet)

TZA: Stop-update at 10am, followed by a sharp sell-off that hit the new stop a few minutes later.

TNA: An inauspicious beginning for this trade: the price fell all day after I bought it.

Week of 2012 SE 28

SPY fell by 1.5% this week, while my account rose 1.3%.  The loss-floor rose to -5.8%, equalling its value as of March 16th.

IAU: Another consolidation week.  Might be time to buy more soon, but I have not developed a model for when to buy more.

TZA: Looking good!  Monday’s scheduled stop-update will raise my loss floor to +0.1%.

Friday’s allocations:

Daily % gain size │ Max loss Sym  Buy │ Fri Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri │ Beg   End   IAU  AU14 │ +1.3  14  +1.2  14  +1.2  14  +1.1  14  +1.3  14  +1.3  14  │ +0.0 +0.0 SRTY ¹  SE18 │ -0.1  15  -0.1  0  │ SRTY ²  SE20 │ -0.4  14  -0.4  14  -0.4  14  -0.4  0  │ SRTY ³  SE24 │ +0.4  15  -0.0  15  -0.0  15  -0.0  15  -0.0  0  │ -0.4 -0.4 TZA  SE24 │ -0.1  15  +0.5  15  +0.7  15  +0.3  15  +0.6  15  │ -0.7 -0.5 SRTY ⁴  SE25 │ +0.4  15  +0.7  15  +0.6  15  +0.6  15  │ -0.8 -0.5 SRTY ⁵  SE27 │ +0.0  15  +0.1  15  │ -0.7 -0.1 SPY │ +16.2     +16.1     +14.8     +14.2     +15.3     +14.7     │ me │ -4.7 -4.7 -3.9 -3.5 -3.8 -3.4 │ floor │ -5.9 -7.0 -7.4 -7.3 -6.5 -5.8 │

SRTY ³: Bought at low-of-day!  But sold next day for nearly the same price.

SRTY ⁴: Bought at a worse price, so arguably should just have kept SRTY ³.  Made a gain, though.

SRTY ⁵: Erroneous purchase due to slightly-wrong price quote.  Made a slight gain anyway.

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		SE 24 14:00			$14.27			(Not yet)
SRTY ³		SE 24 11:00			$34.86			SE 25 11:00			$34.84	$34.83		-0.0%
SRTY ⁴		SE 25 13:00	SE 25 14:00		$35.70	$35.82		SE 27 10:00			$37.50	$37.47		+0.7%	+0.6%
SRTY ⁵		(Do not buy)	SE 27 14:00			$36.25		SE 28 14:00			$36.55				+0.1%

SRTY ⁴: Unclear why this trade was an hour off.

SRTY ⁵: Wrong quotes at 10am and 12pm caused this erroneous trade.  Considering that VPSville seems to consistently take 4‒7 seconds to fetch a quote, perhaps I should run the batch job at four seconds before the hour (rather than on-the-hour) to minimize these glitches.  After the daily fix-up via barchart.com, I added a temporary rule to the robot so it would not forget that it had bought this thing and would look for an exit time — which turned out to be the next day.

Week of 2012 SE 21

SPY fell by 1.1% this week, while my account fell 1.4%.  The loss-floor rose to -5.9%, beating its value as of May 18th and almost reaching the heights of March 16th.

[out]: Withdrew some more money from the account this week, to pay for life insurance.  It’s getting very pricey at my age, but I still have one remaining child who is a minor.

Friday’s allocations:

Daily % gain size owned │ Max loss Sym  Buy │ Fri Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri │ Beg   End   IAU  AU14 │ +1.3  14  +1.2  14  +1.3  14  +1.3  14  +1.3  14  +1.3  14  │ -0.0 +0.0 PPLT  AU30 │ +0.8  7  +0.6  7  +0.4  7  +0.4  7  +0.4  7  +0.4  0  │ +0.4 +0.4 TNA  SE05 │ +2.3   25 69   +1.8   24 0   +1.8  24  +1.8  24  +1.8  0  │ +0.2 +0.2 SRTY ¹  SE18 │ -0.1  15  -0.1  15  -0.1  15  -0.1  15  │ -0.7 -0.7 SRTY ²  SE20 │ +0.0  15  -0.4  14  │ -0.4 -0.4 SPY │ +17.3     +16.9     +16.8     +16.9     +16.9     +16.2     │ me │ -3.3 -4.1 -4.3 -4.3 -4.3 -4.7 │ floor │ -7.0 -5.5 -6.2 -5.6 -6.0 -5.9 │

Stock-trading robot

HostMDS.ca: This server has been shut down.  HostMDS dēleta est!

VPSville.ca: There was one quote-fetch failure this week: Friday at 4pm.  The robot gave up after only 20 seconds.  This may need further tweaking for reliability.

Ticker Symbol		Buy date			Buy price			Sell date			Sell price			Acct Profit
		Model	Actual		M	A		Model	Actual		M	A		M	A
TNA		SE 05 12:00			$58.43		⅔	SE 17 15:00	SE 07 09:30		$65.99	$61.95		+1.7%	+1.8%
							⅓		SE 17 14:00		$65.99	$66.18
		(Do not buy)	SE 11 11:40			$63.41
			SE 13 12:39			$64.05
SRTY ¹		(Do not buy)	SE 18 15:00			$35.07		SE 19 10:00			$34.89	$34.86		+0.0%	-0.1%
SRTY ²		SE 20 11:00			$35.32			SE 21 09:30			$34.41	$34.35		-0.4%

TNA: I beat my own robot!  But just barely.  Would have been a +2.2% gain if I hadn’t sold those shares on SE 07 and then re-bought them on SE 11.  The impulse-purchase of more shares on SE 13 (in response to the announcement of QE3) turned out to be correct.
      The final sale was an hour earlier than expected due to an erroneous price quote.  The new VPSville robot is faster, but still gets occasional wrong answers when the market price is moving rapidly.  Still, the result was positive.

SRTY ¹: Erroneous trade due to a build-up of erroneous price quotes, which I took to be a “final fuck-you” from HostMDS on my way out the door.  I added a special rule to the robot so it would know that I had these shares and would look for an exit-time, which turned out to be the next morning.

SRTY ²: Normal trade.  Unfortunately, there was a gap-down and stop-out Friday morning.  Not sure why I didn’t get the opening price.

Precious metals trading

PPLT: Platinum fell on Tuesday as Japan shut down auto-production plants due to its argument with China over some uninhabited islands; striking South African platinum miners got a 22% wage-hike.  My 5½% trailing stop triggered and I got out of this trade with a profit.  Platinum might be on its way back up; should I buy it again?

IAU: This was a consolidation week, when the price of gold did not move much.  Still, it managed to make a marginal new high on Friday, pushing up my 10% trailing stop from “slightly below break-even” to “slightly above break-even”.

DGP: I don’t know what the market will do next.  It might be that we will have stagflation, where the price of equities stands still while the price of commodities rises.  If so, I should buy some more gold.  Maybe a 2× leveraged gold product like DGP?