Week of 2012 NO 23

Didn’t feel like writing a report this week.

US markets for were closed Thursday for Thanksgiving.

Friday’s allocations:

Daily % gain size │ Max loss Sym  Buy │  Fri  Mon  Tue  Wed  Thu  Fri │ Beg   End   IAU  AU14 │ +0.8  14  ? +1.0  14  +1.0  14  +1.1  14  │ +0.1 +0.1 UGLD  NO09 │ -0.5  14  ? -0.1  15  -0.1  15  +0.4  15  │ -1.3 -0.8 TZA  NO14 │ +0.2  15  -0.6  14  -0.6  14  -0.6  14  -0.6  0  │ -1.0 -1.0 TNA  NO21 │ -0.0  15  +0.5  15  │ -1.9 -0.7 SPY │ +8.7     ?     +10.9     +11.1         +12.6     │ me │ -4.9 ? -5.2 -5.1 -3.9 │ floor │ -7.5 ? -7.1 -8.9 -7.3 │

Monday: Didn’t feel like recording the daily values.

Friday: Daily values reconstructed after the fact.  This happened to have been a very good day (except for the failure to double up on TNA).

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		NO 14 11:00			$17.87			NO 19 10:00			$17.21	$17.17		-0.5%	-0.6%
TNA		NO 21 13:00			$52.74			(Not yet)
		NO 23 11:00	(Skipped)		$54.16

The robot once again mishandled the market closure, causing it to fail to rebuy at 11 AM on Friday.  By the time I noticed, it was too late to get that price.  Need to fix this.

Week of 2012 NO 16

Didn’t feel like writing a report this week.

Friday’s allocations:

Daily % gain size │ Max loss Sym  Buy │  Fri  Mon  Tue  Wed  Thu  Fri │ Beg   End   IAU  AU14 │ +1.0  14  +1.0  14  +0.9  14  +0.9  14  +0.8  14  +0.8  14  │ +0.1 +0.1 UGLD  NO09 │ -0.0  15  -0.1  15  -0.2  15  -0.2  15  -0.4  14  -0.5  14  │ -1.3 -1.3 SRTY  NO12 │ -0.1  15  +0.0  15  +0.9  16  +1.1  16  +1.1  15  │ -0.8 -0.4 TZA  NO14 │ +0.4  15  +0.6  15  +0.2  15  │ -1.1 -1.0 SPY │ +10.1     +10.2     +9.8     +8.3     +8.1     +8.7     │ me │ -5.6 -5.7 -5.7 -4.5 -4.4 -4.9 │ floor │ -7.6 -8.4 -8.1 -8.1 -9.1 -7.5 │

SRTY: A decent-sized win, which more than makes up for this week’s losses on gold.

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		NO 12 12:00			$42.87			NO 15 14:00			$46.33			+1.1%
TZA		NO 14 11:00			$17.87			(Not yet)

The robot is functioning normally.

Week of 2012 NO 09

SPY fell by 2.7% this week, erasing the last 15 weeks of gains.  My account rose 0.4% and has been hovering in the same area for the last 10 weeks. The loss-floor fell to -7.6%.

Friday’s allocations:

Daily % gain size │ Max loss Sym  Buy │  Fri  Mon  Tue  Wed  Thu  Fri │ Beg   End   IAU  AU14 │ +0.6  14  +0.6  14  +0.9  14  +0.9  14  +1.0  14  +1.0  14  │ +0.1 +0.1 SRTY ¹  NO05 │ -0.3  15  -0.3  15  -0.3  15  -0.3  0  │ -1.0 -1.0 SRTY ²  NO07 │ -0.1  15  +0.5  15  +0.3  15  │ -1.2 -0.7 UGLD  NO09 │ -0.0  15  │ -1.3 -1.3 SPY │ +12.8     +13.0     +13.9     +11.3     +10.0     +10.1     │ me │ -6.0 -6.2 -6.0 -6.1 -5.4 -5.6 │ floor │ -6.4 -6.7 -6.7 -7.9 -7.9 -7.6 │

Summary of action: There were two short-equity trades this week — a gain and a loss that cancelled each other out.  Meanwhile, gold’s price rose.

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		NO 05 10:00			$39.93	$39.92		NO 05 11:00			$39.10			-0.3%
SRTY ²		NO 07 12:00			$41.10			NO 09 11:00			$42.20			+0.371%	+0.349%

SRTY ²: Model and actual profits differ by only 0.022%, but this was enough to create a round-off error (model 0.4%, actual 0.3%).

Gold trading

Gold rose this week.  Daily MACD finally turned positive, so I scaled in with UGLD, which is a triple-leveraged “side-bet with the banksters” that the price of gold will continue to go up.  My account is now 60% long gold, which feels rather overexposed — but gold’s price moves very slowly.  Basic plan is to hold UGLD until daily MACD goes negative.

Original plan was to use a 17% trailing stop for UGLD, but I didn’t like how much that cost so I convinced myself that 9% should be enough for a short swing.  We shall see.  I have no model for this trade, so it feels “naked”.

Seasonal Trading Strategy

I’ve been waiting to try out Sy Harding’s seasonal trading strategy, but I haven’t yet put on a position for the winter and Sy hasn’t either.  In this post he is quite clear about what his strategy is: buy an equity index fund when daily MACD(12,26,9) goes positive after October 16th.  It seems that Sy buys the Dow Jones Industrials for the winter, but I was thinking of buying small-caps like I always do (perhaps SCHA, which has no trading fees for Schwab customers).

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.