A trader's market leaves me clueless
Oil whipsaws the market up and down like a teeter totter. This is a market for traders, not investors.
Which leaves me pretty much down and out. We have to hold too many stocks for my liking in this contest, in a volatile market where day to day changes favor those who move quickly.
I'm just not experienced enough to see beyond 2 or 3 opportunites currently, while the top players have the foresight.
Persoanlly, I'd rather only have about 4-5 stocks in my portfolio right now (GRMN, ISRG, KWK, DKS, KSS), if I had to start from scratch today. All are undervalued, and have promise if their growth falls within analyst expectations.
Stocks I'd keep on my radar for attractive entry points: GS (Below $165), CSCO (Below $24), INTC (below $21), V (when it falls below $80 again), USB (When I figure out why a so-called conservative bank is getting knocked down).
I've pretty much proven that I don't understand certain stocks as well as I thought. TSO, MSFT, NVDA, GE, PFE, NTRI, and NYX all fit that bill. Of course this is all relatively short-term reuslts (4 months is hardly conclusive), and I may turn out to be correct with a longer time-frame. However, within the confines of this game, I did not perform well enough. I have no one but myself to blame.
What I find intriguing is that my longer term portfolio I'm also running on Marketocracy, is positive. For that one, I sold half of my AAPL position when it broke $185 back on May 12th. I then got out of AAPL all-together at $188 the next day. I also sold part of my EMC and CSCO positions on May 13th. I made large bets on all three stocks, and did well on them.
Now I'm mulling whether to dump my CVX position when it goes above $100 again, and whether to dump JEC. Both positions are up 23%+ since I bought them.
Just goes to show I have a lot more to learn.
Comments: View Comments | Monday June 16, 2008
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Archive Comments (1)
Sherlock,
Get a Clue.
The SLO Rules require that you be " In Compliance " at least 50% of the time.
That means you can be out-of-compliance slightly less than 50% of the time.
You can spend time 100% in cash, if you like.
There's less than half of SLO-2 left, so you can move to 5 stocks or 1 stock from here on in if you like.
You will still be "Qualified" and not be " Dis-qualified " if you do so. Just as long as Total Non-Compliance time is not exceeded.
There's a lot of flexibility in the rules.
Also, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.
Do what you feel you would do if this were NOT funny money. Otherwise, you'll end up sleeepless ( in Seattle ? ) as well as clueless ..... Play YOUR game, forget about the 'artificial" CONtest restraints and constraints
I like KWK ( QuickSilver ) -- it's a play on the rising price of natural gas and those guys add gas to their reserves like nobody's busines. It's also a Seasonal Play -- hot summers and huge electrical demand for air conditioners, etc. Marginal power is produced by gas-fired combined-cycle turbines. So summer is the "Kicker" on this one.
As of today, KWK is my 13th best gainer in SLO-2 at + 13.74%. There's more coming in my opinion.
Stock suggestions ( a kind of Blast-from-the-recent-Past) :
My Top 12 SLO-2 Current Returners --
TS, CNX, ANR, CMP, PX, CVX, GMT, NOV, WAB, MXWL, DRC, CENX ------ KWK
I obviously hold a lot of stocks for diversification -- it provides what I call " Portfolio Ballast ". A balanced selection of Good stocks is the way to go as a serious investor as opposed to a Big Mo Day-Trading Churn 'n Burn Strategy.
Hope this helps assuage your doubts about the market as it is.
Don L. Ferk ( fka VikingWarrior )
Posted by don ferk June 17, 2008 8:42 PM