01/28 Trades

CDE @ 23.77 Short
HL @ 9.14 Short
WLT @ 127.01 Short

Generated at 12:29 PST on 1/28

01/27 Trades

ACI @ 32.95 SHORT
ANN @ 22.30 SHORT

01/26 Trades

ANR @ 58.24 SHORT

01/25 Trades

SKX @ 21.14 SHORT

01/24 Trades

STEC @ 20.98 SHORT

01/21 Trades

HTZ @ 13.95 SHORT

SOLF @ 9.01 LONG
STP @ 8.97 LONG

01-20 Trade

RF 7.22 Short

Generated at 12:48 pm

01-19 Trades

Preferred

VECO  46.26 S

Alternates

AXL   15.12 S

COCO   4.94 S

STEC  20.89 S

TEN   44.12 S

Basically all indicators pointed to SHORT.

This list generated at 12:41 pm on 01/19/2011

01-18 Trades

HTZ short @ 14.22
IOC short @ 76.46

These recommendations were established at 12:57 pm or thereabouts PST.

Plan for 2011

2010 had been a roller-coaster year in terms of my performance.

I had done way too much trading and didn't manage money well and didn't have enough confidence in many of my trades. There had been many small gains and a few large losses - recipe for disaster.

Frustrated with lack of patience and a clear, well paced trading plan, I wanted to stay away from active trading and follow the markets and try phantom trades. As I have been following the Elliott Wave principle and newsletters from Elliott Wave International, I wanted to "park" my portfolio in ultra short ETFs, keeping with the macro predictions of bear market while I experiment off line with my trading strategies. Unfortunately, I started this plan in early July and has been going with it since. Needless to say, the market has been steadily going up in this timeframe and if the wave interpretations of EWI are correct, my stint in this respect coincides with wave 5 of the bear market rally - not a great thing.

In the meantime, at the turn of the year, I came up with a heuristic that seems to work reasonably well. This is not in a mechanized way, but as a mechanized detection of interesting but fleeting stock positions that need to be evaluated manually.

I plan to have an entry for each trading day just before close indicating the positions I would take if I were actually trading using the scheme. At the end of the day, a comment to this entry would give all the competing positions from which I selected the "winners" and give rationale as to why I chose them. The next trading day, another comment to the original would give exit actions as appropriate. Another comment would then complete the picture with all candidates considered and analyzed for future picking.

The idea is to keep this up until at least the end of January 2011, perhaps a little into February as well, and then evaluate the efficacy of the approach. If there is promise, then the current Ultra Short ETF position can be liquidated and the new approach adopted for potentially better returns.

Daily Update - 2010-02-16

2010-02-16 CTAS short 23.96 - 2010-02-16 cover 23.89 (+0.29%)

Year-to-Date performance:
Me: -1.67%
DJIA: -1.53% S&P 500: -1.81% NASDAQ: -2.42%
Best Mutual Fund (iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction): +10.49%
My rank among the mutual funds: 1352 of 2120

2010 Completed trades to-date

Following are trades that completed in 2010 thus far. Future trades will, hopefully, be updated on a daily basis.

2010-01-13 PCS short 6.36 - 2010-01-13 cover 6.40 (-0.63%)
2010-01-13 PCS short 6.35 - 2010-01-13 cover 6.41 (-0.94%)
2010-01-13 MXIM short 19.10 - various cover 19.00 (+0.52%)
2009-12-16 DXD buy 29.16 - 2010-01-21 sell 29.30 (+0.48%)
2010-01-22 AA buy 13.88 - various sell 13.62 (-1.87%)
2010-01-25 AA short 13.51 - 2010-01-25 cover 13.45 (+0.44%)
2010-01-26 CI short 34.63 - 2010-01-26 cover 35.10 (-1.36%)
2010-01-26 DXD buy 30.47 - 2010-01-27 sell 30.55 (+0.26%)
2010-01-27 DXD buy 30.65 - 2010-01-27 sell 30.54 (-0.36%)
2010-01-27 DXD buy 30.78 - 2010-01-27 sell 30.95 (+0.55%)
2010-01-27 CAT short 52.08 - 2010-01-27 cover 51.50 (+1.11%)
2010-01-28 BAX short 58.85 - 2010-01-28 cover 58.60 (+0.42%)
2010-01-28 BAX short 58.35 - 2010-01-28 cover 58.30 (+0.09%)
2010-01-28 BAX short 58.43 - 2010-01-29 cover 57.93 (+0.86%)
2010-01-28 IOC short 66.11 - 2010-01-28 cover 65.60 (+0.77%)
2010-01-29 HON short 38.60 - 2010-01-29 cover 38.57 (+0.08%)
2010-02-01 LEG short 18.95 - 2010-02-01 cover 18.90 (+0.26%)
2010-02-01 GCI short 14.47 - 2010-02-04 cover 14.13 (+2.35%)
2010-02-01 GCI short 14.95 - 2010-02-01 cover 14.80 (+1.00%)
2010-02-05 APD short 68.50 - 2010-02-05 cover 68.20 (+0.44%)
2010-02-05 APD short 68.34 - 2010-02-05 cover 68.19 (+0.22%)
2010-02-08 CBS short 12.80 - 2010-02-08 cover 12.72 (+0.63%)
2010-02-09 GME short 18.78 - 2010-02-09 cover 18.72 (+0.32%)
2010-02-09 DXD buy 31.02 - 2010-02-12 sell 31.36 (+1.10%)
2010-02-10 GCI short 14.18 - 2010-02-10 cover 14.00 (+1.27%)
2010-02-10 EOG short 89.45 - 2010-02-10 cover 89.16 (+0.32%)

Year-to-Date performance:
Me: -0.48%
DJIA: -3.15% S&P 500: -3.55% NASDAQ: -3.77%
Best Mutual Fund (Direxion Daily Real Estate Bear 3X Shrs): +16.25%
My rank among the mutual funds: 539 of 2120

Tracking of daytrading and swing trading details

This is a blog to track all the nuances dealing with the stock trading activities of mine.

I had tested waters in the stock market with short-term stock trading using heuristics of my own. To compare 2010 trading performance against my own historic returns, here are the final 2009 performance figures:

2009 performance:
Me: +25.34%
DJIA: +18.82% S&P 500: +23.45% NASDAQ: +43.89%

My aim in 2009 was to beat these three indices. If not possible, to at least beat the broader market, viz S&P 500.

My aim in 2010 is to beat all of these and also to beat the best mutual fund return, regardless of its type.