One try today yea beat that Refugee!
If you always buy what is hated, don't you risk missing out on some of the loving upside when things improve?
I usually try to buy what is hated and sell when they are close to fair value but the last few years I have been too scared and not diversified enough I guess it really shows in my performance. Coal and Natural gas have really affected my returns the last few years and I tend not to diversify much so when things don’t go my way my returns suck! One day I am going to be right on NG or maybe the miners which I just started taking interest in and I will kill the market and gain some confidence back. Too hard to be an investor when you think the foundation of the global economy is far from being sound! There is NO way for example I would sell BAC as cheap as I sold it, if I felt this recovery was normal. Still think it is very cheap if the Fed can keep holding the economy up, but how long can he keep juicing the market! This is not a normal recovery as many of my idols have said. We have what 1.5 Quadrillion in derivatives, 17T deficit and who knows how many trillions in unfunded promises here in the USA, Japan @ 300% of GDP and printing money like crazy, German banks levered 40 or 50 to 1, China and Canada are in real-estate bubbles, artificially low interest rates forcing people into risk assets, schiller P/E like 25, basically everywhere you look there is trouble I can go on and on. The system needs to be cleansed! Everyone is going to run for the exits @ the same time and boy it is not going to be pretty. Seth says this is the toughest investment environment of his career hard to disagree with him! It just makes me scared to hold anything really. I am lost still 50/50 on inflation or deflation wish I had a crystal ball it could go either way. I am trading more than ever before, come tax time I would normally have like 7 or 8 pages now it is like 50-100 the last few years wish I could say it was worth it but it will be a big headache this year getting everything on paper because of the poor performance. Anyways, when I first met you I held names until they were close to fair value and played with 10-20% of my money trading now it is basically 100% no LT investments. I believe I held JEF from like 8 bucks to 30 during the recession and sold when I felt it reached fair value same with Imperial .93 cents to like 20. There were many more names I was killing the market for a few years when things were cheap and I worried less. Got lucky again with JEF when I had the chance to buy it back for under 10 I think don’t really remember just remember getting another 50-100% return on that name in a short period of time. I usually hold the names I buy that are out of favor until they come close to fair value and try to get back if they fall again JEF is the best example I remember. Been a tough last 3 years for me off memory I think the market beat me by 1% in 2011, I beat it by 5% in 2012 and last year I lost by 28% yuck. Coal beat me up in 2012 or I would have killed the market but cant cry over spilt milk.
By the way 1 percent stinks because I had a 16% return for the year basically being like 50% cash most of the year and trading NG names that were mostly down then it disappeared in like 2 weeks with a stupid gamble on XCO! I was so happy with that 16% because most every name I played with was down for the year and I was up 16% in those names just by selling the pops and recycling in losers in the same sector. I guess it worked until it didn’t, but it was very foolish gambling 40-50% in one commodity name before earnings big mistake. |
