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Strategies & Market Trends : A.I.M Users Group Bulletin Board -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: axp who wrote (14431)	1/19/2001 9:50:07 PM
From: aptus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18928

Hello axp, Very interesting strategy with your stop order use. Do you ever find the price has fallen so quickly that it takes out your stop and you're filled at a significantly lower price than AIM had originally suggested? I know a few of the stocks I follow did this last year. regards, mark.

To: axp who wrote (14431)	1/21/2001 9:29:23 AM
From: OldAIMGuy	Respond to of 18928

Hi AXP and welcome, Thanks for sharing your thoughts on starting up AIM. There are other things one can do as well as your ideas to keep in touch with reality on the way up and down. In your #1, might I suggest that you put a Stop order in for only the quantity of shares that AIM suggested you sell? That way you don't get stopped out of the entire position. (I've never attempted such, so don't even know if it cash be done) In #2, please realize that Y2K was an exceptional year and not the rule. If one has their SAFE values too small during normal markets, they'll burn cash rapidly in a year like the one just past. Some like to adjust SAFE on the fly but that's a subjective thing. Looking at the immediate past is a good way to judge what should be done about frequency of trading. Last year we saw the bubble expand rapidly and all could have guessed that the bubble would also deflate rapidly. Therefore stretching one's time horizon out would have helped to use the cash more wisely. It wouldn't necessarily keep one from running out of cash, but the average cost of the shares would have been better. Part of the problem with using software for AIM is that as soon as you enter trade data, it will prompt you to make the next move required to satisfy AIM's interest. Mr. Lichello didn't expect us to do this. He expected us to enter the trade data and then wait until the next update period to find out what the next advice would be. This saved early AIMers many a cut finger when knives were falling fast. So, if we see a rapid rise, we can anticipate the lemmings all bailing at the same time and a rapid decline. Sometimes it's good to just hold one's breath! Thanks for the thoughts. Please keep us posted on your efforts. I agree that either keeping AIM longhand or tinkering with a spreadsheet is great instruction as to what goes on inside the AIM algorithm. Best regards, Tom

To: axp who wrote (14431)	1/28/2001 7:40:57 AM
From: jptenz	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 18928

Would someone please define B.T.B. for this new lad. (new to this process). Thanks

To: axp who wrote (14431)	2/3/2001 6:06:38 PM
From: axp	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18928

I'm responding to my own post after actually attempting the strategy (a little) but also after doing more historical analysis. The practice of setting a stop loss sell order when AIM signals a buy may work to improve the buy price a little, but in general, the same volatility that makes a good AIM stock also takes out the vast majority of stop orders within a few days. A large enough stop margin that avoids selling for extended runs also misses out on what would otherwise be good sell opportunities. Someone else recently posted that they use GTC orders at the next sell or buy price. I did some modeling with this and my conclusion is that it's detrimental. With either a spike up or down you don't get as good a price as if you waited till the regular update period. And speaking of update period, yet another poster emphasized how important it was to stick to the regular update period and not fool around too much in between. I agree with this conclusion. It appears that as you increase the AIM update frequence (daily, hourly, etc) you hurt performance by not letting trends run their course, not to mention increased trading costs. There was wisdom in the BTB advice to update monthly, but weekly may be a more optimal frequency and with computers to help there is not any significant additional work. Besides, I need to satisfy my investing addiction more than once a month!