MrBuzz's Swing Trading Forum
Visit my market blog at www.kerryonworld.com/blogStockMarket. I will use that site to post my current thoughts on the market in diary form. I will continue to post trades here as SI has a good portfolio manager.
This is a swing trading forum. I rarely close positions out within a day. If I do feel the trade is meant for daytrading, I will note it. This is also not investing. My time horizon is much shorter - rarely will I hold a position more than several weeks.
If positions are closed early it is because I feel either a profit target was hit too quickly or some weakness is showing. The rule of the road is if the position doesn't move my way after a set time frame, losses are cut short and assumed to be wrong.
Everything in this thread is called the way I see it. I am a firm believer in technical analysis along with a dose of fundamentals. I also believe money management is vital to existence. My basic rule is that I put no more than 20% of my entire portfolio in any one position and will diversify with up to 10 stocks at one time.
I will rarely put 20% into a high flying volatile stock. I don't trade OTCBB so don't waste your time posting them here and you won't see any mention of those either from me. Margin is used with discretion and when I feel a trend is in development and going my way.
In regards to stock selection I keep it simple. I don't play thinly traded stocks nor do I chase the stock of the day. Stocks must trade over 800,000 shares a day on average. I tend to trade the more active issues such as MSFT, CSCO, DELL, YHOO, SUNW, JDSU, EBAY, AMZN, etc. Thus, you will rarely see stocks mentioned that aren't popular.
Portfolio Notes
SI has a bug in it which has caused me to use CASH.X as the cumulative gain/loss since inception. It is not the amount of cash that is in the portfolio. It's easier for me to quickly update the portfolio balances when I close a position - just add or subtract the gain or loss in the position to CASH.X
* Portfolio started March 23, 2003
* Assumes $1,000,000 starting equity
* 2:1 margin
* CASH.X is the cumulative sum of all closed positions since inception
* To get the total portfolio value since inception:
Total portfolio value = $1,000,000 + CASH.X
Examples:
CASH.X = $250,000
Total portfolio value = $1,000,000 + $250,000 = $1,250,000
CASH.X = $-100,000
Total portfolio value = $1,000,000 - $100,000 = $900,000
- Stocks marked with negative shares (in red) are shorts. Otherwise they are long.
- If there are no open positions, I am fully cash and the account value is the total portfolio value.
- Total %Gain/%Loss in Silicon Investor's portfolio manager has a bug in it. It doesn't calculate short positive percentages correctly. So the portfolio won't reflect the true %Gain/Loss in the entire portfolio. Thus the reason for CASH.X as a cumulative sum.
Disclaimer:
At times I may own stocks mentioned in this thread. I will not be held liable or responsible for your trading decisions. |
