HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

[Guest]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

C1ue -

<< As I've also noted before, the rare occasions when I 'back up the truck', I've put in 70%+ of my liquid assets. >>

I GROK your position on this point 4X4. Real back-up-the-truck opportunities are rare as hens teeth. If you pass one up you condemn yourself to chasing the second tier opportunities with more risk for another decade or two.

[paulhamann]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Timing is a mugs game. By being early, placing a really serious bet, and being quite sure the macro events are producing a very high probability result for Gold (you've done all the homework to nail the thesis to the floor as well as any investment idea can be), risk becomes suddenly quite low.

Excellent analysis. I am using this strategy as well. I like the the higher quality small and medium cap commodity producers for leverage. I would add that I try to take a larger number of positions to limit company-specific risk. Only an insider truly knows what lurks under the published numbers from an individual mining concern. I also buy dips over time--I can't pick the bottom either. Finally, gold isn't the only tangible value. IMHO, beaten down companies with raw land will benefit from rising Ag prices and ethanol. JOE, CTO, and TRC aren't builders--just tarred with that brush.

[bart]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

...

If any of those newsletters are worth half what they charge you, they'll point out to you the window that's at very worst 30% to 25% short of the so called "top". So that approach is as good as done by those means.

...

Timing is a mugs game. By being early, placing a really serious bet, and being quite sure the macro events are producing a very high probability result for Gold (you've done all the homework to nail the thesis to the floor as well as any investment idea can be), risk becomes suddenly quite low.

People like Harry Schulz or Jim Sinclair or Jesse Livermore and many others do and did *very* well with timing... and its not for everybody either.

Harry Schulz' model/sample portfolio for example is up well over 1500% since about 2001 with minimal trading, and his full trading approach has done even better.


Jesse Livermore, probably the best trader of all time (and who died far from broke contrary to urban legends) also had this to say among many other things:

• "Speculators in stock markets have lost money. But I believe that it is a safe statement that the money lost by speculators alone is small compared with the gigantic sums lost by so-called investors who have let their investments ride."
  -- Jesse Livermore, "How to Trade in Stocks" (page 25)
• "From my point of view, the investors are the big gamblers. They make a bet, stay with it, and if all goes wrong, they lose it all."
  -- Jesse Livermore, "How to Trade in Stocks" (page 25)

• "The only reason an investor or speculator should ever want to have pointed out to him is the action of the market itself. Whenever the market does not act right or in the way it should - that is reason enough for you to change your opinion and change it immediately· Remember, there is always a reason for a stock acting the way it does. But also remember: the chances are that you will not become acquainted with that reason until some time in the future, when it is too late to act on it profitably."
  -- Jesse Livermore, "How to Trade in Stocks" (page 71)
• "In fact, I always made money when I was sure I was right before I began. What beat me was not having brains enough to stick to my own game - that is, to play the market only when I was satisfied that precedents favored my play."
  -- Jesse Livermore, "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator" (page 14)

Just something from the "dark side" of trading, and for perspective...

[Guest]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Here's another great axiom for day-to-day survival:

"Contradict the BART-FINSTER-GNOMON at your own peril".







P.S. Now why doesn't BART throw a few choice scraps of short term investment calls at us starving mutts, as a pat on the head? :rolleyes:

[bart]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Here's another great axiom for day-to-day survival:

"Contradict the BART-FINSTER-GNOMON at your own peril".







P.S. Now why doesn't BART throw a few choice scraps of short term investment calls at us starving mutts, as a pat on the head? :rolleyes:

That gets you *two!* rimshots .

http://www.nowandfutures.com/grins/rimshot.mp3
http://www.nowandfutures.com/grins/rimshot2.mp3

And the gnomon reference gets you:
http://www.nowandfutures.com/grins/shadow.mp3 ;)



As far as short term calls, I seldom post them here since there are very few if any traders and it crosses the purposes of iTulip, but if you're interested you can see some of my calls and trades on my blog at http://blog.nowandfutures.com.

[Nicolasd]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Jim,

In addition to money letter subcription , you may want to consider subcribing to sites calculating EVA--Economic Value Added-- for individual stocks --complementing the T/A you are already doing.

A good site is "stockpointer.ca" but you will need to drop the southern accent and polish your french :p.Alternativelly , you could "google" it and find similar sites in the US

Nicolas

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Jim,

In addition to money letter subcription , you may want to consider subcribing to sites calculating EVA--Economic Value Added-- for individual stocks --complementing the T/A you are already doing.

A good site is "stockpointer.ca" but you will need to drop the southern accent and polish your french :p.Alternativelly , you could "google" it and find similar sites in the US

Nicolas

Nicolas,

I have just about totally stopped investing in stocks of companies for a variety of reasons which aren't important to others I don't think.

Thank you for the suggestion, and I hope someone else will find it useful.

[GRG55]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Nicolas,

I have just about totally stopped investing in stocks of companies for a variety of reasons which aren't important to others I don't think.

Thank you for the suggestion, and I hope someone else will find it useful.

Back when I was with "Big Oil" we had an analyst from one of the big Wall St investment banks speak at a charm school gathering (circa 1992). He told us that his firm's detailed research of the entire post-WWII period for the US equity markets showed that more than 80% of institutional client investor returns came from being in the right sectors, and just over 10% came from individual stock selection in those sectors. Seems to imply that the rise of sector ETF's is a real positive for small, private investors.

Don't know if that conclusion still applies in these rather interesting times, as breadth seems to be narrowing even in technology, with tremendous bifurcation in stock performance (e.g. GOOG, RIM, AAPL, WYNN, CROCS, GRMN, compared with the market as a whole, and others in their sector). But hard to imagine that current equity market circumstances are stable and can be maintained for much longer. Also, don't know how applicable his observation may be to international markets, like BRIC.

[c1ue]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Back when I was with "Big Oil" we had an analyst from one of the big Wall St investment banks speak at a charm school gathering (circa 1992). He told us that his firm's detailed research of the entire post-WWII period for the US equity markets showed that more than 80% of institutional client investor returns came from being in the right sectors, and just over 10% came from individual stock selection in those sectors. Seems to imply that the rise of sector ETF's is a real positive for small, private investors.

GRG,

Out of curiosity, was this bank offering ETFs or mutual funds?

The reason I hate mutual funds is that - similar to hedge funds but lower scale - you are purely putting your faith that

1) The manager does what he says he will do (i.e. consistency of strategy and execution)
2) The manager is actually has a fundamentally better than average approach (as opposed to luckier)
3) That the fees never get too exorbitant

Unfortunately all 3 of these have proven out already.

The primary advantage of the mutual fund is that you are much likelier to stay invested, but unfortunately this tendency also manifests itself in an equally high likelihood of not cutting your losses.

All in all a net negative for me personally.

[Charles Mackay]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Well, everyone knows my portfolio. I posted it here on iTulip in April '07

"I'm 25% US T Bills, 25% non dollar short term paper, 40% bullion, and 10% energy"

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8864

(I don't know how to change that thread link to point to the exact msg within the thread. Anyone know?)

Edit (Well, I guess that 8864 does take you directly to the right msg thread... good!)

[GRG55]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

GRG,

Out of curiosity, was this bank offering ETFs or mutual funds?

The reason I hate mutual funds is that - similar to hedge funds but lower scale - you are purely putting your faith that

1) The manager does what he says he will do (i.e. consistency of strategy and execution)
2) The manager is actually has a fundamentally better than average approach (as opposed to luckier)
3) That the fees never get too exorbitant

Unfortunately all 3 of these have proven out already.

The primary advantage of the mutual fund is that you are much likelier to stay invested, but unfortunately this tendency also manifests itself in an equally high likelihood of not cutting your losses.

All in all a net negative for me personally.

This was in 1992, and the context was not related to selling any investment product (ETF or mutual fund) to us. This was an analyst from a large Wall St. firm (in the news this week ;)) that provided research coverage of my then employer (a Fortune 100 company) for institutional investors (and presumably their retail accounts as well).

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

11/13/07

I thought John Hussman had a particular good 'weekly market comment' this week, http://hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc071112.htm It convinced me I could be better positioned to make money if the prospects for a recession come to fruition.

With regard to financials in particular, investors continue to look for a bottom. Aside from periodic short squeezes and spectacular but short-lived rebounds, I don't think it is coming anytime soon. The recent concern about higher loan losses is no surprise (see The Problem with Financials), and this is likely to continue. This is not simply a problem that will go away if various financial companies “come clean” with what their CDOs and so forth are worth. The real problem is that the companies don't know what they're worth because the foreclosures that will determine their value haven't happened yet. The defaults are just starting. The heaviest round of mortgage resets only started in October, so it will probably be months before we observe mass delinquencies, and several more months until we observe significant foreclosures, loan losses, and writeoffs. This is a multi-year problem, not a multi-week problem that can be resolved by “just coming clean” with what's on the balance sheet.

..

Industry groups: rotating disappointments

It's interesting that investors have not yet put the rotating disappointments among various industry groups into a “gestalt.” Rather, investors seem to be looking at various industries as if their problems are each somehow unique and unrelated. Investors recognized early that the housing sector is profoundly vulnerable. More recently, they have recognized that financials face growing loan loss risk. With Caterpillar's disappointing guidance, they suddenly realized that cyclicals and machinery face significant challenges. With Exxon's refining difficulties, they realize that profit growth in the oil sector is unlikely to produce major upside surprises. And last week, technology stocks were clipped when Cisco produced strong earnings but didn't raise guidance. Yet somehow, investors haven't put all of these together to see the larger picture, which is that the market has lost leadership from every important group. This isn't a stock-selection or an industry-selection issue. It is a pervasive indication of oncoming economic risk.

Bold Emphasis JN

Who added to their shorts today?

I added a approximately a third more to each of my -200% Proshares ETF's: DXD, SDS, QID, and TWM. I did that when the DJI was up 170+ points, little did I know, of course, it would continue to almost double that!!

After reading Hussman's comments and no telling how much more stuff over the weekend, I decided I was underinvested on the short side. Hussman made another comment in his "comments" not quoted above about regretting decisions to wit: if you are worried the market is going down and you sell a portion of a position and the market moves against you, you regret that you sold, and if the market goes down, you regret that you did not sell more. So, today, I was happy I did not buy more of -200% ETF as the market continue up, but I never pick turning points--except to pick the wrong ones; conversely, I was sad the market went up so much.

Some of the technical aspects of the market yesterday replicated those existing back on 8/16/07, the date of the beginning of the previous bounce up and on top of that today was a 90% up day in volume and points on the NYSE--generally a very positive technical event for the bulls.

We'll see. I remain bearish, and of course do not know how much upward movement we are to see now. More move upward presents more buying opportunities to the short side.

[jk]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

i didn't add to my shorts, but i didn't close any, nor did i sell any of my pm positions. i'm just holding on tight.

[remember that animation of the dow as a roller coaster?]

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

From 10/22 my positions as posted in black were:

Cash in US Bonars: 54.59% 11/19/07 51.01%

Long positively correlated positions (Precious Metals): 5.70% 11/19/07 3.23%

CEF 0.67% 0.69%
GLD 1.43% 1.44%
SLV 2.53% sold this position 11/19/07 to preserve 50% of profits reached on 11/06/07
GTU 1.07% 1.10%

Long negatively correlated positions: 9.69% 11/19/07 16.00%

DXD 1.80% -200% DJI 11/19/07 2.96%
QID 1.55% " NDX 2.82%
SDS 2.03% " SPX 3.57%
TWM 2.07% " RUT 3.47%
SRS 0.90% " DJ US REAL ESTATE 1.02%

RRPIX 1.34% -125% 30YR BOND 2.16%

Long Foreign Currency.

FXY 9.85% 10.14%
Long hedged mutual fund.

HSGFX 20.16% 19.62%

In blue, added above to my original allocations, are my current positions.

I sold SLV today after gaining ~20% back on 11/6/07 and losing half that to end with a gain of 10.46%.

[GRG55]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

In blue, added above to my original allocations, are my current positions.

I sold SLV today after gaining ~20% back on 11/6/07 and losing half that to end with a gain of 10.46%.

Jim: From what I've followed since you started this thread I notice you pretty consistently trade 10% gains, which is none too shabby! Well done!! :cool: