HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

I guess your sentiment is representative of what is happening in the markets these days: exhaustion with low volume, almost like summer doldrums.

I guess this is because the weak hands sold out long time ago, the COT money are fully invested and there is no catalyst for a change. There are massive amounts of money on the sidelines (like yours). Time will show whether that money goes back to equities (I guess global and EM, but also to some extent US) to create the election year blowup so many people talk about, versus gold and commodities. Treasuries and bonds are slowly loosing propositions and investors know that.

So, f_j, what are you doing?

[friendly_jacek]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

4/8/08 Yesterday, I noted in another post that I had closed all my long equity ETF's and the reasons for doing so.

Currently I am neutal with regard to betting on the major indices going up or down, my bias for the moment is down, and I would bet that way, but I am tired and need some rest.

I am neutral gold and silver with positions in CEF, GTU offset by a position in DZZ.

I am still long 30-year bond interest rates and Hussman growth fund. I am short crude via DCR and have been getting a beating in the 0.69% position, it began being a 0.9% position.

I am about 78% in Treasury MMF.

I guess your sentiment is representative of what is happening in the markets these days: exhaustion with low volume, almost like summer doldrums.

I guess this is because the weak hands sold out long time ago, the COT money are fully invested and there is no catalyst for a change. There are massive amounts of money on the sidelines (like yours). Time will show whether that money goes back to equities (I guess global and EM, but also to some extent US) to create the election year blowup so many people talk about, versus gold and commodities. Treasuries and bonds are slowly loosing propositions and investors know that.

[waysouth]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

The best way to start something is to find the end

If its a bear market(which in real terms measured in gold it is apart from say
commodities)then the only way to win is to loose the least,even gold is a loosing position because it pays no return

So if expectations are in those terms life becomes simpler?

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

4/8/08 Yesterday, I noted in another post that I had closed all my long equity ETF's and the reasons for doing so.

Currently I am neutal with regard to betting on the major indices going up or down, my bias for the moment is down, and I would bet that way, but I am tired and need some rest.

I am neutral gold and silver with positions in CEF, GTU offset by a position in DZZ.

I am still long 30-year bond interest rates and Hussman growth fund. I am short crude via DCR and have been getting a beating in the 0.69% position, it began being a 0.9% position.

I am about 78% in Treasury MMF.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

On 4/2/08 I opened ~1.8% positions in EEM Emerging Markets ETF http://www.etfconnect.com/select/fun...sp?MFID=109007

and EFA International developed markets, http://www.etfconnect.com/select/fun...asp?MFID=76693

for three reasons: Charts looks contructive to me, I need some international exposure, I need to be more invested still being ~56% in cash.

I actually went out with wife last night and ate dinner. From reading here, I expected to see blood in the streets. Here in Texas you know we "pack iron" so it is not that uncommon to see blood running in the streets. I didn't see any blood in the street, so perhaps it is just contained here. We'll see.

[ocelotl]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Well, as you may expect, the bulk of my portfolio is denominated in Mexican Pesos, I have a CD denominated in Euros and my stack of PM's. I'm not into stocks, didn't like how they moved when I was there.

This week has been interesting so far... Although just yesterday I saw a loss on my portfolio total of 0.6%, measured in MXN, it raised 0.2% if measured in USD... Still, I'm up 1.75% so far into the year measured in MXN

Am I confused? a bit, but I was expecting for something like this. Frightened? Not much, but that is part of the learning. Am I changing strategy? Not at this moment, I'm checking how it all develops and will act accordingly. So far I'm not seeing this year, relating just to exchange rates, as a repeat of 2001, but things begin to look similar.

The idea behind my approach is that I only have to check things once a week to move my portfolio, and only if there is some extraordinary movement I'm checking things more thoroughly, any way investing for me must not distract me from my day job as IT manager and costumer service engineer, at least not yet.

As of the last week plan to get into more gold, I'm checking available data and within this week I'm deciding on my move.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

I think if I were beginning this thread today, I would use "DEPLOYED" vs. having used "INVESTED" in the title. I'm sort of surprised no one has questioned me that for the most part I am not invested in much, rather I have gravitated in positioning myself in instruments that produce nothing of substance but with a hope of producing gains in bonars, the exception being HSGFX which is invested in companies, but being hedged it has not produced much for me in the way of profits so far.

Monday, 3/31/08, I liquidated DBA and RJA after selling them on 3/4/08 and buying them back on 3/18/08. That is not trading, but rather indecision on my part. This last in and out with those two lost ~42% of previous profits from their sales on 3/4/08.

For the month of March, I lost -$595 or -0.05% while the SPX lost -0.59%, the DJI -.03%, Nasdaq gained +0.34%, NDX +2.10%, and RUT + 1.80%. Where oh where did my "genius" go from Jan. 08 when I gained 5.31%? Actually, I ran out of good luck. Good luck in Jan. not so good in March. March was a volatile month in which I had decent profits on the close of several days only to see them quickly evaporate on the next. So it may go.

The RUT topped out on 7/13/07 (the first major index to have done so) which was 180 market days ago. In 2000, my portfolios topped out on 1/3/00. 180 market days after that I has lost -13.50% (definitely should have sold then). Back then over same period of time the DJI lost -5.0%. Presently 180 market days after RUT top, I am up +9.26%, while the RUT is down -16.96%. Hopefully I am learning something, but it could be all luck.

Here is my positioning as of 3/31/08, fortunately having escaped any crashes in any of the markets in which I have played. As above DBA and RJA are closed now. My drawdown on 3/31 was -1.65%. Max drawndown this year has been -2.10%.

3/31/2008	POSITION	% INVESTD	NOW GAIN	% GAIN	ALLOCATION
DJ US FINANCIALS	UYG	2.24%	-298	-1.18%
DOW	DDM	2.30%	-101	-0.39%
NDX	QLD	2.31%	250	0.98%
SPX	SSO	2.39%	1,371	5.42%
RUT	UWM	2.40%	952	3.68%	11.63%
GOLD & SILVER	CEF	0.80%	2,893	47.90%
-200% GOLD ETN	DZZ	0.98%	7	0.06%
GOLD	GLD	0.00%	0.00%	0
SILVER	SLV	0.00%	0.00%	0
GOLD	GTU	1.24%	4,230	44.02%	3.02%
METALS	RJZ	0.00%	0	0.00%
COMM AGRIC	DBA	0.98%	-845	-7.15%
COMM AGRIC	RJA	0.89%	-825	-7.57%	1.87%
GLBL ALT ENERGY	GEX	0.00%	0	0.00%
NUCLEAR	NLR	0.00%	0	0.00%
INVERSE LT. SWT. CRUDE	DCR	0.85%	-213	-2.19%	0.85%
YEN	FXY	0.00%	0	0.00%
YIELD ON 30YR-BOND	RRPIX	5.31%	-3,156	-5.05%
HEDGED EQUITY	HSGFX	18.78%	7,353	3.63%	24.09%
		41.46%	11,617	2.57%
	BOLD GREEN SYMBOLS = MOVE +200% OF RESPECTIVE INDICES
	BOLD RED SYMBOLS = MOVE -200% OF RESPECTIVE INDICES

What do I think might be next? Today was a +90% up day in volume and points on the NYSE. This is the second so-called "panic buying" day out of the past 10 market days. If anyone is interested read the quote in my post #139 above about what might happen after a 90% down day, one of which occurred on 3/14/08. With sentiment having been at extreme negatives recently, I think the markets could go up a while. I hope they do, as I am positioned to profit a bit were that to happen. Anyone can see I only have a 11.63% bet in that direction: up, but it is in +200 long ETF's. I am still in 64.5% cash (actually a bit more when I account for sales of DBA and RJA) so I distinctly am not whole-hog bullish. I am short oil via DCR, and rather neutral on the small PM positon with DZZ hopefully making it neutral.

Edit: For more than several days since 3/18 having begun opening the +200% long positions I have, I have been asking myself, what could make the markets go up now? My answer has been, shit, I cannot think of anything except the extreme bearishness that seemingly exists in the few contacts I have with the world, and especially on iTulip, my main contact with the world, where bearishness is rampant as I think I perceive it. Then along comes a decent rally today, 4/1, and tonight I run across Hulbert's piece that I posted in the Bullish Information Thread here. It will be interesting to see if anything plays out of this.

[c1ue]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

I am not readily following your complex double-short-of-gold leveraged strategies there Jim (with minute portions of your portfolio) but a little birdie told me today the SPX is going to scoot up 40% to 1880 by April 2009, where it will make a multi-year top.

More like a big ruler...

Some wonks at MIT did some statistical analysis to understand whether TA really meant anything using a 31 year data sample from 1962 to 1996, including both NYSE/AMEX and Nasdaq data.

Summary: Head & Shoulders (HS), Broadening Bottoms (BBOT), Rectangular Tops (RTOP) and R. Bottoms(RBOT), and Double Tops(DTOP) have some statistical merit for NYSE/AMEX.

Inverse H & S (IHS), Broadening Tops(BTOP), Triangle Tops (TTOP) & T. Bottoms(TBOT), and Double Bottoms (DBOT) don't mean squat for NYSE.

But all 10 mean something for the Nasdaq.

Unfortunately the study did not address a couple of key issues:

1) The overall trend of the markets in question from 1962 to 1996 was unquestionably UP.
2) The effect of TA users on market behavior is also not examined

In particular, 2) is a big issue. A few loud and well marketed TA media mouths can themselves con large numbers of people to start using their 'formulas', and thus start a self-reinforcing cycle.

The fact that only the Nasdaq data showed more TA significance is interesting since it is easily arguable that investors in the Nasdaq are much more speculative on average than the NYSE/AMEX.

It is also interesting that the Triangle Tops and T. Bottoms have very low statistical significance for both sample groups when these are probably the 2nd most popular TA 'trends'.

Lastly it is interesting that volume seems to have little impact on TA statistical significance - volume being another one of the TA articles of faith.
---------------------------------------------------------------
The good news:

http://web.mit.edu/alo/www/Papers/1705-1765.pdf

By comparing the unconditional empirical distribution of daily stock returns to the conditional distribution—conditioned on specific technical indicators such as head-and-shoulders or double-bottoms—we find that over the 31-year sample period, several technical indicators do provide incremental information and may have some practical value.

Table VII shows that for NYSE/AMEX stocks, five of the 10 patterns—HS, BBOT, RTOP, RBOT, and DTOP—yield statistically significant test statistics, with p-values ranging from 0.000 for RBOT to 0.021 for DTOP patterns.

When we also condition on declining volume trend, the statistical significance declines for most patterns, but the statistical significance of TBOT patterns increases. In contrast, conditioning on increasing volume trend yields an increase in the statistical significance of BTOP patterns.

The bad news:

One of the main obstacles is the highly subjective nature of technical analysis— the presence of geometric shapes in historical price charts is often in the eyes of the beholder.

However, for the other five patterns, the p-values range from 0.104 for IHS to 0.393 for TTOP, which implies an inability to distinguish between the conditional and unconditional distributions of normalized returns.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

I am not readily following your complex double-short-of-gold leveraged strategies there Jim (with minute portions of your portfolio) but a little birdie told me today the SPX is going to scoot up 40% to 1880 by April 2009, where it will make a multi-year top.

That would be a cool 40% upside from here to April 2009, then down bigtime into a trough in 2011.

Catch today's bears on the wrong foot while we are all mired in heavy pessimism, then wallop them early in the spring of '09, after they all capitulated and piled into the SPX late this year for the rip-roaring winter 2008 rally.

Traders delight. Yum. Excitement. Thrills. Maybe Mish is onto something there after all. Hmm, but what if I make that same 40% in plain-jane gold in the same interval? Lot less stress, to my mind - better value asset for the macro environment - keeps up with even Mish's underestimated "da-flation". Got to mull it over.

GTU and CEF on one side of the balance = ~2%

DZZ on the other side = ~1% that moves -200% of gold.

Net hope is to keep my gold position rather neutral for the moment. Will it work? I'll watch it and see. It should be obvious, but perhaps it isn't, my bet is PM's have some more downside, and no birdie told me that, it is just my opinion.

Lukester, what kind of discourse is this with your putting up crap about what "birdies" are telling you? There is enough misinformation outside of iTulip and probably more than I recognize in here, why add obfuscation when you have the opportunity to add clarity.

If equities go up 40% from here, great, I'll capture a bit of it with a 10% +200% long. If you do the same with gold or anything else, great too.

I'm in cash 58%, so it is clear to me that I have no absolute commitment to the market doing anything right now at least to the degree that I am smart enough to get 90% long or short much.

I've forgotten just what are your current asset allocations. Bed-time. Look forward to your answer tomorrow.

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

I am not readily following your complex double-short-of-gold leveraged strategies there Jim (with minute portions of your portfolio) but a little birdie told me today the SPX is going to scoot up 40% to 1880 by April 2009, where it will make a multi-year top.

That would be a cool 40% upside from here to April 2009, then down bigtime into a trough in 2011.

Catch today's bears on the wrong foot while we are all mired in heavy pessimism, then wallop them early in the spring of '09, after they all capitulated and piled into the SPX late this year for the rip-roaring winter 2008 rally.

Traders delight. Yum. Excitement. Thrills. Maybe Mish is onto something there after all. Hmm, but what if I make that same 40% in plain-jane gold in the same interval? Lot less stress, to my mind - better value asset for the macro environment - keeps up with even Mish's underestimated "da-flation". Got to mull it over.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Tuesday, FOMC cut discount rate 0.75% from 3% to 2.25%.

I closed all my inverse ETF positions: SRS, DXD, SDS, QID, & TWM.

I opened ~1% positions in DDM, SSO, QLD, UWM, & UYG.

After a 3% drop from Monday's intraday high in FXY, I closed that ~10% position this afternoon.

I also reopened the agricultural commoditiy ET*'s DBA and RJA at ~ 1% positions each.

The equity markets' reaction today certainly did not negate the indicators I mentioned last night that suggested some sort of a bottom should be occurring in here. They may fail next time, but not this time.

Additionally today was a clear +90% up day in volume and points on the NYSE. I take this a being bullish, though it has to prove to be so.

Below is a comment from Preiur du Plessis Postcards from this weekend.

http://www.investmentpostcards.com/2...2008/#more-674


What we've experienced on the NYSE has been nine uninterrupted -90% down days beginning 12/11/07 and the last was this past Friday. It is option (1) above that suggests the situation in which we may now be. Notice I wrote "suggests." We'll have to wait and see how it play's out. I took an 11.5K hit today rearranging myself from short to long. Current drawdown so far is-1.31%

On 3/18, note above, I missed mentioning adding ~1.5% to my RRPIX position.

On 3/20/08 I added ~1.5% to my DDM, SSO, QLD, UWM, and UYG positions.

3/24/08 Today I opened ~1.0% position in DZZ (-200% gold ETF) and ~1% position in DCR (inverse light sweet crude price).

Current drawdown: -0.75%

[Starving Steve]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

That's not true SS. If this thread of Jim's tells us anything it's that we can control our money should we choose. This is Jim's thread, and not the place for entering detailed discussions on all of our portfolios, but, with Jim's kind indulgence, a couple of quick thoughts on some of your points...



Down in what terms? US Dollars? Finster's HMX? The DJ-AIG commodities index? As Finster keeps reminding us, "up" and "down" are relative.



How do you measure its value? The rent it generates (do you expect rents to fall)? The intrinsic value as shelter? Or the price the house across the street that just sold? If you own it free and clear you should not have to be a forced seller. In an inflationary world, that could become increasingly unstable, is the in-migration to where you house is located in Canada likely to rise or fall in future years?




If you are really worried about these, but want to continue to earn the dividends, buy a small amount of DUG (ultra-short oil ETF) as a short-term hedge against falling oil.

You get the picture. You are not helpless...

Good luck

[/quote]

I don't like to trade anything complicated because my head gets dizzy. I like to invest in SIMPLE things that I can sleep with and ignore: like gold, beaver bucks, US bucks, a free and clear home, insured CDs, general obligation municipal bonds short-term, etc.

One of the lessons of this current era (with all of the bad derivatives) is: "KEEP IT SIMPLE, SIMON."

I have to laugh at all of the mortgage packages sold to banks because the mathematicians told the banks that they were safe. AND NOW THE BAD MORTGAGES CAN NOT BE ASCRIBED TO SPECIFIC PROPERTIES. ( I wish I were making this up, but this is what happens when you invest according to derivatives and mathematics. )

You asked why I think real estate is going to go down in Canada? Answer: The real estate in Canada is resting on a pyramid of DEBT too, and plenty of it. My log house is on Vancouver Island near Victoria, and it will go down.

You asked why I thought gold would go down? Answer: Look what happened to-day: DOWN $59 IN ONE DAY, AND A NEW RECORD DROP FOR GOLD. And sure maybe gold will go up to-morrow, but it will go back down later on again, and more. GOLD NEEDS PROOF-POSITIVE OF AN INFLATIONARY SOLUTION TO THIS DEBT CRISIS, NOT JUST THE SUSPICION THAT SUCH A SOLUTION IS COMING. Gold bugs deal on facts, not spin.

Also, the drop in the stock market in New York is putting pressure on gold. And that is DE-flationary.

I can't get excited about stoxx; can you? I sniff a deflation risk, and in a deflation, cash is king.

Oil and gas trusts stink, but energy long-run is going UP. And meanwhile, one can collect a nice dividend. The risk with these is short-term.

General obligation municipal bonds are tax-free in the US. They stink, but they are tax-free. Some pay 4% or even 5%. But California is bankrupt and so is the US, so they stink.

Money market funds are a risk, but there is no place to invest. SIPIC should cover MMFs up to $200K, but who can say?

Twenty thousand teachers got pink-slipped in California this month, so that is DE-flationary to me--- at least short-term. My hours are being cut, so that seems DE-flationary to me.

All of the bank runs and panics seem to be DE-flationary to me.

Wouldn't investing with a deflationary bias make some sense? (It makes sense to me.) But there is an inflation risk, and for that risk, I have a free and clear home in BC, Canada and I also hold a 5% of net worth gold hedge.

And that is my strategy. It stinks, but the alternatives are worse.

My hope is that the best case scenario emerges: The world will go through a re-play of the 1930s deflation.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

That's not true SS. If this thread of Jim's tells us anything it's that we can control our money should we choose. This is Jim's thread, and not the place for entering detailed discussions on all of our portfolios, but, with Jim's kind indulgence, a couple of quick thoughts on some of your points...

GRG, the only one that owns anything on iTulip is EJ as far as I know. This thread is totally open to anyone to opine or argue anything. Thanks for your comments.

[GRG55]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

I DON'T LIKE ANYTHING To-DAY.

I am sort of stuck with things that are least bad because I have no place to go with money.

That's not true SS. If this thread of Jim's tells us anything it's that we can control our money should we choose. This is Jim's thread, and not the place for entering detailed discussions on all of our portfolios, but, with Jim's kind indulgence, a couple of quick thoughts on some of your points...

I have about 5% in physical survival gold, mostly U.S. $20 gold pieces and Maple Leafs, also US Eagles and Mexico 50peso 1947 gold centenarios. The future of this will probably be down, even with inflation.

Down in what terms? US Dollars? Finster's HMX? The DJ-AIG commodities index? As Finster keeps reminding us, "up" and "down" are relative.

I have a free and clear house in Canada which will go down in value.

How do you measure its value? The rent it generates (do you expect rents to fall)? The intrinsic value as shelter? Or the price the house across the street that just sold? If you own it free and clear you should not have to be a forced seller. In an inflationary world, that could become increasingly unstable, is the in-migration to where you house is located in Canada likely to rise or fall in future years?

I have a beaver bucks in Canada in oil and gas trusts which will go down in value short-term. But in the long-term with the eco-frauds dictating policy, oil will run-out, and these trusts might go up in value.

If you are really worried about these, but want to continue to earn the dividends, buy a small amount of DUG (ultra-short oil ETF) as a short-term hedge against falling oil.

You get the picture. You are not helpless...

Good luck

[/quote]

[sabocat]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

10% Rogers Commodity Index
5% IAU
5% HSGFX
10% RPIBX
5% TGLDX
10% PG
5% GCS
5% MAPTX
5% PRNEX
5% BRK.B
35% Cash

Tidbits in various options.
being less certain than some about the outcome, I have aimed for a diversity of dollar hedges. I will have more, since my wages are dollar-denominated and they are what most needs to be hedged.