HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

that's a shitload better than 90% of the 'professional' high paid fund managers out there. well done.

Thanks for the "well done," but it truly does not salve the loss of what as of Friday was ~165K and on 10/27 was ~228K.

You know we can look at our gains or losses in a number of ways, some of which make us feel better and others which don't.

Were it actually correct that even at my current performance is better than 90% of the world's investors, it does not assuage the fact or pain of the loss. Anytime I might do well, I hope I never fail to appreciate that I could have done better, and the opposite is true for losses.

If anyone had balls of titanium (brass ain't nearly strong enough) and was correct last month with being short and stuck with it through the two bounces up on the 13th and from the 16th to the 20th, such a person could have made a real "killing" in the way of profits. It was one helluva opportunity to have made or lost a whole lot of money, and such an opportunity may not again occur in my lifetime. I wonder how many people stuck out October on the short side and either sold in the last three or four days or are still sticking with being short?

[metalman]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Some of my present positions have been held for over two years, and some for just one to five days. The overall gain on my present positions is -8.49%.

that's a shitload better than 90% of the 'professional' high paid fund managers out there. well done.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

10/16/08

YTD AM DOWN -0.86%,
+3.00% FOR LAST 52WKS,
+6.58% CMPD FOR LAST 2 YEARS,
+6.63% CMPD FOR LAST 3 YEARS
+9.06 CMPD FOR LAST 5 YEARS,
-1.45% CMPD SINCE 1/4/2000.

MY DRAWDOWN IS 12.73% and has occurred since 9/17/08.

As of 10/31/08

YTD AM DOWN -1.79%,
+0.76% FOR LAST 52WKS,
+5.08% CMPD FOR LAST 2 YEARS,
+6.29% CMPD FOR LAST 3 YEARS
+8.05 CMPD FOR LAST 5 YEARS,
-1.52% CMPD SINCE 1/4/2000.

MY DRAWDOWN IS 13.76% and has occurred since 9/17/08.

At the recent lows on 10/27/08 my drawdown was 19.00%.

For me this past month was a bummer, or clearly a very bad month. I really hope others, everybody, did better than I.

For October, I was wrong, except for eight days, about what I thought might, should, could happen next, and those 14 days where I was wrong cost me a lot. Every decision I made to be long or out of the equity markets was nearly perfectly timed to have been wrong. It could have been worse, I guess.

Currently I am allocated as follows:

Long equity ETF's 7.30% : DDM SSO QLD UWM
Long international ETF's 7.94% : EEM EFA EWG EWJ EWS EWZ GXC VWO
Long commodities 3.38% : USO UNG
Long refiners 1.79% : VLO TSO FTO
Long currencies 1.74% : FXF
Long PM's 7.28% : GTU CEF GDX AND PMPIX and a bit of physical.
Long US hedged equity 20.43% : HSGFX
CASH : 50.14%

Some of my present positions have been held for over two years, and some for just one to five days. The overall gain on my present positions is -8.49%.

Recently someone here on iTulip posted a comment that he (I guess it was a "he") never sold a position at a loss. I guess such is possible, but improbable in my opinion if one holds anything more than a day or two and tracks the highest prices of the position after one opens it.

After opening a position, tracking the difference between the daily closing price and the highest attained price amounts to the "drawdown" for that position. If one doesn't track drawdowns, for whatever reasons: time, no ability with a spreadsheet, fear, etc,. I don't see how one can keep up with when it might be reasonable to liquidate a position. I am assuming that not everyone buys stock-marketable assets with the intention of never selling them.

Buy a stock at 100 and open it with a mental stop-loss of 14%. That is to say, if the stock goes down to 86, the action is to close the position and take the 14% loss and look for other opportunities.

But what if it runs right up to 116.50 and then reverses back to 100? If tracking the drawdown, here one has a 14% loss on the appreciated value of the position, and near zero loss on the initial investment. It is my opinion that to attempt to keep from seeing good gains lost, that one should track the drawdowns, and thus in appreciating stocks, one is continually raising the mental stop-loss point.

I attempt to write things here that aren't nonsense about potential methods of winning more often than losing when it comes to trying to make a go with investing. For reasons of being human and subject to emotions and opinions of what I think may happen with my positions, I don't always follow the "rules" of what I think is wise investing, and from time to time it really costs me, and it always pisses me off.

[pmmeaney]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

My Fidelity 401k plan is actually quite restricted in terms of what I can invest in. It is mostly stock funds with a few bond and money market type things thrown in. Very little that is interesting in the current market. (To get out of this straight jacket I'd have to quit my job which I'm hoping isn't in the cards for a bit.) About a year ago I took all of my money out of my stock funds - Contrafund and Europe stock fund and put it the US Treasury Money Market Fund and their Cash Reserve. Both have been able to weather the storm fairly well so far. My big question is whether I should be looking for alternatives to this? I'm quite curious about the Select Gold Portfolio for a couple of reasons - (1) it's remarkably beaten down so far (down about 60 - 65% from peak), (2) it's a bit of a hedge against the dollar (80% non-US investments), and (3) it is at least exposed to the gold world (I think only about 20% of its holdings would be in actual metals - the majority is in equities).

Does anybody have any thoughts on whether this would be a good play at this point or not?

Cheers,

Paul

[Supercilious]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Short update: I couldn't just sit on things in this high opportunity market, because I was itching to get in the game. As of this morning my situation is as follows:
~10% cash
~ 45% in base a diversified package of shorts in: HGG, URBN, BARE, IEO & XOP
~ 45% in base a 0 risk crash-proof currency ETN package (thinking to change that too into a ETN package based on gold and/or platinum, but I still have to do my homework and calculations)

Update to the update:
~10% cash
~45% cashed with an average return of 14% (HGG proved to be a real champion ). This part of portfolio is to be invested in a mix of foreign shorts.
~ 45% in the process of moving form a crash-proof ETN package based on currencies to one based on gold. I may get up to 2-3% on this transfer , but anything that is about 1% is just a bonus I'm not counting on.

End of the short disclosure period.

[phirang]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Sold it this morning and converted immediately into shorts. It was just too boring to sit and watch all opportunities flying around. . I'll probably go back there is the market proves to be to hairy. I hate this market. There were good times when a sort term play was to wait a minimum 2-3 weeks until scoring. If this insanity continues I may be forced to become a bloody daytrader.

Don;t know how to insert formulas in this board, but:

(APHT) x (VIX) =k

APHT - average position holding time
VIX - volatility
k- constant characteristic to the type of investment strategy: k_long_term>k_midterm>k_short_term

Really, if my short time play tends toward daytrading, then daytraders become what ? hour traders , minute traders ? :eek:

This is insane and surreal.

I'm sticking to put-put on the debt-laden wankers...

I've to tell you, though: buying subprime consumer debt co's is a lot of fun on the eve of more nationalization! up, giddy up, NAV!

[Supercilious]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

What happened to your GE 45% position? Am I missing something?

Sold it this morning and converted immediately into shorts. It was just too boring to sit and watch all opportunities flying around. . I'll probably go back there is the market proves to be to hairy. I hate this market. There were good times when a sort term play was to wait a minimum 2-3 weeks until scoring. If this insanity continues I may be forced to become a bloody daytrader.

Don;t know how to insert formulas in this board, but:

(APHT) x (VIX) =k

APHT - average position holding time
VIX - volatility
k- constant characteristic to the type of investment strategy: k_long_term>k_midterm>k_short_term

Really, if my short time play tends toward daytrading, then daytraders become what ? hour traders , minute traders ? :eek:

This is insane and surreal.

[LargoWinch]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

What happened to your GE 45% position? Am I missing something?

[Supercilious]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Short update: I couldn't just sit on things in this high opportunity market, because I was itching to get in the game. As of this morning my situation is as follows:
~10% cash
~ 45% in base a diversified package of shorts in: HGG, URBN, BARE, IEO & XOP
~ 45% in base a 0 risk crash-proof currency ETN package (thinking to change that too into a ETN package based on gold and/or platinum, but I still have to do my homework and calculations)

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

To what extent is the current market "rally" due to government "pump in"?

I have no idea. Markets can get oversold, and with no exceptions about which I know at some point they bounce for what will be ascribed on bubble-vision by the bubble heads as one cause or another, neither of which might have anything to do with the move.

It actually makes no difference to me which way or why they move as long as more often than not I am correctly positioned to make money on the move.

[strittmatter]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

If you read the note, it seemed to me last Thursday he bought some stocks in the HSGFX because of valuations that appealed to his criteria. Hussman looks at long term returns.

In the smaller fund, HSTRX, he in largely in short US Treasuries, and has allocations to gold and foreign currencies. I keep thinking that the only way to truly separate hot air from how investors really are thinking is to look at what they are doing, because so much talk everywhere is simply bullshit unless you know where the money is invested.

To what extent is the current market "rally" due to government "pump in"?

[c1ue]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Jim,

I agree with your sentiment.

Being in short term Treasuries is just keeping the powder dry though.

Maybe he's in the same train of thought at Dr. Michael Hudson; certainly being in Treasuries has been a good thing up until now both yield and value wise.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Hussman is seems to be saying that everything will be all right, that all that's happened thus far is a panic and that valuations are now reasonable.

I hope he's right, but I also note he failed to mention anything about inflationary impact of all the government money flying around.

Before I would believe his full story, I'd want to see some treatment of the flood of Treasuries about to strike the bond market.

If you read the note, it seemed to me last Thursday he bought some stocks in the HSGFX because of valuations that appealed to his criteria. Hussman looks at long term returns.

In the smaller fund, HSTRX, he in largely in short US Treasuries, and has allocations to gold and foreign currencies. I keep thinking that the only way to truly separate hot air from how investors really are thinking is to look at what they are doing, because so much talk everywhere is simply bullshit unless you know where the money is invested.

[c1ue]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Hussman is seems to be saying that everything will be all right, that all that's happened thus far is a panic and that valuations are now reasonable.

I hope he's right, but I also note he failed to mention anything about inflationary impact of all the government money flying around.

Before I would believe his full story, I'd want to see some treatment of the flood of Treasuries about to strike the bond market.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

I added a minuscule amount to PMPIX (mining shares +150% of underlying index) today mainly because John Hussman has been building up his PM shares allocation in his strategic total return fund.

Here is an interesting comment on what Ned Davis' Research firm thinks about the current "bottom." From Hulbert's comments on MarketWatch.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/stor...B578964729A%7D

Hussman's weekly note was also worth my reading time. http://www.hussman.net/wmc/wmc081013.htm