December 2004

December 2, 2004

Some trades yesterday.  The market was up big-time.  Unfortunately, my stocks overall were only about even, because of losses in oil-related areas.  But of course the ProFunds behaved nicely.

WLP, Wellpoint did a confusing thing.  It was bought by Anthem, but then Anthem changed its name to Wellpoint, keeping the same symbol.  The stock then traded lower because there was a $23.80/share cash payment.  Still, including the cash payment, it was up nicely.  I am just glad this is in my IRA, and I do not have to do the tax accounting. I am just going to show the original purchase price for WLP, which makes it appear that I have a loss.

December 3, 2004

Total disaster yesterday in the oil service and energy areas.  Oil made a dramatic move down, and all those stocks tanked.  I got out of most of them, and now have some cash.  The question is how to use the cash:  domestic or foreign? The Russian/East European stuff has not done well recently, but the rest of the overseas stuff looks OK.  When I do a MAM ranking of all of the major indices over all the world, lots of foreign countries are at the top.  I should do this ranking regularly, and use it to determine some kind of foreign allocation.  I regret not doing it earlier in the year. During the middle of the year, I could have done well in overseas funds.  

Today I bought some more small caps and some additional foreign Closed-Ended Funds.

December 8, 2004

These last 2 days have been disastrous.  There was a huge move down in the Nasdaq and the Russell 2000, and in addition commodities took a big hit.  I got out of several things, and raised some cash.  We will see where the market goes next, but I have never seen so much volatility from day to day, and with so little reason.  Gold and oil, for example, made huge moves down, but there was no obvious reason.  I had to sell the Eastern Europe and Australian funds at losses.  Australia is heavily dependent on commodities, and Putin is making a mess of things in Russia.

December 9, 2004

Marty Chenard says to sell.  I agree, although most of the signals are still on buys.  Getting out of everything except Frontline, which should do well.  They are talking about buying GMR, and I might buy some of that, or perhaps more FRO.

So as soon as I sell, the market goes up.  Well, that is good for the ProFunds, at least.  I have never seen this much volatility, or a market so hard to call.  Being in cash for a while will be a bit of a rest.

December 11, 2004

I am wondering about this sell signal.  Perhaps it was good or perhaps not.  If the market hangs in there next week, I may ease in.  The problem this month has been that so many stocks have been so volatile, either in one direction or another, and on one day or another.  I have taken over $35,000 in profits (including the cash and stock dividends which have yet to be paid), but let more in open profits slip through my fingers.  Not good.

The Santa Speedo Run - Boston MA

December 23, 2004

Definitely not a good month so far.  The sell signal was bogus.  Not only that, there was an odd combination of events that caused me to lose on some stocks.  Like MFE, which I bought just as Microsoft announced it was developing (buying) its own protection.  Bad news and large loss.  There were  others - like a random coincidence of bad luck.  We will see what the rest of the year brings, but I am very unhappy with my performance.  Also, at this point, it looks like Frontline, which went X-dividend today to the amount of $1.80/share, overshot to the downside.  I still like the stock for long term prospects, but I will not actually get the dividend until next month.

December 31, 2004

Closing out a very bad month, when I made some serious mistakes, and also had some bad luck.  Certainly, I have never had so many stock picks go south as soon as I bought them.  Definitely a collection of, I hope, random events.  I have been working on an ETF trading system, and I may try following it.  The wide spreads bother me, however.

There are quite a few distributions and dividends which will appear next month.  That will help a little.

This year was a good year for the buy and hold crowd, particularly if they had money in the foreign markets, which I unfortunately ignored.  Patience, which is not one of my virtues, paid off.

NEXT