Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Weekly ETF Review

Weekly Performance Review:

Top 5 ETF last week were

***********************************

ETF Weekly gain

***********************************

1. AGQ - (7.86%)

2. SOXL – 3.37%

3. ERX – 4.10%

4. PALL – (2.33%)

5. KOL – (2.07%)

--------------------------------------------

Cumulative return of (0.13)

Ann % return of 374%.

I am not getting into any postions this week due to market weakness. I am still holding my KOL ETF.

This week's Top Picks Weekly ETF

TOP ETF for this upcoming week are as follows:

These are the top ETF to hold this week

1. AGQ –

2. SOXL

3. ERX

4. TNA

5. PALL

We will track these top ETF again next week.

Good Luck and hopefully Holidays Spirits enlighten your portfolio and trading accounts.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Weekly Review of ETF and New ETF for week of Nov 22

Again as I pointed out there is historical bias to being positive for the week before Thanksgiving.

Our top ETF picks last week and their weekly returns are as follows:
Top 5 ETF last week were
***********************************
ETF Weekly gain
***********************************
1. AGQ - 14.39%
2. SOXL - 5.71%
3. ERX - 3.26%
4. PALL - 5.02%
5. TNA - 1.40%
--------------------------------------------
Cumulative return of 5.96%.
Ann % return of 374%.

However I due to weakness on Monday and Tuesday, I did not get into any of these except for PALL So my return is like 1.05% due only 1/5 principal being deployed.

SPY's return for the same period were 0.22% and another GTAA (so called choosing the leader Tactical ETF) was -0.44% .

This tells us that picking up Porche is always better than picking up a Chevy Cobalt or a balanced Corolla or Honda.


This week's Top Picks Weekly ETF

TOP ETF for this upcoming week are as follows:
These are the top ETF to hold this week
1. AGQ - Buy on Monday if prices go up .. Stop at $118.00
2. SOXL - Buy on Monday if prices go up - Stop at $39.5
3. ERX - Buy on Monday if prices go up - Stop at $45.00
4. PALL - Buy on Monday if prices go up - Stop at 69.13
5. KOL - Buy on Monday if prices go up - Stop at 42.44

We will track these top ETF again next week.

Some of the stocks of interest this upcoming week
PWER - Huge market manipulation in this stock.. so watch out for short squeeze..

Stocks to watch for upcoming short week
1) HPQ - General Technology Sector
2) DE- Due to positions in CAT
3) UUP - What does King Dollar has up in its sleeves.. Provides clues as we are holding lot of metals, natural resouces and materials ETFs....

Good Luck and hopefully Holidays Spirits enlighten your portfolio and trading accounts.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Getting Ready for Thanksgiving Treat

Going by History..
A week before Thanksgiving is a very good week for trades.. Buy a week before and then sell on Tuesday or Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Hence dipping my Toe with Stops..

Buying PALL ETF - 1/4th Position

Also bought a 1/4th of IBN and AAPL today..

All three setting up if we have a nice rally into Thanksgiving should give good profits..

PALL - Stop at 65.69
IBN - Stop at 51.49
AAPL - Stop at 303.98

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Finding Price targets using Moving Averages

Predictable price behaviors occur around the four major moving averages, 20, 50, 200 and 500 day simple moving averages.

On May 26th, 1896 Charles Dow introduced the industrial average, the Dow Jones 30. Since then there has been a repeatable and predictable price behavior pattern around the four major moving averages

The key is understanding the historical pattern and see if they can give us any clues.

In last 3 sell off, we have seen that SPX has respected its 50 day SMA before making the move down. With today's sell off we have not yet seen the test of 50 day SMA, may be tomorrow we see the test of 50 day SMA before any bounce or any further sell off.


Lets tread one day at a time..



With this kind of price action, I am not buying any ETFs or any stocks.. Staying in Cash is worth it..

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Another Look at Charts - by some one else..

http://ibankcoin.com/chessnwine/2010/11/12/touchy-feely/

Some Charts that I like to watch

These are some of the charts that I like to use to time the market along with some other indicators










Weekly ETF review and new Picks for Nov 13

What a Week....
As pointed out last week that we should expect a correction of around 3% to 5%. That thing started to come alive on Thursday.

We had big down days on Thursday and Friday in terms of our portfolio.

Our top ETF picks last week and their weekly returns are as follows:
Top 5 ETF last week were
***********************************
ETF Weekly gain
***********************************
1. AGQ - (11.18)%
2. SGG - (18.26)%
3. FAS - (9.23)%
4. DAG - (19.23)%
5. TYH - (9.60)%
--------------------------------------------
Cumulative return of (13.7)%.


However I was stopped out of couple of positions like AGQ, SGG and DAG right away on the reversals.

This shows importance of stops in this game.
Even though with stops my returns were -8.23%.

SPY's return for the same period were -2.18%. This tells us that we have to do a better job at protecting our profits. With any strategy involving picking the fast movers.. the chances of accidents and crashes are always there. I will research some better ways to get stops going without manual interventions to get better results.


TOP ETF for this upcoming week are as follows:
These are the top ETF to hold this week
1. AGQ - Buy on Monday if prices go up .. Stop at $108.00
2. SOXL - Buy on Monday if prices go up - Stop at $37.72
3. ERX - Buy on Monday if prices go up - Stop at $43.95
4. PAL - Buy on Monday if prices go up - Stop at 67.80
5. TNA - Buy on Monday if prices go up - Stop at 55.25

I am hoping this correction to get over by Tuesday, Wednesday. Then probably its okay to go back into these ETFs or stocks.

We will track these top ETF again next week.

Some of the stocks of interest this upcoming week
PWER - Huge market manipulation in this stock.. so watch out for short squeeze..
AUMN - I will be buying this on pullback, another volatile stock..
FFIV
ACOM
BKI
CAT

Also I will post when I buy these ETFs on Monday or when conditions are right..

Friday, November 12, 2010

ETFs Closing.. Looks and feels like Heading South

Looks like we are heading South.. So getting defensive....

1. AGQ - Closed this morning
2. SGG - Closed this morning
3. CZM - Will be closing if the price at 3.45 pm EST is below 55.23
4. DAG - Closed
5. TYH - Will be closing if the price at 3.45 pm EST is below 41.28

Sunday, November 7, 2010

How to Control Emotions in Trading

There were lot of traders including myself worried about a big sell off due to all kinds of reasons..
Elections, FEDS, job report, technical levels oversold, RSI divergences, Market in Churns etc..

But following a simple indicators like mentioned below can help you overcome some of the emotions based fear. I am guilty of succumbing to fear and follow emotions instead of following the Markets. Last week had too many ghosts to be scared off so no regrets there as its very easy to jump and buy what you like..

But in past I have been guilty of either getting scared out of position(s) or taking profits too early. So I vowed that next time I will not be scared out of any trades based on my emotions.

I came across interesting articles to overcome such emotions.. Hopefully should help you and they have helped me understand how a simple system is so useful.


Orignal Article can be found here:

Doing some further research on this Heiken Ashi Trend system.. I found that Sylvian Veervoort has done extensive research on this.. and has also developed so called zero lagging moving average indicators

Details and formulas can be found here:


Since I am a thinkorswim FAN.. I am using the following Code for Sylvian's work

#******************************************************
input period = 55;

def price = (high+low+close)/3;

#-----Typical Price ZeroLag Triple Exponential Moving Average

def TMA1 = 3*expAverage(price,period)
-3*expAverage(expAverage(price,period),period)
+expAverage(expAverage(expAverage(price,period)
,period),period);

def TMA2 = 3*expAverage(TMA1,period)
-3*expAverage(expAverage(TMA1,period),period)
+expAverage(expAverage(expAverage(TMA1,period)
,period),period);

def difference = TMA1-TMA2;
plot TypicalPriceZeroLagTEMA = TMA1+difference;
TypicalPriceZeroLagTEMA.setDefaultColor(color.green);

#------Heikin-Ashi Close ZeroLag Triple Exponential Moving Average
rec haopen = CompoundValue(1,((open[1]+high[1]
+low[1]+close[1])/4 + haopen[1])/2, hl2);

def haclose = ((open+high+low+close)/4+haopen
+max(high,haopen)+min(low,haopen))/4;

def HATMA1 = 3*expAverage(haclose,period)
-3*expAverage(expAverage(haclose,period),period)
+expAverage(expAverage(expAverage(haclose,period)
,period),period);

def HATMA2 = 3 * ExpAverage(HATMA1, period)
- 3 * ExpAverage(ExpAverage(HATMA1, period), period)
+ ExpAverage(ExpAverage(ExpAverage(HATMA1, period)
, period), period);

def HAdifference = HATMA1 - HATMA2;
plot HeikinAshiZeroLagTEMA = HATMA1 + HAdifference;
HeikinAshiZeroLagTEMA.setDefaultColor(color.red);

def buySignal = if TypicalPriceZeroLagTEMA > HeikinAshiZeroLagTEMA and TypicalPriceZeroLagTEMA[1] <= HeikinAshiZeroLagTEMA[1] then 1 else 0;

def sellSignal = if TypicalPriceZeroLagTEMA <>= HeikinAshiZeroLagTEMA[1] then 1 else 0;

plot signal = if buySignal or sellSignal then TypicalPriceZeroLagTEMA else double.nan;

signal.setLineWeight(5);
signal.SetStyle(curve.points);

#*****************************************************************

Comparing Both John Carter's and Sylvain's methods. It looks like that Sylvain's method is generating the signal little faster than John's Exponential system..




I also found very interesting thing that at times, Sylvain system might provide an exit signal and then stock can reverse back creating a buy signal. I did not find this kind of reversal in John system.

I believe both has done extensive backtesting but the focus of these similar systems are just a tad bit different

- John's focus might be more robustness on Entry and Exit
- Sylvain's focus might be faster entry /exit signal with a thought that it is easier to get invested after selling off or taking profits rather than giving up profits.



Friday, November 5, 2010

Weekly ETF Review and New ETF buys for Week of Nov 7

Phew !! What a Week....

We had Elections (Tuesday) we had FEDS (wednesday) and then to top things up we had Job reports (Friday).

Elections did not create the much anticipated breakdown nor did FED. Uncle Ben came in and infact stuck to his guns and continued to do whatever it takes to make the Stock market happy.
The initial reaction was not as people had expected (make or break) but next day (Thursday) market broke to new highs for the year.

All the indexes are making new highs and are continuing. Ofcourse we have a very overbought market so I am expecting some sort of correction or consolidation before we take the new leg to upside.

I donot expect correction to last long may be quick 3 %to 5% selloff and then again we continue the ride the uptown train.

As usual we will review the last week's picks and their returns though I did not hold anything

Our top ETF picks last week and their weekly returns are as follows:

Top 5 ETF last week were
***********************************
ETF Weekly gain
***********************************
1. AGQ - 17.09%
2. SGG - 8.91%
3. CZM - 10.18%
4. DAG - 6.67%
5. TYH - 10.01%
--------------------------------------------
Cumulative return of 10.6%.

SPY's return for the same period were 3.58%, which again proves that picking ETF based on strategy is lot better than just parking your money and trying to get market returns.


However the TOP ETF for this upcoming week are as follows:
These are the top ETF to hold this week
1. AGQ
2. FAS
3. SGG
4. DAG
5. TYH

We will track these top ETF again next week.

Some of the stocks of interest this upcoming week
PWER - Huge market manipulation in this stock.. so watch out for short squeeze..
AUMN - I will be buying this on pullback, another volatile stock..
AAPL
FCX
WES

I will post some interesting articles that I saw during this week also.