This is not my boat!
I took the picture though. We had the mainsail reefed and huge westerly gusts (40 knots plus) made for an exciting test run in a friend's new yacht. It was pretty hot (29) and the helicopters were pulling water out of the river trying to put out the fires raging through Kuringai Chase National Park. Hanse yachts are made in East Germany somewhere.
I find such big boats a little overwhelming, my meagre sailing skills have all been in something that weighed less than 500kg (and often less than 100kg) not 18000kg. I think I will be sticking to my Hobiecat, more fun for way less cash.... and then there is the issue of not wanting to tie up good trading capital in a depreciating asset.
I am always drawn to water - surfing, swimming and sailing. Sailing is the area that I have the least experience.
September was a real turnaround month on the markets. The portfolio plunge for August was partially recovered in a very strong market. I guess that the one lesson that I learnt (again) was to not count open profits as in my own pocket.
Mrs Stevo found a little weekender on a beach somewhere north of Sydney. I guess at least land, especially waterfront land, tends to hold it's value. I will see how I go at auction - they are a bit like trading aren't they?
stevo
13 comments:
29 degrees! Arrgh...you're killing me.
All the best at the auction.
Hello Stevo,
I've been following your work on Chartist and on your blog for a long time, and I've learnt a lot. I've also developed my own system (using Metastock), and tuned it with TradeSim.
I'm surprised with such a drawdown in August. I thouht you used a market filter in your systems ?
I am currently testing a weekly trading system on my blog "bourseweekend.fr", and trade publicly a fictitious portfolio on "BourseMatch" website, since 6 months. Using a market filter, I've been out of the market since the 30th of Jully, and will probably come back on next week, if the market filter is alright on Friday evening.
I've installed a link to your blog,
Have good sailing and good trades,
Chears,
J2L (Paris, France)
J2L
Thanks for the info on your site.I enjoy browsing other traders sites. I will be in Paris for Christmas - my wife's 50th birthday wish - personally I would prefer somewhere much warmer:)
It appears that you exit all trades when the index turns negative? I just stop buying but leave trades running. The longest trade at the moment is nearly 3 years old.
I was in the Whitsunday Islands the week the market had it's biggest loss - unfortunately at a pretty intense conference. Selling on Friday was not the best approach in this week! I give myself the full week to get out - such is trading. I was actually pretty happy because I managed to follow my system even on an island.
It appears that there is a lot of life in aussie resource stocks, but we shall see.
ASX.G - I will go for an early morning swim tommorrow and then and I am taking a day off work tommorrow to go sailing in my little boat on Pittwater.
Happy trading
stevo
I use a 3 levels filter on the French stock major index (CAC40).
Over first level, normal buy and sell, middle level, no buy only sell, under third level (3% under the first), sell all the portfolio.
There are some charts to see the evolution of this filter in the category post "Le Marché" in my blog.
Test something like that on major ASX index and tell me ...
J2L
J2L
Interesting idea. I was only using the index as an on or off switch, but you have 3 states - on, off and liquidate. I will certainly explore this approach. I like the way you display the levels directly on the index.
stevo
J2L.
Three level index filter.
As Stevo says, an interesting idea.
If the figures are handy, can you tell us what the advantages were in terms of performance compared to not using the filter?
Nizar.
I haven't kept all my old tests and cannot give you any figure right now.
Could be interesting to do that on my blog, later, if the experience performs well.
For the moment, BourseWeekEnd doesn't speak of TradeSim and how I have developped my system. I prefer to prove that it works effectively instead of showing that it could work because it has been well tested on historical data.
My official performance is here on BourseMatch :
http://www.boursematch.com/membre.php?membre=BWE
5,3% in 6 months. I don't show off.
As many systematic traders, my real performances are less than what I expected from the previous tests. One of the reason for the blog is to keep easyly all the signals and to be able to understand later, why system testing is different from reality.
For the moment, I think that it is because I don't follow the system scrupulously. My blog helps me to be more rigorous.
J2L
Thanks for the link to your performance statistics. Your system is just taking it's first steps.
The first year is the hardest time for any long term system and system trader. If you are still trading after the first year and have some gains then you are doing ok.
People's expectations of gains can be too optimistic, especially on startup. Sometimes it takes a while to latch onto some big winning trade (100% plus). So whilst CAGR might test at 30% yearly returns over a 5 year period it vary rarely spread evenly over the 5 year period.
We tend to think far too short term and place to much significance on recent results and experiences.
I have not yet got around to working out how to go from On to Neutral to Off with an index filter. Off, where all trades are sold, would probably have to be a rare occurance for a long term system.
stevo
Hi J2L,
Thanks for the information.
5.3% in 6 months in the first year is certainly nothing to scoff at.
As Stevo says, start-up is difficult in the first year for long-term systems. It's mainly because the average holding time for a winner is a lot longer than the average holding time for a loser so the trades banked in the first few months are mainly losers.
For my system, in real life and even during backtesting, the return on the first year closed equity I expect to be flat. That said, by the end of the first year, there should be some nice profit sitting in open trades.
While my blog covers backtesting results and system development, it will also be used to trade live once i start.
Nizar.
Stevo and Nizar,
Encouraging posts ...
Would you please send me a private mail ?
http://www.bourseweekend.fr/blog/index.php/contact
Stevo,
Do you have anything against buying funds as opposed to normal stocks?
How about property trusts?
Normally the issue with these is liquidity but if they pass the filter then would you buy?
AGF triggered a buy last week and LRF this week. Both are listed funds.
Just wondering whats your take on it.
Thanks.
Nizar.
Nizar
They are all fair game. I would certainly look at what the fund is about. AMP Capital China Growth Fund (AGF) sounds interesting with all the focus on China these days.
I don't mind having some discretion in the trades, but sometimes I think I would be better off flipping a coin for the final selection.
stevo
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