A couple of trades

Below are a couple of trades I exited recently.

These trades were taken using a weekly system. Both AND & KCN were bought in June 2009 so they were well over a year old. Andean Resources (AND)was a profit exit, although it's really an option I don't use much with this system. AND are a takeover target. Both of these are in my Super fund.

Only a week till the financial year ends

It's only a week till the year ends, although a lot can happen in a week on the markets. In terms of realised profits it looks like I will break even.

Add in some dividends and bank interest and it's an ok year for me, at least when compared to the indices. Otherwise it was a very tough year. The Small Ords is down 20% and the All Ords is down around 14%. Unrealised profits in the portfolio are ok at around 16%, so I am not hanging onto any big losses.

A couple of sells this week. PAN (the old SMY) was exited on Monday for a loss of 20% & WSA realised a little over 50%. Position sizing meant that I bought roughly 30% more of WSA than PAN.




I think that I learnt that consistency and perseverence pay off this year, and it's been a good walk forward experience. The current trading systems I am running have stood up quite well and I am very glad that I have them.

stevo

Another exit - long term loser

I got out of this one today after the sell signal triggered on the close of last week. No other exits signaled for this week.

It's unusual to get a trade that lasts as long as this one (26 weeks) and still manages to lose money.

stevo

More on breakouts

I made the trade shown above in my super fund. IPL was up over 35% in a 6 month period when I took the trade. It had one week in the previous 6 months where it jumped 18%. I bought in at $26 and sold at $72.





Another signal fired not long after the exit. It would have been nice if the exit wasn't given - but that's the way it goes. Sell up and move on. I didn't take the second leg. When the second buy signal was triggered the stock was up 220% over the last year!

From when the 2nd buy signal was triggered to mid May 08 the stock put on another $100.

How many traders would have looked at IPL and thought it's had a good run surely there's not more to come? I did, although I picked up MCC as a consolation prize.

So much for discretion.

stevo

TWO & OST

The TWO trade triggered in Christmas week whilst travelling. Volumes were very light so I exited over 2 weeks for a 53% gain.

OST was easier to exit and I got out in the Christmas week for an 8.6% loss.

The only other exit in December was KCN for a 16% loss.

Stevo

Yilgarn Mining exit

YML is a trade I exited this week. This one is outside the All Ords stocks, something that I do from time to time if there is enough turnover.

This one could easily move 10% in a week, and sometimes more than this in a day. For those that think they could trade it short term best of luck! I was in it for 9 weeks.

stevo

Sun(land) sets!

I exited Sunland (SDG) yesterday for a 48% profit.

I held it for just over a year - as shown by the little yellow dot on the chart a couple of weeks back. The one year target isn't a big deal since I trade in a company, but at least it was a decent length trade.

Limiting the number of trades per week

Using some code Shutty found on Yahoo I was able to see the impact of limiting the maximum number of trades per week. I added the code in did an optimise and exported the results to Excel to get the graph above.

For a longer term system, like the one used for this test, it is possible to limit the number of buys to one per week and still get reasonable results.

With a shorter term system limiting the number of trades per week would have a bigger impact since the system needs to trade more - see the results for a 4 week system below.

69% gain on HGI

HGI trade closed for a 69% gain. This one lasted 35 weeks. The system used for this trade has turned off for the moment.

MBP trade - talk about "lucky"

I bought into MBP on a signal last November. Fortunately an exit was triggered and I got out a week ago with a small gain (4%) It plummetted over 70%! I am glad I follow those stops.

Stevo

Smart Money in trading

 
These charts show a couple of trades I took (one was in my super fund) late last year some week's prior to takeover offers being announced. Was it the smart money buying that triggered the buys or was it public information that triggered the price and volume information? Or was it something altogether different.

In the case of FLT it is possible that the stock had bottomed out. I am not sure what the fundamentals were saying (if you can trust them) but I suspect they were painting a turnaround story - things were looking rosier in the future. Not a bad reason to launch a takeover!

On a side issue I used PlotText to put the close price on the chart as well as CloudCharts to plot a breakout band.

Stevo