Stock Picking (Beat Boho) Contest - V2.0

[Boho]

If you really want to let us know how you're doing, it's well within your power. Just post screen shots of your corporate action history. As far as I know, all of the interest charges are posted there - they just haven't been subtracted from your portfolio value.

Here:

 

[karluk]

Thanks for posting this, Boho. Your screenshot ends with the 5/1/18 interest payment, so we are still missing the interest adjustments needed from the beginning of the game through 4/1/18. Using just the numbers available from your screenshot, you would have to subtract $10,429.47 from your portfolio's value to compensate for the missing interest charges.

This low five figure adjustment makes sense. You have five months of positive interest payments, so you had no net leverage during those months. For the eight months where you used leverage, the interest charges imply an average margin account balance of about $235,000. So you've used a lot of leverage to get to where you are now, but you were only occasionally leveraged near the max.

 

[Boho]

we are still missing the interest adjustments needed from the beginning of the game through 4/1/18.

They're there. My screenshot is two columns.

 

[Boho]

IVV ranged from $278.58 to $281.17 today and I used margin to buy 700 shares for $278.98 near the close. I think I did good.

 

[Boho]

Maybe, maybe not. Like practically everything else in the game, the statistics of transaction volume are hopelessly inaccurate. If you check your transaction history, you will see that all of your trades from 2017 have disappeared. The first trade of yours that the game has a record of is dated 1/2/18.

I posted the transaction count on January 3, 2018 so we could approximate the accurate count. I had 153 and now I have 321, totaling 474. Ransil joined in 2018 and has 501 so he's a little ahead in the transaction count.

Here's the latest transaction count for players who had over 20 transactions throughout the contest as of November:

BohoII: 153
sengsational: 98
Spudd: 83
RISP: 37
comsecga: 31
nvestysly: 22

 

[Boho]

I hade about 6 failed short attempts today. The last one was a market order for EFAV well below the max shares that I was sure would go through.

 

[Boho]

I mean had

 

[Boho]

May:

Current Rank	Previous day's rank	Account Value (USD)	Today's change in value	Overall%
1. Spudd	1	$2,118,727.18	($550.00)	111.87%
2. comsecga	2	$1,818,364.81	($36,260.00)	81.84%
3. kite_rider	3	$1,445,359.96	($7,240.00)	44.54%
4. BohoII	4	$1,167,406.47	($15,657.97)	16.74%
5. DieWurst	7	$1,082,086.69	($10,973.16)	8.21%
6. easysurfer	9	$1,080,254.79	($6,329.92)	8.03%
7. wrd58	6	$1,075,198.14	($23,045.00)	7.52%
8. cfahey27	8	$1,073,482.17	($18,694.00)	7.35%
9. wmc1000	5	$1,058,254.74	($44,821.28)	5.83%
10. nvestysly	10	$1,054,196.53	($8,324.36)	5.42%
11. RiskyBusinessC2	12	$1,020,178.22	$813.00	2.02%
12. covert1	11	$1,017,654.74	($3,665.00)	1.77%
13. t3ztam3nt	13	$1,001,748.51	$35.00	0.17%
14. consvgmbl	14	$1,000,000.00	$0.00	0.00%
15. exnavynuke	16	$1,000,000.00	$0.00	0.00%
16. monitorLizzy	15	$1,000,000.00	$0.00	0.00%
17. dixonge	17	$1,000,000.00	$0.00	0.00%
18. jmil07	18	$1,000,000.00	$0.00	0.00%
19. secondcor521	19	$1,000,000.00	$0.00	0.00%
20. guestperson	21	$993,915.01	($1,290.00)	-0.61%
21. lbymfreddie	20	$990,914.14	($5,756.72)	-0.91%
22. natetheb	22	$968,901.24	($10,628.88)	-3.11%
23. sengsational	23	$837,905.55	($21,443.10)	-16.21%
24. underwrite	24	$833,541.08	($8,914.00)	-16.65%
25. lawrencewendall	25	$780,144.32	($23,284.71)	-21.99%
26. KCScubaSteve	27	$754,574.11	($12,567.28)	-24.54%
27. ransil	26	$746,826.62	($36,567.00)	-25.32%

My Corporate Action History for May-June:

6/1/2019 6:00 PM Interest ($839.16) $1,166,567.31
5/1/2019 6:00 PM Interest ($1,293.24) $1,208,248.68

 

[ERD50]

Based on a calculation of VOO & VTI from 3/29/2017, nunnun would have been at $1,211,428, ahead of boho by $44,021 (4.4%), which is the smallest trailing gap for boho since I've been monitoring things.

-ERD50

 

[SecondCor521]

Based on a calculation of VOO & VTI from 3/29/2017, nunnun would have been at $1,211,428, ahead of boho by $44,021 (4.4%), which is the smallest trailing gap for boho since I've been monitoring things.

-ERD50

Does that include dividends for nunnun?

 

[ERD50]

Does that include dividends for nunnun?

Yes, I used the "adjusted Price" on yahoo finance, for the March 29, 2017 start price. It also matched close to using stockcharts.com, which is total return (but a little hard to get to exact start-end dates).

-ERD50

 

[Boho]

I have 100% cash for the first time in the contest.

 

[easysurfer]

I have 100% cash for the first time in the contest.

The second time. You are back to square 1 like the start of the contest with all cash .

I'll bite. Why did you decide to go 100% cash at this point?

p.s. I must admit that I haven't followed this contest much after contestants were mysteriously getting dropped off in the rankings.

 

[Boho]

The second time. You are back to square 1 like the start of the contest with all cash .

I'll bite. Why did you decide to go 100% cash at this point?

p.s. I must admit that I haven't followed this contest much after contestants were mysteriously getting dropped off in the rankings.

I started with a minor selloff, thinking tariffs on Mexico would send the market down, then powerful anti-tariff people started messing up my strategy (and jeopardizing negotiations with Mexico) and I was suddenly not invested enough when the market rose. Then, maybe it was yesterday, I think the previous after hours trading was down and the pre-market was down, and the news seemed bad, but the market went pretty high during trading hours which didn't seem right, so I sold more. The latest is that Trump is supposedly expecting a deal involving Mexico buying agricultural products, but it's private business in Mexico that does most of that importing and there's some confusion over how such a deal with Mexico would work. Seems at best it would take a while to work out.

Also, I don't expect economic/business news to be good before a deal with China.

But I'm not especially optimistic about my current position.

 

[Boho]

"I am pleased to inform you that The United States of America has reached a signed agreement with Mexico," [Trump] tweeted. "The Tariffs scheduled to be implemented by the U.S. on Monday, against Mexico, are hereby indefinitely suspended.

I'm curious whether the market went up during the course of tariff speculation more than it would have if tariffs were never an issue. It seems that way. It's over sold if that's true.

 

[easysurfer]

The drawbacks of guessing on what events may or may not occur, I suppose.

 

[Boho]

I'll tell you something about Dollar Tree...I just ordered my third thing from them and it's the third time they told me it's ready for pickup and it wasn't there. Last time it never showed up. Their online ordering isn't working out and whoever had expectations about it being good is wrong. I don't know how to short stock off hand but I might short it.

I lost track but I've now ordered from them online about six times. I submitted bad feedback three times ago and customer service requested some more info so they could figure out what's going on. For my next order I had stuff delivered to me when they offered free shipping and almost missed the deadline because their site wasn't letting me order, but a few hours before the deadline it worked for me. My most recent order was delivered to the store. I get no notification when it gets there. Customer service tells me it's there. I go there and they're missing one crate. The manager says I wasn't notified because there's a new system, I think to assure the product is actually at the store before notification is given (which SHOULD have solved the problem I had with my first three orders), but the system failed. I'm fairly sure the new system was put in place because of me, and now they have to tweak it.

Again I'm considering shorting Dollar Tree.

 

[NgineER]

People use dollar tree for cheap goods not outstanding customer service. It’s not Costco or amazon.

 

[imp4]

Boho, do you really think they instituted a new company wide customer distribution channel because of you

If so, your delusions of grandeur are growing by the minute...

 

[Boho]

Boho, do you really think they instituted a new company wide customer distribution channel because of you

It wouldn't be the first time I was the only one to make a big deal over something and make things happen. I'm also taking credit for AOL disabling Windows Messenger Service in 2003. I would get popup ads along with probably millions of other people, then I started documenting and reporting every instance rather than turning off Windows Messenger Service to put an end to it. The spammer changed a long used domain name to a throwaway one and kept changing the domain names until AOL disabled everyone's Window Messenger Service with an update. People were supposedly able to turn it back on but I remember being unable to.

I also recently complained about smoke from a nearby chimney that was darker than allowed for a long time and I was told it was years since someone complained about that building. They were fined, I complained a month later and they were warned, and if this keeps up I'm looking into going to court for a writ of mandamus to make the Department of Buildings take more effective action.

 

[imp4]

Ok I will add taking action that led to disabling Windows Messenger Service for AOL in 2003 and stopping your polluting neighbor to the list of accomplishments. [emoji849]

 

[Boho]

I shorted the market, but it's like people are buying because it's getting closer to the trade talks and they don't even care about negative statements made by Trump and China. In the last round of talks China wouldn't put in writing what was agreed on, then there were still weeks to work it out and major issues weren't resolved. Now China says nothing changed and Trump is threatening to increase tariffs yet the market is up.

 

[ERD50]

I shorted the market, but it's like people are buying because it's getting closer to the trade talks and they don't even care about negative statements made by Trump and China. In the last round of talks China wouldn't put in writing what was agreed on, then there were still weeks to work it out and major issues weren't resolved. Now China says nothing changed and Trump is threatening to increase tariffs yet the market is up.

When, how, and by how much did you short the market?

Should be an interesting EOM contest update for Friday.

-ERD50

 

[Boho]

When, how, and by how much did you short the market?

Should be an interesting EOM contest update for Friday.

-ERD50

6/27/2019 11:35 AM Short at Market VOO 2000 $267.65 $535,295.01
6/27/2019 11:34 AM Short at Market SPY 2000 $291.48 $582,955.01

 

[SecondCor521]

I shorted the market, but it's like people are buying because it's getting closer to the trade talks and they don't even care about negative statements made by Trump and China. In the last round of talks China wouldn't put in writing what was agreed on, then there were still weeks to work it out and major issues weren't resolved. Now China says nothing changed and Trump is threatening to increase tariffs yet the market is up.

Perhaps the market cares about multiple things and not just one. An offhand list might include the Federal Reserve interest rate policy, inflation, company earnings reports, employment numbers, European politics around Brexit, instability in the gulf region, productivity and wage changes, the national debt, mortgage rates, etc.

(Yes, some of those would seem to argue for the market going down rather than up. The larger point is that the China trade situation is not the only thing affecting the markets.)