Stock Picking (Beat Boho) Contest - V2.0

[Boho]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 Got a BTC target on SPY? An exit point if it stays up for a week, month, or ? -ERD50

I just placed a market order to cover SPY. I have no other shorts.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boho I just placed a market order to cover SPY. I have no other shorts.

So what price did you cover at, looks like maybe near $292, for about a $10,000 loss on the trade? I'm guessing that wipes out (and more) any gains from your other short attempts?

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Originally Posted by Boho I'd meet these qualifications for Fidelity's active trader services: So I'd get "competitive commissions, margin rates, and offers."

More trades might just mean more losses, faster.

-ERD50

[Boho]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 So what price did you cover at, looks like maybe near $292, for about a $10,000 loss on the trade?

$293.01, so I lost about $12,000. I shorted about 5 things in the last several months. I may have come out about even but I didn't add it up. I don't know whether the cash I had during that time hurt or helped.

Also, I bought SPY and IVV.

8/13/2019 10:24 AM Stock: Buy at Limit IVV 2000 $294.16 $588,324.99 Acct value: $1,208,656.11
8/13/2019 10:24 AM Stock: Buy at Limit SPY 2000 $292.43 $584,864.99 Acct value: $1,208,661.10
8/13/2019 10:19 AM Cover Stock: Cover at Market SPY 2000 $293.01 $586,024.99 Acct value: $1,208,666.09

[SecondCor521]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 No, the "adjusted price" on yahoo accounts for this. If you look, you'll see that the recent "closing price" matches the "Adjusted Price", and as each div/distribution occurs, the "Adjusted Price" is reduced by that amount. So when you go back, and calculate gain from Current/Adjusted, you get the gain with dividends/distributions. But he is still doing poorly, and once again just seems to be hoping for a drop, with no exit strategy if we don't see that dip. -ERD50

Ah well. So only down $40,000 for all his effort.

There still remain the issues of taxes, trading costs, and margin interest (although the latter two are accounted for in the game, I think).

[SecondCor521]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boho I'd meet these qualifications for Fidelity's active trader services: So I'd get "competitive commissions, margin rates, and offers."

Would it be alright with you if we used your username as a verb to mean "identifying alternative metrics to win by when the original relevant one isn't going so well"?

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boho $293.01, so I lost about $12,000. I shorted about 5 things in the last several months. I may have come out about even but I didn't add it up. I don't know whether the cash I had during that time hurt or helped. Also, I bought SPY and IVV. 8/13/2019 10:24 AM Stock: Buy at Limit IVV 2000 $294.16 $588,324.99 Acct value: $1,208,656.11 8/13/2019 10:24 AM Stock: Buy at Limit SPY 2000 $292.43 $584,864.99 Acct value: $1,208,661.10 8/13/2019 10:19 AM Cover Stock: Cover at Market SPY 2000 $293.01 $586,024.99 Acct value: $1,208,666.09

So you went short about a week ago, covered at a higher price, and now are buying near that high price?

That's some strategy ya' got there. Let's see how it works.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SecondCor521 Would it be alright with you if we used your username as a verb to mean "identifying alternative metrics to win by when the original relevant one isn't going so well"?

I think sengsational already beat you to it. He said something like 'I don't mean to Boho this...', I think it was in that 'Magic Formula' thread.

Ahhh, here it is, close:

http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...ker-82446.html

Quote:

Here's another attempt to Boho the results of this experiment...

-ERD50

[pb4uski]

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Originally Posted by Boho So I used Yahoo finance. Lets see if I could get this right. If an indexer bought SPY at the start of the contest: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SPY/...y&frequency=1d March 29, 2017 SPY adjusted closing price: 225.63 1,000,000 / 225.63 = 4,432 shares Aug 09, 2019 SPY adjusted closing price: 291.62 291.62 x 4,432 = 1,292,459.84 adjusted for 8/12/2019, 2:55 PM EDT (SPY down 1.45%): 1,292,459.84 - 1.45% = 1,273,719.17 And I currently have $1,217,821.08, so I'm $55,898.09 behind the theoretical indexer which is equal to 4.32% according to This. That's for over two years so it's fairly close.

Au contraire.... you got spanked.... bad!

	SPY	Bozo	Difference
XIRR	10.74%	8.66%	2.07%
03/29/17	-1,000,000.00	-1,000,000.00
08/12/19	1,273,719.17	1,217,821.08	55,898.09

P.S. I'm assuming your numbers are correct... which could be dangerous.

[Boho]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 So you went short about a week ago, covered at a higher price, and now are buying near that high price? That's some strategy ya' got there. Let's see how it works.

There will probably be trade talks. I expect that announcement soon. I wanted to cover the last short and start buying today or very soon because of that, plus now there's meaningful upward momentum, unlike China's recently announced good news which hardly mattered to me and made me short the market three times as it gained. With those three shorts I figured it doesn't matter if there was some influence that countered tariffs this time around. That would be temporary and the pressure of tariffs would increase. But now the good news looks to be coming in the near future rather than being a thing from this past quarter and I need to be long.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boho There will probably be trade talks. I expect that announcement soon. I wanted to cover the last short and start buying today or very soon because of that, plus now there's meaningful upward momentum, unlike China's recently announced good news which hardly mattered to me and made me short the market three times as it gained. With those three shorts I figured it doesn't matter if there was some influence that countered tariffs this time around. That would be temporary and the pressure of tariffs would increase. But now the good news looks to be coming in the near future rather than being a thing from this past quarter and I need to be long.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boho ... Also, I bought SPY and IVV. 8/13/2019 10:24 AM Stock: Buy at Limit IVV 2000 $294.16 $588,324.99 Acct value: $1,208,656.11 8/13/2019 10:24 AM Stock: Buy at Limit SPY 2000 $292.43 $584,864.99 Acct value: $1,208,661.10 8/13/2019 10:19 AM Cover Stock: Cover at Market SPY 2000 $293.01 $586,024.99 Acct value: $1,208,666.09

Impeccable timing.

You covered your SPY short on 8/13 @ $293, we are now at $285.63, with an earlier day low of $283.97. You could have cleared almost $20,000 on that one trade!

And now you've bought at $292.43. Well, at least I can wish you luck on that trade, but I'd also be fine if the market just ran sideways for a long time, and maybe work off some of the 'over-value' (based on the CAPE measurements).

Shhhh - we might wake up nunnun.

-ERD50

[Boho]

I didn't read a lot on this (not even threads here) but...didn't people see this treasury bond issue getting near for days? I'm sure I heard about the inverse whatnot at some point within the last year or so but I feel I wasn't warned enough recently enough.

I think I made about $1000-$2000 on average per trade within the last year or more. My distance from the performance of the S&P was closing fast enough for a long time, but I had to keep trading. Now I may stop for a while.

[SecondCor521]

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Originally Posted by Boho I didn't read a lot on this (not even threads here) but...didn't people see this treasury bond issue getting near for days? I'm sure I heard about the inverse whatnot at some point within the last year or so but I feel I wasn't warned enough recently enough.

Yes, people have been seeing it getting nearer for several months now. It's been talked about regularly on CNBC for a while now.

The universe has no obligation to warn you about stuff.

[Boho]

It's Burger King's fault for replacing CNN with their useless Burger King TV station.

[Boho]

This is why I don't have firm exit strategies or firm trading plans of any kind. Today the market was significantly up, then China said they would retaliate, then it was down. I'm not going to plan for something like that happening all in one day.

[Boho]

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Originally Posted by karluk ...instead of taking crazy fliers on stocks of companies you know absolutely nothing about, you've recently stuck mostly to index investing...

I'm going back to crazy fliers for now. I bought 1000 shares of ANTM at $268.06.

[pb4uski]

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Originally Posted by Boho ..... My distance from the performance of the S&P was closing fast enough for a long time....

Huh? As of 12 days ago the SPY was spanking you since the beginning of the contest. See post#1427.

[MuirWannabe]

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Originally Posted by SecondCor521 Would it be alright with you if we used your username as a verb to mean "identifying alternative metrics to win by when the original relevant one isn't going so well"?

[emoji4]

The Cowboys may not have won any Super Bowls lately, but our cheerleaders sure Boho’d the rest of the league with their beauty. And how ‘bout that stadium?!

Not sure why I even glanced at this thread. I consider it the longest running troll thread in known board history.

[pb4uski]

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Originally Posted by MuirWannabe .... Not sure why I even glanced at this thread. I consider it the longest running troll thread in known board history.

Perhaps, but the rationalizations are somewhat entertaining.

[Boho]

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Originally Posted by pb4uski Huh? As of 12 days ago the SPY was spanking you since the beginning of the contest. See post#1427.

I'm talking about the last 1-1/2 years. Someone did an end-of-second-year comparison between me and the S&P for the previous 12 months (which I think was a bit less than 12 months), and I was a bit behind, and like a month later I had outperformed the index over the previous year.

[ERD50]

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Originally Posted by Boho I'm going back to crazy fliers for now. I bought 1000 shares of ANTM at $268.06.

And exactly how do you identify the fliers from the lead balloons?

And even more importantly, identify the fliers that the rest of the market has not identified, because if the market has identified them, their price has already been driven up to levels on par with the market.

Do you still think the market looks at a stock and says "Wow, that stock is poised to fly way higher than the market, but I'm not going to buy it."? It doesn't work that way, the market, as it sees it, drives up the prices to par. In general, there are always exceptions because there are always unknowns. But those are unknowns, to you and the market. And they go both ways (fliers and lead balloons).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boho I'm talking about the last 1-1/2 years. Someone did an end-of-second-year comparison between me and the S&P for the previous 12 months (which I think was a bit less than 12 months), and I was a bit behind, and like a month later I had outperformed the index over the previous year.

Give it a break. This was your contest, you set it for three years. You are behind, and very likely will be behind at the end of the contest. That's the measure, not some cherry picked time frame where you outperformed. Even I can outrun a world class runner in a marathon, for a while.

If that cherry picked time frame means anything, than so does the cherry picked time frame where you under-performed. As I said early on, this would be expected - a less diversified portfolio can be expected to be more volatile than a more diversified one. All you are seeing is volatility, not skill.

Do you actually have a strategy? It isn't apparent. As close as I can come is:

Quote:

Rock, Paper, Scissors ?-?-? Profits!

-ERD50

[Boho]

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Originally Posted by ERD50 And exactly how do you identify the fliers from the lead balloons?...Do you actually have a strategy?

I don't get specific about that but there's a lot of decision making and only part of my method is easily explained. I thought I read a theory that stock picking ability is genetic but all I found in a search is something about genetic algorithms. I think you need to be a good decision maker. It's hard to teach.