LOL!'s Market Timing Newsletter

Look at IJS go! I should've waited at least another day to sell it.
 
The portfolio is still over the hard high trigger point for equities. This doesn't bother me so much, but now that I sold some small-cap value shares last week, the portfolio is overweighted in foreign equities and underweighted in US small-cap value which should be no surprise. So ...
489

I need to sell some large-cap foreign equities and buy some US small-cap value. That will keep the portfolio above the hard high trigger point. I could do this a few different ways.

1. Sell something like VEA or VEU (large-cap foreign) and buy SCV in a Roth. I like this the best only if VEA/VEU go up and something like IJS goes down at the same time, then I think I will do this.

2 If IJS continues to go up, then I'm not gonna buy it until either VEA or VEU go up even more like they did last Friday (~+0.9% vs ~+0.4%)

3. If both VEU/VEA and IJS go down, I will sell VEU/VEA if they go down less than IJS.

4. Otherwise, I will probably wait until something like the above happens or I will re-evaluate.

Note that all the above all depend on what happens and there is no prediction of what will happen afterwards.

Hey, don't forget this is a Market Timing thread, so I'm giving you my thought process before I make transactions.
 
Last edited:
Market is open only about 2 hours so far today and IJS was up 0.8% and now is slightly down. VEU / VEA are still up a little.

So Situation #2 in my previous post was what I saw, but now it is situation #1.
I don't know where things will stand later in the day or in the future, so I am going to do one-half of the move I wrote about and wait to do the other half.

Sold some VEA already. I will buy some IJS later today and report back when that happens. Actually, I will submit a limit order now to buy IJS a little bit below current price.
 
Update: IJS continues to drop, while VEU / VEA are still slightly up. Since IJS is now trading below where I sold last week, I just changed order to market order and bought IJS below $158 here.

Now I have to decide whether to wait or to trade the second tranche of this. I think I will wait at least 15 minutes and see what happens before making a decision.

15 min later update: I saw a single trade of VEU that was over 100,000 shares and that spooked me, so I sold some VEU. IJS was down more since my earlier purchase, so I bought more shares with the money from selling VEU. Thus, I have completed what I intended to do this morning. Now back to twiddling thumbs.

Thanks for reading.
 
Last edited:
So I didn't make the best possible trades of the day which would be selling VEU and VEA early at their highs for the day and waiting to buy IJS at its low for the day, but my new shares of IJS lost less (and some have a gain) after buying them than the shares of VEU & VEA would have lost after I sold them, so I came out ahead of doing nothing. Plus my portfolio asset allocation is now where I wanted it to be.
 
And 2 days later ... my sell VEU/VEA and buy IJS are nothing special with just a few dollars difference between having done the trades versus not doing the trades.
914

Portfolio is already up 6-figures here in January, so maybe it is time to step back and hang loose.

With that in mind, I decided to do more rebalancing and sold more shares of VEU (large-cap foreign) and VTI (US total stock market) in a straight-up rebalancing move. I bought some short-term corporate bond index ETF shares and will use some of the money for January bills.
 
LOL! said:
.......

.....I decided to do more rebalancing and sold more shares of VEU (large-cap foreign) and VTI (US total stock market) in a straight-up rebalancing move. I bought some short-term corporate bond index ETF shares and will use some of the money for January bills.
Click to expand...

Which ST corp bond index etf did you buy and why that one ?

I'm always looking for some solid reasons to put more $$$ into bond type things for rebalancing purposes.
 
Sunset said:
Which ST corp bond index etf did you buy and why that one ?

I'm always looking for some solid reasons to put more $$$ into bond type things for rebalancing purposes.
Click to expand...
Hmmm, I've mentioned two different short-term corporate bond index ETF ticker symbols right on this page: VCSH and SPSB. I'm not sure what to think of your question. :nonono:

I was buying SPSB this past week because it is a no-commission ETF at TDAmeritrade. I prefer VCSH which used to be no-commission ETF at TDAmeritrade. VCSH and SPSB are no-commission for me at my other broker. I own lots of both of them.

SPSB has a larger bid/ask spread (percentage-wise, even though spread is one cent) than VCSH and limit orders to buy at the bid price for SPSB often do not execute even though trading volume is relatively decent for SPSB. For this reason, I also prefer VCSH.
 
I'm disappointed in my small-cap value holdings which are trailing US and foreign large-caps by about 3% in the past 3 weeks to add to their deficit for 2017. So I need to do some brilliant market timing move in order catch up.

759

So I need to a nice move that will make 2% to 3% in the next week or so. Does anybody have any good ideas?

I'm thinking of waiting until something I own drops by at least 1% overnight and then moving a big chunk of bond money into it for a few days. This would increase my allocation to equities and reduce my allocation to bonds, so it could be bad.

I don't want to buy stock in an individual company, but would prefer an ETF. I would also consider an ETF that I don't own. For instance, I'm thinking of something like MTUM which is Ishares USA Momentum.

Anybody got any suggestions for me? It could be a fun way for you to invest vicariously without risk to you. :)
 
Put in some limit orders today to sell VCSH (short-term corp bond) and buy MTUM (US large-cap momentum) and they were executed late in the day while I was out bike riding.
204
The idea is sell MTUM very soon if it goes up.
 
It looks like I'm going to lose a lot of money today.
 
Who won't? The only question is how much. :)

The market is down 1% at this moment.
 
Not a good day, but not as bad as I expected. 551

So I sold more VCSH (short-term corp bond index) in the morning, but did not buy anything with it. I now have lots of cash to do something.

Also did a Roth conversion today. I exchanged VBTLX (Total Bond Index) into VTSAX (Total US Stock Market Index). The reason is that the traditional IRA only has Total Bond in it and I don't like to have bond funds in Roth IRAs which grow tax-free. I intend to use a tax-deferred 401(k) account to sell VTI (Total US stock Market) and buy a Total US Bond index fund whenever VTI goes up from here. The idea is to have the same relative amounts of Total US Stock and Total US Bond when I'm all done, but in different accounts. Since I cannot predict the future, I don't know when that will be.
 
Sold the VTI mentioned in the previous post earlier before lunch when it was up higher than yesterday's close.

The market seems a little volatile lately and that is not necessarily good. Lucky I enjoy losing money because that's what's happening.
 
354
Sold some BND (total US bond) and bought some VSS (small-cap foreign).

I intend to look for some more things to buy in the next 20 minutes and report back.

And the update: Sold all my BIV (interm-term bonds) and bought MTUM (US large-cap momemtum)

This is classic "catching a falling knife."

If VSS goes up a few percent in the next few days, I will sell it. I'm not sure what I am going to do with MTUM as I am well underwater on the previous purchase. I will probably sell if it goes up a few percent. If either of these go down, then I am just going to hold for awhile.
 
Last edited:
Well, the newly purchased shares survived the market open and the newly sold BND and BIV shares have actually dropped a few cents, so all is calm and good.

I found some more bond fund shares in another account that I may rebalance into equities later today, but I will wait for the early birds to get away from their computers first.
562
 
652
I submitted a limit order to sell some VSS since it is trading at a nice profit. I don't expect it to execute, but I am going to take the dog for walk and won't be back until after the market closes.

MTUM is up even more, but I will wait on making a decision on it.

Update after close: My VSS order did not execute even though other orders at and above my limit price did execute after I submitted my order. Oh well, maybe that will mean more profits tomorrow.
 
Last edited:
I missed my chance to sell recent purchases at a nice gain on Wednesday morning. I guess I just have to go down with the ship ... or buy more.
37
 
I have been very tempted to buy more, but need to remind myself that comes Feb 16 I have put options expiring. They are now all in-the-money. I have enough out to force my stock AA to 70%.

Need to reserve dry power, and sit on my hand for a while.
 
Last edited:
Decided to keep buying equities this morning. Sold more VCSH (short-term corporate bond fund) and bought some Total US Stock Market shares.
323

@NW-Bound, do you think exercising put options on Feb 16 will create some buying?
 
I do not know about how it affects the market, meaning the effect from other option holders out there.

Yes, the share prices are now way below the strike prices of my cash-covered puts. This means I already lost money, compared to not doing these options. I always mark to market, and the losses are already accounted for.

So, unless the market rises significantly by Feb 16 expiry date, which is highly unlikely now, I will be the proud owner of these shares. This will drive up my stock AA to 70% or higher.

PS. Funny thing about loss/gain accounting of the options is that as the option time value dies out as the expiry approaches, my losses on these put options are reduced with time, compared to what I suffer now. It only gets better from here.
 
Last edited:
Hey thanks. I guess with the options expiring at the end of next week that it will be an interesting Friday the 16th.

At least today, the thing I bought closed at a higher price than I paid. There was some doubt whether that was going to happen. That might be enough to make me feel good all weekend.
 
The portfolio is way overweighted to equities because of all the recent buying. I mean 7% more to equities than my usual "nirvana asset allocation."

Since the things bought on Friday have been up over 2% just today, I am going to try to sell them. I have submitted limit orders to sell that are few cents higher than the highs so far for the day. I may have to modify those orders if I believe they won't sell, but I might also just let them expire. 25 minutes to go. I'm hoping this little fade here is just a head fake. Updates later.
763

Update: And the fade is not a head fake. I'm letting the orders expire and will try again tomorrow.
 
Last edited:
No buying nor selling. No attempt here either.

In this rout, I bought in 3 instances, spaced every other day. The 1st one is still in the red. The 2nd is roughly breaking even. The 3rd one is green. Overall, the total made me a bit of money. Not much and it may be gone tomorrow.
 
Is this the official real trades made thread? I can go months and months without making a trade. I've done eight or ten of them already this year.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

J
Fixed Income portfolio allocation, 401k options dilemma
Replies
6
Views
1K
jblack
J
Tranquility Base
When to Sell Positions With Unrealized Gains
2
Replies
38
Views
2K
TheWizard
TheWizard
2HOTinPHX
Can we FIRE with less than a MILLION???
3 4 5
Replies
121
Views
32K
2HOTinPHX
2HOTinPHX
R
Can I retire like this? (3.2 million net worth)
2
Replies
44
Views
7K
Spanky
Spanky
A
ER @ 50...Can I realistically do it?
Replies
12
Views
3K
Ace300
A

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom