Stock Picking (Beat Boho) Contest - V2.0

[Boho]

It's not difficult if you just apply some thought to it.

It's a backwards look from today.

I read that Yahoo's method is noncompliant with a Financial Accounting Standards Board standard. Anyway, whatever.

 

[Boho]

I have been getting a 500 error when i try to get into my portfolio, i can get into everyone elses portfoil, just mot mine.

Now it works but you've been reset to $1,000,000.

 

[ERD50]

I read that Yahoo's method is noncompliant with a Financial Accounting Standards Board standard. Anyway, whatever.

So?

And "you read"? That's an impressive citation.

Yahoo! finance is a free web-site. I'm sure they don't want to bother with a formal certification process. You can get their adjusted prices on thousands of trading stocks, and I don't doubt there are some errors from time to time, and they most likely occur on thinly traded stocks.

Despite your never ending deflection/excuse/obfuscation theme, it doesn't matter. We can check a very high profile fund/ETF like VOO, SPY, VTI ourselves against multiple sources if we think there are any errors. We can make a ballpark estimate by just taking the start-end stock price, and add the dividends to the gain. That won't account for reinvesting, but it's simple, and would make any significant error stand out.

And it only takes a bit more effort to take the average length of time the divs were held (half the time period is close enough), and apply the average annualized gain of the fund to those divs and that time, and you'll come within a cat whiskers of doing it a more official way (reinvesting each div).

This is pretty basic arithmetic. Anyone claiming to be an exceptional trader should be able to figure (should already know) this on their own.

If the contest ends in a photo-finish, we can check those details out, but your trading skills should make that unnecessary, you should blow everyone, and the market away by a huge margin!

-ERD50

 

[Boho]

So?

And "you read"? That's an impressive citation.

Dividend Adjusted Stock Prices
© Montgomery Investment Technology, Inc. / Sorin R. Straja, Ph.D., FRM
April 2008

The webpage is blocked by Windows Defender SmartScreen but Google's cached version opens, at least for now.

Also, I think there are missing images in the equations.

Using the Yahoo! Finance approach is equivalent to a reduction in the stock price for the day preceding the dividend distribution, as opposed to an increase in the stock price for the day when the dividend is distributed. This approach does not match the results from FAS 123 Appendix F paragraph 408 (FASB 1995) because the relative returns are not accounted for correctly. However, as long as the dividend distributions are relatively small, the error is relatively small.

It's not a big deal to me.

 

[pb4uski]

FWIW, the reference to the FASB does not apply to the determination of stock prices as Bozo seems to infer... rather, it relates to calculating volatility for the purpose of valuing stock options in accounting for stock-based compensation (FAS 123).

The reference is to an appendix example where the difference in volatility between the two approaches is pretty minor... 0.299 vs 0.294.... and obviously has no impact on the computation of return and Bozo seems to think.

 

[Boho]

FWIW, the reference to the FASB does not apply to the determination of stock prices as Bozo seems to infer...

I believe it's relevant to "Dividend Adjusted Stock Prices" as the article seems to infer. I don't care if it's also used for options. But maybe you're right...I don't care about that either. I have my own idea about a margin of error and the accuracy of the tools we're using and I don't need your approval.

 

[ERD50]

To paraphrase Monty Python, "This skit has gotten far too silly!".

I'm going to bow out, at least until the OCT EOM update. I'll leave Boho to ponder the deep inner workings of simple arithmetic, and how it relates (not!) to this contest.

-ERD50

 

[Boho]

To paraphrase Monty Python, "This skit has gotten far too silly!".

I'm going to bow out, at least until the OCT EOM update. I'll leave Boho to ponder the deep inner workings of simple arithmetic, and how it relates (not!) to this contest.

-ERD50

My first and most intuitive choice of simple arithmetic didn't work because Yahoo chose the easy way to do calculations without a warning. And I only went to Yahoo because I accidently learned that other tools, also with no warning, didn't make the necessary adjustments. If it were so simple then the online tools would do it. I don't trust much of what I read on investing any more.

 

[Boho]

This isn't very helpful but I was playing with charts in Word and made this. It would be better if the exact values were printed on each bar.

 

[Boho]

I just placed the largest order I ever placed, for LHX, estimated at over $600,000, then I was afraid it wouldn't go through because of limits, so I try lowering it and I get a 500 Server Error. It's been about 5 minutes so far. Nothing works.

...I was able to lower it by placing an additional market order. I don't think I could have canceled the first one anyway because it's a market order. But I still can't access my portfolio page.

...back to normal...I got 3000 shares of LHX at $207.89 ($623,674.99)

 

[pb4uski]

...I got 3000 shares of LHX at $207.89 ($623,674.99)

Closed today at $206.64.... $1.25 lower than your buy.... not a great start.

 

[Boho]

Closed today at $206.64.... $1.25 lower than your buy.... not a great start.

Yeah, I don't know exactly why it did that but I often/usually buy on a day when the stock went down and it often still has downward momentum before it turns around.

With LHX, I think the headline I saw was about the company fulfilling part of a known order. That's fairly meaningless, but for some reason I clicked and read the article and it said they got another contract, which IMO was the real news. I wonder if those computer trading programs that read the news would have picked up on the part about the new contract.

And today's Columbus day, I wonder if that makes it easier to find stock deals.

 

[Boho]

...for some reason I clicked and read the article and it said they got another contract, which IMO was the real news...

Specifically, after clicking you see a bulleted list of the major facts on top of the article, including "Part of initial order, with additional delivery orders subsequently received, under $391 million ENVG-B Directed Requirement contract". But how's a computer (or a human) supposed to know if "orders subsequently received" means after the original order but in the past, or if that's news? You have to read several paragraphs of the article to find:

"Following the delivery of the first 40 units, L3Harris received two additional delivery orders totaling approximately $153 million" so, since the delivery is new, the report of the subsequent orders is new. I just need investors to understand that before the contest ends.

 

[pb4uski]

Yeah... good luck with that.

 

[Boho]

Now it works but you've been reset to $1,000,000.

The server error now affects me so I could very well have my account reset to $1,000,000 eventually. I don't see any other players with this problem. Ransil had the most trades and he was the first to have it happen. I have the second most trades and it looks like I'm the second to have it happen.

 

[pb4uski]

...I got 3000 shares of LHX at $207.89 ($623,674.99)

Closed today at $206.64.... $1.25 lower than your buy.... not a great start.

Currently, $203.93.... $3.96/1.9% lower than your purchase price of $207.89 after only 3 days... should we calculate an annualized return?

 

[Boho]

Currently, $203.93.... $3.96/1.9% lower than your purchase price of $207.89 after only 3 days... should we calculate an annualized return?

It passed my sell price of $208.40 today (the high was 208.56) but it didn't sell. It's that 20 minute delay, probably designed to allow the game server to be lazy. OTOH, my market order today for the same stock in the other game (the first time I bought something in that game which I'm not paying much attention to) was filled at $208.50.

The next earnings for L3Harris Technologies are on Oct. 30. We'll see what happens then, but it's been higher than my buying price every day since I bought it, so maybe the timing will be right and it will sell.

 

[ransil]

The server error now affects me so I could very well have my account reset to $1,000,000 eventually. I don't see any other players with this problem. Ransil had the most trades and he was the first to have it happen. I have the second most trades and it looks like I'm the second to have it happen.

I waited a month kept getting the error, had to leave the game and join again.

 

[pb4uski]

...I got 3000 shares of LHX at $207.89 ($623,674.99)

You posted that at 11:47 am on 10/14.... it closed today 10/18 at $198.08.

$9.81/share * 3000 shares = $29,430 (4.7%) loss in 4 1/2 days.

Great call!

Meanwhile, VTI is up 0.7% for the same period....

 

[Boho]

You posted that at 11:47 am on 10/14.... it closed today 10/18 at $198.08.

$9.81/share * 3000 shares = $29,430 (4.7%) loss in 4 1/2 days.

Great call!

Meanwhile, VTI is up 0.7% for the same period....

I was looking at past dips for LHX and even the most drastic rebound in about 6 months (pre-dip to complete rebound). This has been a quarter of one-off things and as long as people start trading on the guidance after October it will be fine. It's actually only today that hasn't been fine. The closing prices don't mean much to me with the volatility in the past few days because I was up at some point in every morning or mid-trading day.

 

[Boho]

I wonder if, in a three year contest with no margin calls, it's a good idea to margin to the max for at least the first year or two, at least with index funds. IRL if there were no margin calls, I wonder if that would be recommended as a good investment strategy pre-retirement.

 

[nvestysly]

Any thoughts on why dividends are not posting to my cash account? Anyone else having this problem? I've contacted Investopedia Tech Support and did not receive a reply.

If this game is supposed to allow an individual to mimic the actions available in a real brokerage account it seems like a dramatic oversight to omit automatic dividend reinvestment. And now I can't even manually reinvest my dividends because the dividends are not being paid! What's up with that?!

 

[ransil]

Any thoughts on why dividends are not posting to my cash account? Anyone else having this problem? I've contacted Investopedia Tech Support and did not receive a reply.

If this game is supposed to allow an individual to mimic the actions available in a real brokerage account it seems like a dramatic oversight to omit automatic dividend reinvestment. And now I can't even manually reinvest my dividends because the dividends are not being paid! What's up with that?!

Dividends have never worked, quit a few bugs in the game.

 

[Boho]

The next earnings for L3Harris Technologies are on Oct. 30. We'll see what happens then

https://seekingalpha.com/pr/1767959...19-results-double-digit-revenue-growth-margin

L3Harris Reports Strong Third Quarter 2019 Results with Double-Digit Revenue Growth, Margin Expansion Across all Segments and Robust Cash Flow

Wed October 30, 2019 6:30 AM|Business Wire|About: LHX

• 3Q19 revenue $4.4 billion; up 187% GAAP, up 10% versus prior-year combined1; funded book-to-bill 1.13 and funded backlog up 10% to $16.5 billion
• 3Q19 GAAP EPS from continuing operations up 7% to $1.90; non-GAAP2 up 26% versus prior-year combined to $2.58
• 3Q19 operating cash flow of $81 million; adjusted free cash flow3 of $618 million
• YTD19 revenue $8.0 billion, up 68% GAAP; combined revenue $13.2 billion, up 10% versus prior-year combined
• YTD19 GAAP EPS from continuing operations up 19% to $6.13; combined non-GAAP2 up 27% versus prior-year combined to $7.23
• YTD19 combined operating cash flow of $797 million; adjusted free cash flow3 up 73% to $1.6 billion
• Increased EPS guidance and tightened free cash flow to the higher end of the range

 

[Boho]

LHX: bought 3000 shares at $207.89 ($623,674.99), sold at $208.66 ($625,975.01), made $2300.02.