TRADING UPDATE
Well my day job (fearless consultant) trumped any market activity for the past 24 hours or so in the panic to get some P&L number-crunching done, so today’s trading update is actually for yesterday’s trades. In fact I don’t really know much about what happened today, other than I see that oil got hit again. But as you may recall, yesterday the S&P500 had one of those 50-point “Look at me, I’m alive!” days, during which I had a little bit of time early in the session to get in some signalled REAP trades.
| REAP TRADES | ||||||||
| # | Trade | Qty | Stock | Symbol | Price | Grp | ||
| 186 | Sold | 48% | Genesee & Wyoming | GWR | @ | $26.40 | 2 | |
| 186 | Bought | 88% | HBP GldShs Bear+ ETF | HGD | @ | $4.05 | 2 | |
| 187 | Sold | 30% | ProSh Ult Financls ETF | UYG | @ | $4.61 | 1 | |
| 187 | Bought | 200% | HBP SP500 Bear+ ETF | HSD | @ | $37.74 | 1 | |
| REAP methodology detailed in the blogroll under “My Portfolio” | ||||||||
| Qty % are amount by which shares counts are decreased/increased | ||||||||
HGD continues to ping all over the place like a quantum particle, producing trade after trade and a healthy net profit for its part, but alas seems have a half-life of only about two years as it degrades. (2x leveraged ETFs, at least the Horizons BetaPro ones, erode in net asset value due to transaction costs and to the mathematics of how they operate – don’t put these ones in drawer to forget about.) At $4.05, compared to its issue price last year of $20 last year, there’s not much left there. At least at the end of today it was at $4.45. I was a little grumpy about giving up half of my nice position in Genesee and Wyoming railroad for Mr. over-caffeinated-suicidal-wasting-asset, but I’m still following the system, so, in the timeless words of Forrest Gump “system is as system does” … or was it “stupid”?
Speaking of Forrest Gump, in 2000 I had the pleasure of walking through Chippewa Square in Savannah, Georgia where in the movie he sits on a park bench and tells his story to the strangers waiting for the bus with him. We were on a family vacation and visited with my movie-making brother-in-law Eric Heffron, who at the time was making “The Gift“. (I actually exchanged a brief glance with Cate Blanchett as she was returning from a scene to her dressing room. She’s just as sultry in real life as on the screen. If you ever get a chance to exchange glances with Cate Blanchett, I highly recommend it, though from her standpoint it’s probably more of a “who are these people?” thing.) Savannah is truly a lovely city.
OK, enough name dropping. The portfolio as it stands, in Savannah and elsewhere, as of today’s close, is as follows:
| PORTFOLIO SUMMARY | 25-Nov-08 | ||||
| (in $C, adjusted for $US exchange rates) | |||||
| PORTFOLIO | S&P500 | S&P500 | SP500 $C | REAP | vs S&P |
| Tot Retrn | |||||
| Reference Date | Start | Last | % | % | Var. |
| Inception MAR 07 | 1406.2 | 857.4 | -31.0% | -29.9% | 1.1% |
| Re-start OCT 07 | 1526.7 | 857.4 | -22.7% | -17.6% | 5.0% |
| 2008 Year to Date | 1468.4 | 857.4 | -20.5% | -8.1% | 12.3% |
| Discretionary Trading P&L (included in above results) | -5.8% | ||||
| Canadian dollar | Last | Inceptn | Var. | Restart | Var. |
| 0.8138 | 0.8547 | 4.8% | 1.0069 | 19.2% | |
| Dividend Yield (current) | 4.32% | ||||
| Intrinsic leverage (from 2x ETFs) | x | 1.30 | |||
| Currency Mix | 100.0% | ||||
| Canadian Investments/Cash | 50.9% | ||||
| US Investments | 40.0% | ||||
| Other (country ETFs) | 9.1% | ||||
| Market Bias | Net Long | 75.6% | |||
| Cash | 3.2% | ||||
| Short | 10.6% | ||||
| Long | 86.2% | ||||
| Theme Mix | 100.0% | ||||
| Commodity ETFs | 15.4% | ||||
| Short Commodity ETFs | 6.4% | ||||
| Short Equity ETFs | 4.2% | ||||
| Energy | 3.1% | ||||
| Agriculture | 7.8% | ||||
| Alt Energy/Infrastructure | 11.2% | ||||
| Financials | 17.8% | ||||
| Health Care | 3.4% | ||||
| Technology | 10.2% | ||||
| Transportation | 3.2% | ||||
| Restaurants | 0.0% | ||||
| Country ETF | 9.1% | ||||
| US Closed-end Funds | 5.0% | ||||
| Cash | 3.2% | ||||
| Portfolio Notes | |||||
| Inception date is when I started tracking portfolio performance in | |||||
| this blog. I track it to reflect total performance after initial mistakes | |||||
| and discretionary trading losses. A more accurate representation | |||||
| of REAP’s “pure” performance is as of 10 Oct 07, when I | |||||
| re-established it after selling out the portfolio twice due to | |||||
| sub-prime systemic concerns. | |||||
| *** S&P Comparison is total return to reflect dividend re-investment | |||||
| REAP GROUPS | |||||
| Stock | Sym | Last | Gain % | Weight | Yld |
| Group #1 | |||||
| HBP DJIA Ag Bull+ ETF | HAU | $5.00 | -33.01% | 2.7% | 0.00% |
| Global Agri-Bus Trust | ABG.UN | $3.61 | -10.42% | 4.2% | 12.41% |
| HBP CrOil Bull+ ETF | HOU | $4.38 | -52.21% | 4.7% | 0.00% |
| HBP SP500 Bear+ ETF | HSD | $35.29 | -1.33% | 2.0% | 0.00% |
| Intel Corp | INTC | $13.13 | -12.15% | 3.1% | 3.75% |
| Sun Hydraulics | SNHY | $13.90 | 2.21% | 2.4% | 2.64% |
| PrSh Ultra Financ’l | UYG | $5.55 | -19.21% | 4.0% | 5.71% |
| Zweig Fund Inc | ZF | $2.45 | -16.03% | 2.5% | 15.90% |
| Group #2 | |||||
| Arc Energy Inc Tr | AET.UN | $19.13 | 9.14% | 3.1% | 16.43% |
| HBP GoldSh Bear+ ETF | HGD | $4.45 | -28.65% | 6.4% | 0.00% |
| HBP NASDAQ Bear+ ETF | HQD | $44.22 | 26.63% | 2.2% | 0.00% |
| ISh Australia ETF | EWA | $13.48 | -5.79% | 5.1% | 8.93% |
| Forest Labs | FRX | $22.73 | -20.36% | 2.4% | 0.00% |
| Gen & Wyom | GWR | $27.97 | 2.88% | 3.2% | 0.00% |
| Nvidia | NVDA | $6.99 | -18.74% | 2.0% | 0.00% |
| Group #3 | |||||
| HBP Gold Bull+ ETF | HBU | $14.45 | 6.97% | 1.5% | 0.00% |
| Potash Corp Sask | POT | $72.26 | -24.44% | 3.6% | 0.42% |
| Nthld Pwr Inc Fund | NPI.UN | $10.65 | -7.99% | 3.2% | 9.33% |
| CME Group | CME | $199.94 | -22.60% | 6.5% | 7.75% |
| Cree Inc | CREE | $15.14 | -24.09% | 0.9% | 0.00% |
| Formfactor | FORM | $13.33 | -2.34% | 2.3% | 0.00% |
| Zweig Tot Ret Inc | ZTR | $2.98 | -12.77% | 2.5% | 12.64% |
| Group #4 | |||||
| HBP GoldSh Bull+ ETF | HGU | $8.16 | 9.71% | 2.1% | 0.00% |
| HBP NGas Bull+ ETF | HNU | $6.78 | -43.36% | 4.4% | 0.00% |
| IGM Financial | IGM | $32.69 | 1.14% | 7.3% | 6.34% |
| FTSE/Xinhua China ETF | FXI | $24.41 | -20.92% | 4.1% | 3.61% |
| Nokia | NOK | $14.19 | -15.02% | 2.6% | 4.67% |
| Eli Lilly | LLY | $32.80 | -0.81% | 0.9% | 5.68% |
| Claym Gl Solar ETF | TAN | $7.55 | -13.74% | 4.7% | 0.00% |
| Nortel Networks | NT | $0.52 | -65.20% | 0.2% | 0.00% |
Other than losing more money in November, not a lot has changed. I’ve pretty-much stayed ahead of the S&P500 this year since the summer by 10-15%. But I’ve got a heck of a lot more stock (sort of like how Zimbabweans now have a heck of a lot more Zimbabwean dollars). The share-count is now almost 3 times what it was at the beginning of September, and just about any kind of sustained rally would give us a little more “P” and a little less ”L” in the old P&L.
Back to Savannah for a moment. When we were there we visited the Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum, located in the elegant mansion of the once William Scarbrough, part owner and president of the Savannah Steamship Company. While browsing the gift shop, I found a non-descript-looking VHS of a home-video made near the turn of the 20th century by a rough and tumble farm-hand who had gone to sea. I’ve never seen such amazing footage – especially for the time period. It was made on a sailing clipper – a collier (coal transport) I think it was - with stunning photography, by the sailor sitting atop the rigging, of the massive waves of Cape Horn crashing over the decks. From that perspective, with every trough it looks like the ship is diving like a submarine. It’s incredible in that (a) he was up there in the rigging at all, (b) photographing it with 1890’s photographic equipment and (c) that the ship kept coming back up. On that trip a man was washed overboard, though that’s not caught on film. I forget who I lent this to, and would really love to have it back. You’d have to see it to believe it.
Actually, kind of reminds me of this market.
Cheers,
Allocator
a.k.a. George Parkanyi
gparkanyi@hotmail.com
