TRADING UPDATE
OK, that felt more familiar. The ol’ equity took a 2% beating today, reducing my tenuous new year’s profit to a fragile 1.5%. However, the S&P500 lost 3.0%, and I was able to hold steady my 3.0% lead over the benchmark (I didn’t gain 1% because the Canadian dollar also lost.)
I felt in my bones that equities were looking soft, and regret a little that I didn’t add another short ETF yesterday. However the one I did add on 31 December, and the 3 short commodity ETFs I re-instituted the same day had the desired braking effect during today’s downslide, despite a very heavy hit to my oil positions. There REAP did well last Friday by selling off some of the crude long ETF (TSX:HOU) and rolling the money into the short equity ETF (TSX:HSD) right on cue. The other good move (so far) was to swap out the financials ETF (UYG) (which tanked today) for the platinum ETF (PTM). Despite the general sell-off, platinum continued to rise today. For going platinum, I have to credit Jeff Watson – it was his long platinum/short gold spread idea that got me onto it. I was already short gold through the gold shares short ETF (TSX:HGD).
Speaking of HGD, by far my most prolific trader, but which I had almost given up for dead, we had a signal as it stirred to life and silver sank.
| REAP TRADES | ||||||||
| # | Trade | Qty | Stock | Symbol | Price | Grp | ||
| 210 | Sold | 31% | HBP Gld Shs Bear+ ETF | HGD | @ | $13.62 | 2 | |
| 210 | Bought | 95% | ProSh Ultra Silver ETF | AGQ | @ | $30.00 | 2 | |
| REAP methodology detailed in the blogroll under “My Portfolio” | ||||||||
| Qty % are amount by which shares counts are decreased/increased | ||||||||
This is HGD’s 40th trade, and out of 210 re-allocations to date, it, out of 28 securities in the REAP portfolio has participated in one of every 5 trades. Yet, I was happy to see some of it go. Over the recent gold rally, REAP averaged down many times and I was loaded with it. I’m not sure I want to get in front of the freight train of a precious metals run. We had some downside today, but things have been pretty firm recently. The money was rolled into silver through AGQ, and since I bought some gold shares on Monday, the long side of precious metals is now much better represented.
Here’s the portfolio update.
| PORTFOLIO SUMMARY | 7-Jan-09 | ||||
| (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 | 906.7 | -29.7% | -25.6% | 4.1% |
| Re-start OCT 07 | 1526.7 | 906.7 | -21.3% | -13.3% | 8.0% |
| 2009 Year to Date | 903.3 | 906.7 | -1.8% | 1.2% | 3.0% |
| Discretionary Trading P&L (included in above results) | -5.4% | ||||
| Canadian dollar | Last | Inceptn | Var. | Restart | Var. |
| 0.8358 | 0.8547 | 2.2% | 1.0069 | 17.0% | |
| Dividend Yield (current) | 3.19% | ||||
| Intrinsic leverage (from 2x ETFs) | x | 1.42 | |||
| Currency Mix | 100.0% | ||||
| Canadian Investments/Cash | 60.1% | ||||
| US Investments | 34.4% | ||||
| Other (country ETFs) | 5.6% | ||||
| Market Bias | Net Long | 58.3% | |||
| Cash | 1.5% | ||||
| Short | 20.1% | ||||
| Long | 78.4% | ||||
| Theme Mix | 100.0% | ||||
| Commodity ETFs | 25.5% | ||||
| Short Commodity ETFs | 12.0% | ||||
| Short Equity ETFs | 4.5% | ||||
| Short Bond ETFs | 3.6% | ||||
| Energy | 9.9% | ||||
| Agriculture | 7.4% | ||||
| Alt Energy/Infrastructure | 10.8% | ||||
| Financials | 10.9% | ||||
| Health Care | 0.0% | ||||
| Technology | 6.3% | ||||
| Transportation | 2.1% | ||||
| Country ETF | 5.6% | ||||
| Cash | 1.5% | ||||
| 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 | Canadian Securities | U.S. Securities | |||
| Stock | Sym | Last | Gain % | Weight | Yld |
| Group #1 | |||||
| Global Agri-Bus Trust | ABG.UN | $3.85 | -4.47% | 4.2% | 12.41% |
| HBP DJIA-Ag Bear+ ETF | HAD | $20.12 | -5.57% | 2.1% | 0.00% |
| HBP CrOil Bull+ ETF | HOU | $11.65 | -47.48% | 3.7% | 0.00% |
| HBP SP500 Bear+ ETF | HSD | $29.25 | 0.54% | 4.5% | 0.00% |
| Husky Energy | HSE | $32.05 | 16.38% | 3.5% | 7.26% |
| UBS Ag Platinum ETF | PTM | $12.93 | 9.02% | 2.5% | 0.00% |
| Sun Hydraulics | SNHY | $18.37 | 31.52% | 1.8% | 2.57% |
| Group #2 | |||||
| Arc Energy Trust | AET.UN | $19.80 | 19.49% | 6.3% | 10.86% |
| HBP DJIA Ag Bull+ ETF | HAU | $23.39 | 1.99% | 2.6% | 0.00% |
| HBP GoldSh Bear+ ETF | HGD | $13.78 | -30.16% | 4.9% | 0.00% |
| ProSh Ultra Silver ETF | AGQ | $29.76 | -5.04% | 4.4% | 0.00% |
| Gen & Wyom | GWR | $29.90 | 7.08% | 2.1% | 0.00% |
| Nvidia | NVDA | $8.62 | -2.40% | 1.1% | 0.00% |
| ProSh USht Bonds ETF | TBT | $41.80 | 7.90% | 3.6% | 1.71% |
| Group #3 | |||||
| HBP Gold Bull+ ETF | HBU | $14.79 | 9.53% | 1.5% | 0.00% |
| HBP N Gas Bear+ ETF | HND | $29.02 | -4.95% | 2.8% | 0.00% |
| Nthld Pwr Inc Fund | NPI.UN | $11.45 | 3.44% | 5.7% | 10.12% |
| Potash Corp Sask | POT | $99.38 | 3.92% | 3.2% | 0.42% |
| CME Group | CME | $198.69 | -19.00% | 5.7% | 8.16% |
| Formfactor | FORM | $15.03 | 7.22% | 2.4% | 0.00% |
| ProSh Ult Cr Oil ETF | UCO | $13.75 | -8.30% | 2.4% | 0.00% |
| Group #4 | |||||
| HBP GoldSh Bull+ ETF | HGU | $9.83 | -0.08% | 2.3% | 0.00% |
| HBP NGas Bull+ ETF | HNU | $5.29 | -41.86% | 6.2% | 0.00% |
| IGM Financial | IGM | $35.62 | 10.21% | 5.2% | 6.34% |
| FTSE/Xinhua China ETF | FXI | $29.30 | -6.15% | 5.6% | 3.57% |
| Nokia | NOK | $15.66 | -8.68% | 2.7% | 4.55% |
| Claym Gl Solar ETF | TAN | $8.70 | 0.82% | 3.4% | 0.00% |
| ProSh UlSht Silver ETF | ZSL | $18.48 | 1.70% | 2.3% | 0.00% |
| Nortel Networks | NT | $0.32 | -78.59% | 0.1% | 0.00% |
And now I have to run. I have to take care of some things before my wife and I fly down to St Petersburg, Florida tomorrow for 4 days of R&R.
Cheers,
Allocator
a.k.a. George Parkanyi
gparkanyi@hotmail.com
Copyright 2009 – all rights reserved
