as it were …
Today saw some interesting action not only commodities, but also stocks. I was able to unload some natural gas and oil ETF to rebuild some cash in the commodity ETF program, and also sell some Nvidia and ProShares real estate ETF in the REAP program.
| REAP TRADES | Trading Update # 177 | |||||||
| # | Trade | Qty | Stock | Symbol | Price | Grp | ||
| 283 | Sold | 32% | Nvidia | NVDA | @ | $11.70 | 2 | |
| 283 | Bought | 220% | ProSh UlSht Rus2000 ETF | SKK | @ | $31.51 | 3 | |
| 284 | Sold | 32% | ProSh Ult RlEst ETF | URE | @ | $3.59 | 4 | |
| 284 | Bought | 61% | ProSh UlSht QQQ ETF | QID | @ | $30.24 | 4 | |
| REAP methodology detailed in the blogroll under “My Portfolio” | ||||||||
| Qty % are amount by which shares counts are decreased/increased | ||||||||
| C-ETF TRADES | Trading Update # 177 | |||||||
| # | Trade | Qty | Stock | Symbol | Price | Grp | ||
| Sold | 20% | HBP NGas Bull+ ETF | HNU | @ | $4.79 | ET | ||
| Sold | 20% | HBP CrOil Bull+ ETF | HOU | @ | $7.59 | ET | ||
| Qty % are amount by which shares counts are decreased/increased | ||||||||
Natural gas, after swooning yesterday from a high of $4.57 down back to almost $4.00, today roared as high as $4.95 and then settled to close at $4.78, up 15.75%. It did this on the second largest volume I’ve ever seen for the Horizons BetaPro Natural Gas double-long ETF – $24.3 million shares. The news must have been that the inventory build was not as bad as anticipated – I don’t know; I haven’t checked yet. I still have a sizeable position, so if we get a spike here like natural gas is wont to do, I’ll take it. The crude oil ETF was down for most of the day but managed to eventually close 4 cents higher. I took this opportunity to lighten up my oil position by one lot (about 1/5th) to add to my cash build. The gold shares ETF was also up, but, the grains ETF, my largest position, struggled. It was down over 8% until it too managed to rally into the close to cut that loss in half. Grains to me look like they are forming a near-term base from which to rally. The three sales of the past two sessions have all been moderately profitable, and the overall CETF program drawdown has recovered to -10.4%. I also have enough cash to buy 4 more lots of whatever if necessary.
The two REAP trades swung the REAP portfolio from a 38.7% net-long bias down to 30.3% in one fell swoop. This is because both Nvidia and URE had high weightings, and the relatively large chunks carved off were ploughed straight into short equity double long ETFs. This week’s stock market rally has been impressive, and looks like the beginning of a bigger move. These short ETFs may quickly become a drag. In fact, although REAP is up 3.8% on the year in US dollars, the S&P500 pulled ahead today at 4.1%. The Canadian dollar is hitting my US positions hard in Canadian dollar terms. I just have not been able to make any head-way throughout the rally that started in March.
Cindy is back from helping out her mom in St Louis, so I’d better sign off and pay my dear wife some attention.
Cheers,
Allocator
a.k.a. George Parkanyi
