Monthly Archives: December 2011

Taking leverage into account, the portfolio current has a 48.6% (of account equity) long exposure to precious metals stocks. It’s not that I’m a gold bug as such, it’s that gold stocks have come off sharply in the past month … Continue reading →

Today, I made a number of moves designed to increase the volatility of the portfolio and enhance the yield a little bit. I retired DAG, the 2x grains ETF (which conveniently sold out today of its own accord – normal … Continue reading →

The S&P500 was up a whole .10 points – yes that’s 1/10th of a point – today, ERTS sold a single tiny residual lot of ERX. A Smurf trading event all around. Even the Canadian dollar closed 1 basis point … Continue reading →

… to the tune of another 11 points up on the S&P500. The portfolio edged higher again, though you could tell it was struggling. Precious metals and natural gas in particular have been declining and were relatively weak again today. … Continue reading →

The S&P500 added another 10 points today (better than expected jobs report) and the portfolio edged higher, and a couple of trades went through, building up a little more cash.  The buy and sell in Goldcorp was an error.  I … Continue reading →

The S&P500 dipped about 10 points in the morning before it started recovering to finish just over 2 points up at the close. The U.S. National Association of Realtors announced that their data on existing home sales were overstated for … Continue reading →

Today world markets exploded higher, the S&P500 to tune of 36 points. That had the desired effect on the portfolio, which immediately recovered by about 3.5%. Yesterday, I was staring at 5.3% December loss, and now that’s pared to 1.75%. I’ll take … Continue reading →

So much for the seasonal. Another 14 S&P points down today and a 2.3% hit to the portfolio equity. Commodities really look like they are in the dog-house. One smallish trade today … TRADING 19-Dec-11 UPDATE 644 # Trade Qty … Continue reading →

The market started out strongly, up maybe 13 points, and then fizzled late morning and just hung there and slid in sideways to the close at about plus 4. Commodity stocks which had been quite weak actually firmed up and … Continue reading →

The S&P500 was up a little around 4 points today, but all the USD hedges including commodities kept taking it on the chin, and the account equity drifted down even further to a 4.5% loss on the month. Almost out … Continue reading →