Trading Summary And Analysis

I've just completed my analysis for Feb 22 to an intraday time today, April 3:

Benchmarks: SPY -1.43% QLD -6.31% Russell 1000 Value -.83%

My stocks showed a profit of $1270.5 net of commissions: $1030.5 (24 trades).
Since my starting amount was $112 437 (includes the add on) this is 0.9%

I used six basic strategies, grouped post hoc with average results as follows:

a) Buyback and value: -3.7% seven trades
b) Buyback and > 3% one day drop and > 200 day avg: 2.2% three trades
c) other <5%> 200 day avg: -28.4% one trade
d) Subjective story: 11.8% averaged over five trades!
e) Sentimentrader timing trade: 1.4% over three trades
f) 5/1 plus value plus 5/1 industry: 4.5% one trade

These were most of my trades, a few are omitted because I'm not sure why I made them.

These are my conclusions:

Foremost seems to be the large loss I had buying TSTC, a high flying small cap stock that had a large one day drop due to disappointing earnings. It just kept going down. I'll make sure the stock has a low PE if the news is bad earnings, and stay away from blogging chartists' recommendations.

The other bad area was the poor performance of my Buyback passive portfolio. I'm not sure what to do about this, perhaps it is just the large variance, but perhaps the buyback stocks don't do well unless they are moving a lot already, up or down. My adjustment will be to hold fewer stocks but to put more money in them, and to trade situations more.

On the positive side was the standout performance of my subjective selections. LEND and ADLR deserve remembering, and it shows how being interested in stocks and their stories can pay off big time.

Also worth noting is CTB, a value down 5 year/ up one year stock. It is doing well so far.

Also doing well was the strategy of buying stocks that are down large but are in one of my lists (like Fry or 5/1), and the strategy of buying indiscriminately when Sentimentrader gives unequivocal signals.

I must fine tune the Hulbert signals for gold - finding a reliable vehicle - and the short selling strategy I've devised from his newsletter data.