Moomin Valley

Personal Finance, Investing, and Economics

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Stopped Out

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The model stopped out. If this level holds then the model will reverse to the long stance again. The fluctuations in the last couple of week...
3 comments:
Wednesday, October 04, 2006

New ATH on the Dow

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Yes there was a new intraday all time high (ATH) and a new closing ATH on the Dow. NDX was up a bit on the day but totally within model expe...
Sunday, October 01, 2006

Provisional Report for September

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Not a good month, but not a terrible one either. The model gained 6.23% compared to an NDX gain of 4.71% but my trading accounts lost 3.94%....
2 comments:
Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Wednesday is the Critical Day for the Stockmarket

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On Tuesday the S&P 500 made a strong advance and went beyond the upper trend line of a bearish wedge that bears have been following and...
2 comments:
Monday, September 25, 2006

Second Thoughts on Retirement Accounts?

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As I begin to realize that maybe I can realize my dream of financial independence much faster than I ever thought possible, I am beginning t...
2 comments:
Thursday, September 21, 2006

Mayne Pharma to be Acquired

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Mayne Pharma is to be acquired by Hospira . It has been in a trading halt for a couple of days pending a transaction. Yesterday most comment...
2 comments:
Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Update from Croesus Administrators

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Croesus Mining's administrators have provided an update on the state of negotiations to either sell Croesus' assets or recapitalize...

Trading Record for the Year So Far

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It ain't pretty: The chart shows the running total of profits from short term trades so far this year. As you can see I got a nice profi...
4 comments:
Tuesday, September 19, 2006

What's Next for the Market?

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This scenario has now played out. The model is switching to short at the close today. The S&P 500 index has now had 3 weeks of sell sig...
2 comments:
Sunday, September 17, 2006

Business and Tax Planning

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I am reading the two books on taxes for traders that I ordered . Green's book is not as well written, but his strategies are simpler an...
Saturday, September 16, 2006

That Was a Bad Call

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Why do I keep trying to trade against the model? It doesn't make sense. I don't understand why I am doing it. But for some reason it...
2 comments:
Friday, September 15, 2006

Back to the Short Side

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Yup. The model is still long but probably Friday will turn out to be the last day of the uptrend in the stochastic. The stochastic can still...
Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Can an Economist be a Trader?

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Fin_Indie asked for me discuss how I reconcile being an economics professor and an active trader. I assume he is thinking about the efficie...
1 comment:

Aligned with the Trend

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The model has now been long for a day and I am again aligned with the model and up on the month a little. This feels better. The uptrend sho...
Friday, September 08, 2006

Planning

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A beautiful day here today - trying to appreciate it a little in between the things I have to do. The market has been making me nervous too ...
2 comments:
Thursday, September 07, 2006

Confused

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Yes, I am feeling very confused by the market today, even though so far I guess it is playing out the chart I posted in my last post. Just i...
Monday, September 04, 2006

New Weekly Model Says: "Get Long"

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For the first time today I estimated a model with weekly data. Again, I was stunned by the results - the high correlation between the foreca...
Sunday, September 03, 2006

Books on Tax for Traders

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Just ordered a couple of books about tax for traders. The Tax Guide for Traders by Robert Green and The New Traders Tax Solution by Ted Te...

August Report

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August was another good month. Net worth increased by $14,000 to $330k, investment return was 3.61%, and total investment income $11380. Ex...
1 comment:
Friday, September 01, 2006

Trading Model Performance for August

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Another month has gone by trading "the model". I have further improved my trading rules and produced a decent performance for bot...

At Midday the Rally is Looking Dead

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This rally is looking pretty dead here . Based on the prices earlier this morning my model would have switched to long, and I got close to p...
Thursday, August 31, 2006

Market Teetering Between a Crash and a Rally

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My indicators derived from the stochastic were in exactly the same pattern as they are now twice in 2005. Once in mid to late February and o...
Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Confusing Market Action

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Bulls and bears both seem confused at this point. One bear calls for a week of sideways action. This morning the Federal Reserve did a mass...
Sunday, August 27, 2006

Bursting Real Estate Bubble and Coming Recession

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Seems this weekend there is stuff everywhere on the bursting housing bubble. Too much to post! One of the best is this powerpoint slide show...
3 comments:
Saturday, August 26, 2006

Adjusting Investments

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It might seem like all I've been doing lately is trading. But I also have been adjusting my long-term investment positions. I am cutting...
Thursday, August 24, 2006

Model Update - Progress Towards Goals

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At this point it is looking like there will be a buy to cover signal generated at next Tuesday's close. This is about as accurate as wea...
Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Traits that Lead to Success

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How many of these traits and habits do you have? I think I have several, though I'm not a very good networker. That's my weakest po...

DIY Recession Probability Calculator

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Cool tool for estimating the probability of a recession. The tool is based on an academic paper by a Federal Reserve economist.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Expert Systems vs. Expert Opinion

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John Mauldin's latest mid-week newsletter is an interesting exploration of the performance of formal quantitative systems that systemat...
Friday, August 18, 2006

Freestyle Management and Black Box Trading

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There are actively managed mutual funds and then there are " freestyle managers ". A subclass of hedge funds use systematic tradin...
4 comments:

Sell Signal

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I got another short term sell signal at the close today. It is possible that this is the beginning of the big decline into Fall that I have...
1 comment:
Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Are We Still in the 2000- Bear Market?

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I just came across Ian Gordon's website , which has some interesting charts of the Kondratief cycle . He plots the actual stock index (r...
2 comments:
Monday, August 14, 2006

One More Rally?

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I am looking for a rally starting either intraday or at the close on Monday on US and most world stock indices. The rally should last a bit ...
Saturday, August 12, 2006

The Paradox of Indexed Investing

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Recently I have been reading a lot on the theory of trading and hedge funds and musing about what trends in investment strategies mean for t...
3 comments:
Thursday, August 10, 2006

It's Nice When Losers Become Winners

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Today's star is Challenger Infrastructure Fund . I bought into this fund which invests in infrastructure primarily in Britain soon after...

Trading with Stops

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This morning's rally hit my model's stop loss which is set 1.25% from the previous close. I ignored it, which turned out to not be a...
2 comments:
Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Another Fed Day...

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This one a lot better than the last for me.... The day after the last one is when I started running "the model". I am currently sh...
Sunday, August 06, 2006

Secret to Planning a Successful "Retirement"

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Well I don't believe in retirement as usually construed, but thought this was a good article as he seems to be saying the same thing. O...
2 comments:
Saturday, August 05, 2006

End of Week Report

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Today the market rallied initially on an unemployment report and then ended the day lower. The model got stopped out because the NDX rose mo...
2 comments:

Amusing Article about a Hedge Fund Conference

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An amusing article about a hedge fund conference . One guy wants to start a hedge fund and has never traded anything! Even if my trading mod...
Thursday, August 03, 2006

July Report

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Net worth increased by $13059 to $316,244. This is still about two thousand below the May high but a nice recovery. My retirement accounts h...
Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Further Downside Risk?

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The stock futures are off this morning and in recent days the Bank of Japan continues to try to reduce its money supply - a move that has p...

Upside Risk Reduced

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Today the market fell a little, but pretty much went sideways all day. The pop up in the NASDAQ 100 index in the morning extended its tradin...
Monday, July 31, 2006

What Type of Trader are You?

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Everyone trades to some degree, even when they buy or sell a passively indexed investment. Some traders lose from trading and some gain. Fin...
1 comment:
Saturday, July 29, 2006

Going Short

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The model is saying to be short on Monday. I have shorted QQQQ before the end of the day ($37.01). Could be early (the price already went to...
Friday, July 28, 2006

Bill Gross' Latest Commentary

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More evidence that in Gross' opinion the recent bear market in bonds is over.

Limited Transactions on Online Savings Accounts

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One downside of these high interest online savings accounts that I didn't know about till today. Received a letter from HSBC telling me ...
5 comments:
Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Bernanke Financial Disclosure

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Like PF blogs financial disclosures by public officials are always fascinating.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Balance Transfer

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Just completed a balance transfer, paying off about $8500 on my Amazon credit card using a balance transfer from my HSBC credit card. The ba...
1 comment:

Elite Trader

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I have been a member of Silicon Investor for 8 years but only just discovered a site called Elite Trader today. Read an interesting discuss...
Sunday, July 23, 2006

Heads and Shoulders

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No not a special deal on shampoo :) Everywhere you look across the stockmarkets there are head and shoulders formations or closely related ...
2 comments:
Saturday, July 22, 2006

Losing Streak

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The model has now lost money for 5 days in a row :( This is the longest losing streak so far in the simulation I did for this year. On avera...
Friday, July 21, 2006

Trading Performance Update

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Since I have been using the model the NASDAQ 100 Index is down 7%, the model is up 3%, and my account is at... zero. Actually, this is not s...
Thursday, July 20, 2006

Croesus Again

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A glimmer of hope of getting something back from the Croesus debacle . Trading was rough today as I was still short when the market rose in...
1 comment:
Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Bearish Outlook

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I went long and lost money and then went short and lost money... Of course if I followed my model and rules precisely I would have stayed sh...
3 comments:
Tuesday, July 18, 2006

All Bets Off

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On Tuesday, Japan reversed the change in money supply to reduce money supply relative to last Thursday and plans a further reduction on Wedn...
Monday, July 17, 2006

Bank of Japan Massively Increases Money Supply

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The financial mass media does not discuss this major driver of the stock market very much if at all. More specialized sources are only recen...
1 comment:
Saturday, July 15, 2006

A More Positive Post!

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At mid-month things are looking a lot better than at the end of last month. Since the disastrous 29 June FOMC Day I have recouped my trading...

Ameritrade Sucks But I Love the Streamer

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Today I placed an order to cover my QQQQ short at $35.80. This was 1 cent above the low price of the day. Just as I did so, Ameritrade's...
1 comment:
Friday, July 14, 2006

Change of Plan

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Went long at the open at 36.61 on the QQQQ. Stopped out at 36.45. Went to a long meeting (PhD dissertation defence - environmental research ...
3 comments:
Thursday, July 13, 2006

Cover Shorts and Go Long

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The model says to be long from tomorrow. So I sold my QQQQ put options and bought back the QQQQ stock I had sold short. The underlying QQQQ ...
Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Mutual Funds Improve

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Interesting article about improving performance of mutual funds. I've posted a couple of times about how actively managed funds seem to...
Monday, July 10, 2006

Forecast Update

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Currently my model is projecting Thursday as the turn around day in the market when a new uptrend will start. Of course this can change as w...
Thursday, July 06, 2006

Trading Update

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My trading model automatically stopped me out this morning when QQQQ reached 1.25% down. It then fell further and I went long for a daytrade...
Tuesday, July 04, 2006

June Report

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June 30 is the end of the financial year in Australia and is when mutual funds make distributions including tax credits. Therefore, this mon...
Monday, July 03, 2006

Buffett and Gates

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EI just posted my take on Buffett's donation in response to a poster on the Silicon Investor website: "Why are you so suspicious?...
Sunday, July 02, 2006

Learning to Trade

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Picking stocks isn't easy and neither is learning to trade. This is why most people are better off buying ETFs or mutual funds, dollar ...
Saturday, July 01, 2006

End of June, Finally :)

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A calm day after yesterday. Glad this month is over. I lost money but think I have developed a tool that will make me a lot of money in futu...
Friday, June 30, 2006

FOMC Day

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Apparently the markets think the Fed's statement is bullish. I was short and suffered a big loss. Mainly due to being short individual s...
Thursday, June 29, 2006

The Market Went up Today... Better News from Australia

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The market went up today, but my model is still on short heading into the FOMC announcement tomorrow. We are getting close to a turning poin...
Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Croesus Mining Declares Bankruptcy

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I wrote in an earlier post about the trading halt in the shares of Australian gold miner Croesus Mining. In the last couple of days the fir...
4 comments:
Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Kiyosaki Wrong on Mutual Funds

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I like a lot of what Robert Kiyosaki says usually and there are serious problems with a lot of mutual funds, but the basic point in his colu...
7 comments:

Market Forecast

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Despite the market being up today all my newly developed indicators are pointing the same way - down. Some other indicators and the chart pa...
2 comments:
Monday, June 26, 2006

Technical Analysis Modeling

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Been spending a lot of time recently on developing new technical analysis methods (commonly known also as "charting" - but the stu...
Friday, June 23, 2006

Plutonomy

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Plutonomy is a term invented by some analysts at Citigroup. Download their articles here . The central thesis goes against everything you pr...

The Correction Continues - Technical Analysis

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We are still in what I believe is a correction of the 14 June rally in US stock markets. Even though yesterday's rally exceeded the prev...
Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Trading Diary Part II

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9:33am I won't post hour by hour detail today. Have a big meeting from 12-2 anyway. Market is showing early strength. For the moment I w...
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About Me

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mOOm
I'm an economist and an active investor and currently live in Australia. I'm a global investor though I focus on investments in the Anglophone world and particularly in Australia. This blog tracks investment performance and discusses personal finance, investing, and trading from an economic perspective. In the picture, Moomin is looking for treasure.
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