Moomin Valley

My missing retirement contribution is now showing up on TIAA-CREF's website. But it's been parked in a money market fund despite my ...

So far I am very happy with my investment in TFS Capital's Market Neutral Fund . The fund distribution for 2006 has just been announced:...

It will take quite a while it seems till I have final figures for December and 2006. One reason is that my supplemental 403b plan isn't ...

Another new idea. Seem to be a lot of these as I struggle to find a method that fits my psychology well and uses the model signals. Trade 1 ...

NDX stock futures ran up a lot overnight but are now retreating. NDX needs to be about +5 from the close to trigger a crossing of the moving...

Just checking how the "pair trade" is working out. The concept was fine but if I think of just NCT and IYR in isolation I shorted...

A possible Elliott-Wave interpretation of the market action of the last month (using the NQ futures chart) ... we would be currently in wave...

I just realized that in fact we are now in "oversold" conditions - the stochastic oscillator is below 20. This hasn't happened...

2006's results (to be reported in detail after January 1) were helped by foreign exchange gain and a small ($6-7k) inheritance amount. ...

Though we haven't yet completed 2006 I have added my 2007 net worth goal to the sidebar. $470,000. At this point I look like reaching $3...

I'm struggling to develop a trading strategy which won't involve me staring at the market all day. The idea behind developing the ...

The market has been going up since July so maybe it is rather late in the day to talk about the "traditional" year-end "Santa...

Brett Steenbarger writes in his blog to take some profits when a trade works out. This seems to run counter to the idea of letting winners...

This morning there was snow on the ground here in Burlington, VT and there were occasionally snow showers throughout the day. The markets op...

As the model has now switched to sell, I closed out the Australian positions I opened to increase my portfolio's beta. The results are ...

Today's action resulted in a new downtrend starting earlier than expected.... though my old acquaintance Ground Zero was already short ....

To $2.5million . I don't understand why the U.S. authorities want to keep hedge funds as a club only for the rich, which is the opposite...

This morning's CPI and wage data. Stocks and bonds soared and the US Dollar dropped on the news. Perfect for more my portfolio. But will...

Just bought 1000 shares of NWS.AX and WDC.AX . The former - the News Corporation - is one of my favorite trading vehicles and it was down a...

After the market managed to close up slightly and stay within the triangle the model is still forecasting upside for the next several days. ...

U.S. retail sales were up 1.1% in November . The consensus forecast was 0.2%. As a result, stocks and the U.S. dollar are up and bonds down....

And I gingerly stepped back into the market... So far, just one NQ Mar 07 contract @ 1805.50. If an uptrend takes hold I may add to it. Thou...

but don't do anything about it.... same story as last week. The model forecast today as a down day, but my read of the intraday (and dai...

Interesting academic article which I found from today's New York Times Magazine . I've pondered whether some PF bloggers, particula...

Seems I've become very risk averse. That's why I set such a tight stop yesterday morning. But that resulted in me losing money on a ...

So far it looks like I predicted the direction of the market correctly yesterday. Had a meeting from 9-11 this morning and I set a stop. The...

The model switched to sell at today's close. If the NDX had closed above 1802 the model would have remained on buy. This is a rather neg...

Investment Performance Investment return in US Dollars was 2.67% vs. a 2.88% gain in the MSCI World Index, which I use as my overall benchma...

At this point the NDX futures are up 5. If this holds or even if the index were to fall 12 points or so today the model is calling for a cha...

The market rebounded a little today. Friday remains the likely timing for a more substantial upswing. That is unless we get to oversold cond...

I've been short NDX for a while and losing money. In strongly overbought situations it is hard to use "the model". Each time i...

I've been successful so far trading the Aussie Dollar on the long side - making $US814 so far (this is just futures contracts not gains ...

As many other bloggers mention, we often find ourselves having conversations about finances with people we don't usually talk to about f...

I have made the three investment decisions I've been discussing recently: 1. I am investing $7000 in the Hussman Strategic Growth Fund ...

I went to my employer's annual benefits fair on Friday. The fair is on the first day of the open enrollment period that runs till Decemb...

Today, I received a letter from the Australian Tax Office regarding my past holding of IYS . This investment sold by Deutsche Bank is in the...

Claire is blogging again about money from family . I'm the first commenter on this post. After reading some of the other comments on C...

Pair trades are one of the strategies commonly used by hedge funds. The idea is to buy a stock that is expected to perform well and short an...

Finally, I get to actual practical hedging strategies. But, first, I'll explain something about forex futures contracts. These are the c...

Diversifcation makes sense in currency trading in the same way it makes sense in stock trading and investing. For example, in the last coupl...

Most investors don't think about currency exposure and leave their portfolio in the currency of their home country. When they invest in ...

I am considering investing in the Hussman Strategic Growth Fund . This is effectively a long-short equity hedge fund in mutual fund format a...

Seems I was too hasty in lowering my goal for the year to $350,000 from $370,000. I have passed a net worth of $US350k and $A450k. So I am ...

The chart shows the last day's trading in Globex Australian Dollar Futures. I sold my position on Sunday evening when the market seemed ...

I bought into this Aussie telecom firm where the green arrow is on the chart. This was based on a tip from a Hong Kong based investor I kno...

Made $US64.30. Got in @ 0.7683 and out @ 0.7690. Each 0.0001 is worth $US10 on a single contract trade. Hopefully this won't follow the ...

I forgot to mention this, but October saw me exceed 1/3 million Dollars for the first time. US Dollars that is. I reached 1/3 million Austra...

I closed my first futures trade (short NQ (NASDAQ 100 E-Mini)) and went long (and long QQQQ and QQQQ calls too). Made 10 points on that firs...

Investment Performance Investment return in US Dollars was 2.70% vs. a 3.27% gain in the MSCI World Index, which I use as my overall benchma...

By this afternoon I felt comfortable enough with the IB software and with the market to do my first real futures trade - selling a NASDAQ 10...

I spent some time last night getting used to the IB system and making paper trades in NASDAQ 100, 10 year bond, and Australian Dollar future...

Bought 13 Australian Dollar contracts @ 0.7675. IB gives you $1M in imaginary play money and the underlying value of an Australian Dollar fu...

Paying money overseas gets easier and easier as credit card payments get more widespread internationally. But sometimes you need to pay in f...

a good trading day. I closed out the MSFT trade for a profit which was the only good thing that happened. HCBK was downgraded by Merrill Lyn...

In my existing accounts I bought some Microsoft shares this morning in anticipation of this evening's earnings release. I remain long QQ...

After faxing a copy of my driver's license to IB yesterday my IB account is finally operational. All I've done so far is log in, loo...

I just did the online retirement preparedness quiz . Like most such questionaires it didn't ask the big question about inheritance. Do p...

NetWorthIQ have a new release . The new version splits out non-owner occupied real estate. I think that is a great improvement. They also ha...

At this point there doesn't look like any way I am going to meet my original goal of getting to $370,000 by the end of this year. So I a...

Eric Falkenstein, a hedge fund manager in Minneapolis with a PhD in economics, has written a fascinating paper (warning: grad-level economi...

A Zillow for renters: Rentometer . Very cool. Oh and both my apartment and my girlfriend's are very good deals, not surprisingly :)

An interesting article in the NY Times today discusses the implications that now a minority of US households consist of married couples wit...

Again the model was stopped out today. I lost a lot of money. The majority of my profits from this experimental trading period have been los...

The old model won today as NDX ended up a couple of points and even the new "averaged stochastic" rose. But really the market didn...

I noticed today that the standard slow(5,3) stochastic began to decline today while my preferred full(5,5,3) stochastic increased steeply. T...

Million Dollar Countdown asked for some advice on introductory books on technical analysis. There are only two technical analysis books I h...

I finally got around to submitting an application for an account with Interactive Brokers . Security checks are now running before I can act...

Has anyone else noticed that Zillow hasn't updated any house prices for the last three weeks (since 9/15/06)? What's up over there?...

I upgraded to the new Beta Blogger, so that I could get faster publishing and add labels to my posts. I have long wanted to be able to categ...

If this count is correct then there could be some more upside left. But the Full(5,5,3) stoch can only rise at most to 64 tomorrow. If the i...

Investment Performance Investment return in US Dollars was -0.77% vs. a 1.19% gain in the MSCI World Index, which I use as my overall benchm...