Moomin Valley

I don't think this article is as novel as the author and the blogger are making out. All it really says is build a balanced portfolio o...

Two of my stocks are now in merger talks: Powertel - a small Aussie telecom firm - and Symbion Health - an Aussie healthcare firm (what el...

New research attempts to do a better job at assessing whether indexing or active management performs better for long-only mutual funds. The...

The NY Times discusses something I have commented on from time to time. Most people in the US end up saving enough for retirement. Poverty ...

I'd credit a signficant portion of the rising profits I blogged about in yesterday's post to adoption of the overnight trading tac...

The chart shows the cumulative profit in my Interactive Brokers account since I opened it in late October 2006 trade by trade. All closed tr...

I've managed to build my Interactive Brokers account which I use for trading futures up to $12,000. I originally put $10k into the accou...

Following up from the discussion about mutual fund costs , Friday's WSJ had an article about top performing small cap funds (pointed out...

I finally got tagged by Clifford with this so-called "meme" that is all over the blogosphere. So here goes: 1. I was born on the ...

My insula must be very active!

I'm fed up with hearing how people should look at the expense ratios of mutual funds when deciding which to invest in as if that was the...

It now looks like Croesus mining shares will again be traded on the Australian Stock Exchange. A reverse split of 1 for 15 and a new capita...

Beginning (and more experienced traders too) are often confused by the conflicting advice they get from different sources. Some argue that b...

I promised that yesterday's post would be the last in this series, but then I came up with a new idea: the contribution of each security...

This is the final part of the annual report where I review my current investment allocation and strategy: This is a screen shot of part of t...

John Mauldin forwarded his subscribers (subscription is free) an interesting article by Hoisington and Hunt today. They point to low inflat...

The following table compares my rates of return on investment to the MSCI World Index and the S&P 500 Total Return Index: Both those ind...

I sold all my shares in Telecom NZ . I've owned this stock since 2000 when they took over AAPT - an Australian telecom start-up which I ...

A focus of many who seek financial independence is building passive income. Payments that come without you having to do any work for them. M...

This is my first annual report. I covered some basics a few days ago . Here are the more or less final numbers for income, expenditure, and ...

I've decided to stop reinvesting the distributions from my non-retirement Australian mutual funds managed by Colonial First State and re...

Got back Friday from a long trip to Vermont and am getting up to speed - the coming week will be spent mainly on preparations for teaching t...

As I am tidying up my accounting spreadsheets for the end of 2006 I am also fixing some issues from the last several years. The major issue ...

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 ...