Karel's Mechanical Fund

[Karel]

Again an up week for the market, SPY up .32%, and the POTW was up an amazing 1.87% according to my calculations. With such an amazing score the POTW would have gained on the Mechanical Fund, wouldn't you think? But the MF was up 1.99%... MF - POTW : 5 - 1. It is Lye's own fault, I offered not to participate. If you leave my score out, the POTW would have won. Since inception the MF gained 6.1%, SPY 3.0% and the POTW 2.7%.

Top 3 of the MF: SNDK +8.6%, RSWN +6.95%, and RHAT +6.39%. Bottom 3: LMS -4.88%, CMCO -3.75% (my pick for the POTW), and CELL -1.33%. SNDK is now positive, indeed all stocks but one in the MF are positive. The exception is my last addition, LMS.

There are no changes in the holdings of the MF. I love it!

Regards,

Karel

[billyjoe]

Karel,
Are you putting real $$ into the mechanical fund or is it paper trading? At 1.99% per week you'd be the richest man in Nijmegen in no time if compounded.
How many weeks of positive % would convince you to put in real $$?
The cheap stock port was up 3.3% this week. Must have just been a good week for small/micro caps. I'm just aiming for a 1% average and would take less. Now all I've got to come up with is the initial $1,000,000 to get started. Maybe $1,000 or $10,000 would do it, but the transaction fees would really take a bite.

billyjoe

[Karel]

Billyjoe,

the MF is neither real money nor pure paper trading. It is a fund on www.marketocracy.com. I give buy and sell orders, and those get filled according to (a part of the) real volume. See the marketocracy site for more details. And the 6% is over six weeks; which I think is exciting enough.

I have a five stock version of this trading scheme in real money. It is up quite a bit less, 3% over 3 months. I am still happy with that, even if it isn't market beating yet. (SPY scored 5% or something like that.)

Regards,

Karel

[Karel]

Results 12/30/2005

How did my mechanical fund (Marketocracy ticker QHOF) finish 2005? Down. When I calculated that the fund was down 1.76% for the week, I was mentally chalking up a loss to the POTW and SPY. But SPY was down 1.78% (whew!) and the POTW crashed a devastating -4.68%. Mechanical fund - POTW : 6 - 1. Please people, this is no contest, this is a walkover! I did my best this time: CMCO lost only 1.65%, calculated from the open for the week, a 5th place! Totals:

MF: +4.23%
SPY: +1.14%
POTW: -2.11%

I did have a top three best performing stocks of course: CMCO +3.2%, MDR + 2.7%, and SNDK -.4%. Yes, the third best performer this week was negative! The worst three were JLG -5.2%, SWN - 5.1%, and CELL -4%.

There are no changes in the portfolio this week.

Regards,

Karel

[Karel]

Wow what a week to start the new year! SPY up 3.16%, beaten by the the POTW's even better 3.75%! That could only mean something extremely positive for my clutch of momentum stocks, and it did. The current NAV is 10.83, up 3.9%. So: MF - POTW : 7 - 1. I think Lye really needs that H factor he is talking about! But wait! in my positions CELL is showing a loss! Look at any chart and you'll see that that is impossible. It is. The split for CELL has not been applied (yet; I lodged a complaint), so my position in CELL is 2/3 of what it should be. If I add those $35K, the NAV rises to 11.18 or so, a gain of almost 7.3% for this short week!

The numbers (since inception of the POTW and the MF):
MF: +11.8%
SPY: +4.33%
POTW: +1.56%

The top three were: SNDK +17.7%, LMS +10.7%, and RHAT +10.34%. The bottom three were: SWN +3.45%, CMCO +5.37%, and JLG +5.45%. What a week, the worst stock up 3.45%!

This week SWN drops off the screen. It will be replaced with AAPL.

Regards,

Karel

[Karel]

I am still a bit fuzzy from the flu, or whatever it was, but here's the report. QHOF, my mechanical fund still suffers from an unapplied split in CELL, so I corrected the NAV to 11.40. (Marketocracy is working at the problem.) The fund is up 1.95% for the week, which beats the POTW (+1.24%) and SPY (+.19%). Mechanical Fund - POTW : 8 - 1. It pays to be mechanical, I would like to say.

Total return (since inception of the POTW and the MF):
MF: +14.02%
SPY: +4.52%
POTW: +2.82%

The three best performers were: AAPL +11.37%, CRDN +7.08%, and CMCO, my standing pick for the POTW +4.71%. The three worst performers were RHAT -4.19%, SNDK -1.51% and CELL, my POTY pick, -.5%

No changes!

Regards,

Karel

[Karel]

Well, in case somebody cares: the split trouble has been cleaned up and the CELL position is in order again. It took some time, but now everyone can enjoy the crazy jump of my Mechanical Fund in the first week of 2006:

http://marketocracy.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Portfolio.woa/ps/FundPublicPage/source=CbOeCgIlEdHiDfCkMaKiAbDd

See that little tick jump!

Regards,

Karel

[Karel]

The Mechanical Fund drooped a bit this week, down -1.72%. Still better than de market (SPY dropped over 2%), but, hear, hear: a lot worse than the POTW: -.63% Hats off, gents and ladies (including myself ): Mechanical fund - POTW: 8 - 2

Total return (since inception of the POTW and the MF):
MF: +12.06%
SPY: +2.32%
POTW: +2.17%

The top 3 remained barely positive: CRDN +5.41%, CMCO, my standing POTW pick, +3.71%, CELL, my POTY pick, +0.65%
The bottom three: AAPL -11.1%, LMS -6.93%, SNDK -6.1%

There are no changes.

Regards,

Karel

[Karel]

And here is the weekly report on QHOF, my Mechanical Fund. This was its second best week since inception. The best week was the first 4 days of January, up a crazy 7.3%, now it is 2.6%. Is that market beating? Well, it beats SPY (up 2.1%) and it beats the POTW (up 0.93%). So that makes the total return for these three (since inception of the POTW and the MF):

MF: +15.0%
SPY: +4.4%
POTW: +3.1%

The top 3: CELL +11.2%, CRDN +9.5% JLG +7.8%
The bottom 3: SNDK -7.3%, AAPL -5.3%, RHAT -1.2%

O yeah, before I forget: MF - POTW : 9 - 2! If you guys and gals don't pick up soon, there won't be weeks enough in the year to catch up!

A little warning in case people might think this is the goose with the golden eggs: the "mechanical" part of my personal portfolio is down this week. No need to offer your sympathies, though: my portfolio is setting all time highs.

Are there any changes in the fund? No, the current crop of stocks still figures on the screen. Rock on!

Regards,

Karel

[Karel]

A quickie: the MF was up this week, 1.5%, against -1.8% for SPY and -5.9% for the POTW (10 - 2).

Results since inception of the MF and the POTW:
MF: + 16.7%
SPY: +2.6%
POTW: -3.0%

Top 3: CMCO +9.4%, LMS +8.9%, GES +6.7%
Bottom 3: MDR -2.9%, CELL -1.8%, CRDN -1.2%

No changes.

Regards,

Karel

[DSteckler]

Karel, the sites are down for the links.

[Karel]

Indeed. Well, they'll get it sorted out, sooner or later.

Regards,

Karel

[Karel]

Picking up the ball after our move to a new home! Totals only:

MF: +17.2%
SPY: +5.11%
POTW: -4.93%

In the three past weeks: the fund beat SPY 1 - 2 (so SPY beat the fund) and the fund beat the POTW 2 - 1, for a cumulative total of 12 - 3. SledDawg's atrocious result didn't make a difference for the head to head scores.

Changes: 2/21 AAPL (-8.3%) and CMCO (+39.7%) were sold, AIR and AMD bought. Closed trades average +6.34%.

Today AIR will be replaced by JOYG.

Regards,

Karel

[jiesen]

Karel is HUGE!!!

[Karel]

I find myself wondering why I didn't enter this fund for the Portfolio of the Year competition, but then I remember that this is something in the nature of an experiment. The results:

QHOF: +19.3% (+1.75%)
SPY: +4.6% (-0.50%)
POTW: -4.5% (+0.43%)

The POTW beat SPY easily, and my fund beat the POTW easily. Mechanical Fund - POTW : 13 - 3

The Top 3: RHAT +9.76%, CRDN +7.13%, JLG +7.13%
The Bottom 3: LMS -9.89%, AMD -2.54%, GES -2.15%

AIR went for a gain of 2.3%, which brings the average for the closed trades down to 5.67%, average holding period 34.5 days, or 79% annualized(!).

MDR dropped off the screen, to be replaced by PLXS.

Regards,

Karel