Portfolio of the week - 2008

[IIC]

Nice job Spike...Hardly a surprise that you won...My style is not geared towards long term holds anymore...It was pretty funny at my chat last month when someone asked if I ever hold anything long term...My response was

"You mean like an hour"?

Yarrrr!! Tanks much Ody. Tanks to Ernie fer hosting this humble contest. He is very huge indeed. Congrats Mr. Peanuts, and Mr. Webs. Apart from that, I reckon I'm speechless! Lookin' forward to a bigger and better 2009 season!

[spikefader]

Yarrrr!! Tanks much Ody. Tanks to Ernie fer hosting this humble contest. He is very huge indeed. Congrats Mr. Peanuts, and Mr. Webs. Apart from that, I reckon I'm speechless! Lookin' forward to a bigger and better 2009 season!

[Odysseus]

The 2008 Portfolio of the Week contest winner is Spikefader !

Spike ended the year at over 95% of his initial investment of $10,000 ! That is impressive for such a devastating year for the majority of stock holders and brokers. Spike held a staggering lead over all of us for many weeks. Only in the first half of the year was he ever below his initial investment, after that it was all +%’s for him. He topped out at +143% in mid-November ! Well done sir !!

Our 2nd place winner is Peanuts ! Peanuts ended with a 21% return on his investment, a difference of nearly 70% between himself and Spikefader. Peanuts had a rough year for the majority of the time, but was able to pull himself back up from being down nearly 34% in mid-July, to +21% at the end. Great job Peanuts !

Websman came in 3rd and was just behind Peanuts with roughly 19% gain on his investment! Though he only made 11 picks for the year, he only lost money on 4 of those picks. He made 7 green picks, ending with a win/loss ratio of 1.74 ! He didn't make many plays, but held his own for 3rd place!

Congrats Spikefader, Peanuts, and Websman !!

The followup winners for 4th and 5th were Skiracer and dmk112, both who had less than 5 picks for the year, but still managed to make some green !

The largest percentage gain for the year was held by Karel, going long on EXM for a 52.51% gain. At one point during that week, EXM had topped over 100% from Karel’s entry, but alas, dropped back down that Friday.

The worst percentage loss for the year was held by Motherload, who only made the one entry for the year. He went long on DCR, but it fell 42.41% by the end of the week.

If there are any statistics you would like for yourself or in general let me know. I will try to get them for you, as well as I can add them for future reference and may be able to program them into our POTW document.



I apologize, I tried to go back and find who won each week, and how many times people won, but the task was staggering. Still going to try and post as soon as I figure it all out, but until then I’ve added a few bells and whistles to Hags original POTW document to include how many times each person has been 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in the past. Along with an idea Hags had started implementing, which is the general statistics of each person’s Math Expectancy and Kelly Value, along with Wins and Losses. This is a little more work on my part, but I think will be interesting calculations for everyone to follow both for themselves and their fellow competitors

And once I get it all sorted it out, going to try to have a running graph of peoples end total for the week, similar to Peanut’s graphs from 2007.

Also, for those who bookmark, I had to create a new version of the POTW document, as ours had to many calculations and Google would no longer allow it . Please see the link below at: POTW Scoreboard

Congrats to everyone who made some green in the contest, and thank you for all who participated ! Let’s see if we can get others to take interest who’ve either been sitting on the side lines (Ernie ), or who do not think they have what it takes. It’s a great way to see how others are thinking, especially if you were teetering on the idea of purchasing a similar stock live or not.

Also, if anyone has any thoughts on altering the contest, please do so now. I’ve put forth a couple of ideas, but it seems most everyone likes it as is. I thought of another by the way, we could add a risk rule. Such as when you make your stock pick, any of the 3 picks you are allowed, you can also add a stop point, but if the stop is hit, you are out for the rest of the week. For example, say you want to go GE long or stop out at -5%. If the stock drops 5% from your entry, you’re out for the week, but then you don’t lose anymore. Just an idea

Congrats again to Spikefader for a great win !

[Odysseus]

Congrats to StckyTreat and Spikefader for pulling in some green this last week !

[spikefader]

Ody, steer her as ye deem fair n competitive. Yer doin' a fine job as scorekeeper, especially considerin' how busy you are.

JASO short thanks.

[Odysseus]

Thanks Jiesen, Karel, and Peanuts for your input.

Yeah, I was thinking of avoiding the penalty part by rewarding those who made the top 3 positions for the week. Thereby encouraging participitation without penalizing for not playing. As sometimes the best strategy is not to "gamble" your money that week, but those who came out on top in the end are rewarded.

Well, if not enough wants to change it, we'll leave it be.

Going to try ZOLL short this week. Thinking she's going to follow her PSar pattern and head south, as well she is at a resistance level right now. Though if she pierces any higher, she'll fly for a good 10+% I believe

Good luck all !

~Ody

[peanuts]

TBT long, please and thank you.

TBT is a an ETF that is ultra-short 20 year treasury bonds. After doing some homework, I'm convinced that anyone who is willing to loan the USA money at 2-3% interest for 20 years is an absolute moron. Now is a good time as any to go long this ETF

The contest is great. I like the idea of sharing the reason for the picks, but leave it voluntary rather than mandatory. There used to be a 3% penalty each week that a pick was not made...

[Karel]

Long EXM

Congratulations to Rob!

I am still long EXM, thanks Ody!

I think the contest is fine as it is. I look at my weekly ranking and my yearly score. The last is no fun, but this time the gaps between closing and opening prices really went against me.

Regards,

Karel

[Rob]

pick

Reckon I'll go with JASO long once again. Thanks, Ody.

[Peter Hansen]

Hnsn short

HNSN SHORT .Thank You

[jiesen]

Ody,

I think having the contestants post reasons is an excellent idea- the picks would be much more meaningful for people watching if they could follow along with the rationale for the picking, rather that just seeing a bunch of ticker symbols posted every week. But in order to get people to post reasons, you'd need to give them some incentive to do so. I would suggest that in addition to a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winner (or however you plan to reward the players) you also give awards separately to those who post the reasons for their picks. For instance, you could also give a Technical Medal and Fundamental Medal to the top picks of each type, or give awards to the prettiest charts, or best story behind the stock... whatever brings the "boys to the yard" if ya know what I mean.

[Odysseus]

Congrats to Rob, Karel, and Peter Hanson ! It was definitely an up and down week that was anyones game, but Friday finalized it for our top 3. What is also interesting is we saw another positive week for the group as a whole. It's been a rough year where that hasn't happened as often we'ld all like to see.


I've created a Yearly Ranking tab on the POTW scoreboard. Currently Spike leads, followed by Peanuts, and Websman.


Spike $19,290
Peanuts $12,225
Websman $11,866



I'm going to try and get some statistics together for the end of the year. However, I wanted to put forth a discussion. Since it is a Portfolio of the Week contest, I was wondering if we wanted to expand on the rules. Reason I ask, is that if you look at the yearly ranking, several people who only made one trade or very few trades stayed at the top, but those who risked and possibly won more Portfolios of the Weeks than they obviously, did not do as well.

So I guess my questions are:
1. Do we want to have a minimum amount of picks to qualify?
2. Do we want to setup a point system, thereby giving points to those win the top 3 positions for the Portfolio of the Week along with points for your ROI and so forth... ?

This way, you can still sit on the sidelines if your ROI is big enough, or maybe if you won a few weeks, but would have to jump back in if others were doing better or winning more weeks.

It's just a thought to spice things up.

I also had another thought. Often times we pick our trades but never say why. Some do, with great analysis, others just put it out there. I was wondering if maybe we could also share our thoughts. For instance, if you chose a stock off your method, you wouldn't need to have to go into detail, but maybe your method is based of Bolinger Bands. You could say, going long with V from a Bolinger Band bounce, or GM has great fundamentals ( ), going long. Just thought it would be interesting to see if certain trading techniques are doing best for the greenies than others week to week. It would be interesting to see if one quarter bounces off the 200 MA were doing better than last quarters under 30 RSI trades. Just a thought.

Let me know what you think, thanks !

[JohnHenry]

Rimm

RIMM short please...I hope I'm not wrong on this.

[spikefader]

SDS long thanks.

[Peter Hansen]

OUT KGC into TNA LONG

OUT OF BGU into KGC LONG!

Thank You Ody !

For my final pick ....OUT KGC INTO TNA LONG THANX