Top Stocks to Buy and Sell

[antioch6]

The buys aren't doing as good this week. They were especially hurt by PCAR being sold. People are ignoring the stocks holding up, and buying oversold stocks. People are buying riskier, newer areas, where I bought more stable, safer areas. The sells are gaining because the banks are low and someone is trying to pick a bottom. I'm confident this will sort itself as time passes. It's disappointing that the hold strategy isn't doing as good in the first week. It closed 0% on Monday, -0.30% Tuesday, and -0.06% Wednesday. This also tells me the gains in the market aren't good if they don't include the broad areas. Either the Top buys stocks will start being bought, or the gains will disappear after Labor day week. I'm not sure what of the two will happen, so I'm staying hedged. This looks a bit like the end of December, where the market went sideways with low volume until someone started to try bidding it higher. I don't expect much to happen, but there are always surprises.

[antioch6]

I wanted to give an idea what the holdings would be if the strategy was updated today. I'm waiting until Friday to keep the strategy more humane, but this is the list:

Buys ELV AZO HAL PH NVT MMP ALSN KOF

Sells UPS ABT AEP ETSY TRV FE WEC LEG CFFN

[antioch6]

I guess I can give a daily update. The number of stocks on the sell side fell today. The remaining sells were down about -0.60% to -1.3%. The number of stocks on the buy side is 3 stocks. The average buy was down -0.06%. This tells me the momentum is going negative again. This can change as we have a holiday next week; maybe we'll see a sideways market.

I saw a large amount of buying in the morning, but there was also a large amount of selling. As the market went up, there was no momentum and fell back down. As it fell down, it gained negative momentum; once the selling was over, it came back to where it was before the selling. The market found no momentum again, and fell back down. It gained negative momentum and closed. Price is only one part of the equation, but together with high price / to / earnings numbers and a recession coming, and together with only 3 stocks worth buying and they are falling too, the risk is high. If Monday was the time to buy, maybe the gains are over and it's time to sell.

Everything I've looked at tells me to sell, but I'll wait until Friday to make the adjustments.

[antioch6]

Closed SFNC LEG NEM NTRS ILMN CFFN AZO MOH PCAR ABC

Holdings:

Top buys - HAL PH ALS
Top sells - UPS ABT PM CL AEP WEC FE

There are more sells than buys this week, so the strategy is net selling. This reflects the weakness in growth names, and it also highlights the leadership in regional banks and market ETFs. It hurt to wait until Friday for an upgrade, but i'll keep going. It also hurt I didn't loosen criteria to find better results. Everyone knew the regional banks were low.

[antioch6]

I noticed this week is the opposite of last week; instead of momentum disappearing in a falling market, the momentum is disappearing in an up market. I won't repeat the same mistake.

This week I will include higher P/E stocks for buys and will include higher growth companies for sells. The key, I decided, was finding companies with stable, predictable, earnings which end with more stable, predictable, value movements.

I also decided it's viable and necessary to update the holdings live through the day. There are too many changes that happen through the week and the only way to avoid them is to react faster than other traders. This is sad because it means there is no way to invest with everyone except buying index funds and waiting for government to justify higher stock prices.

I do my best thinking on the weekend when trading is closed. I'm disappointed because there was no way to stay consistent while staying successful. I would of had to change strategies over the weekend and ruin anyone's expectations of easy and steady trading. The other option was to disappoint everyone with a loss for the week. I chose to take the loss, but now I realize there is a third choice. People must decide for themselves if trading is useful. If you have a job, or you are still looking for a trading strategy, you'll probably be donating to someone else's expenses. Trading is only successful with the knowledge of knowing what works. One part is also knowing when something stops working, and changing to something else that works. People figure some things out that work, but other people figure those things out, then the first people have to figure out other things that work. i'm talking about trading and trading short term.

This is relevant because last week the strategy stopped working. There was nothing left to sell where we could safely spread our risk and diversify across business divisions. I kept the tactic in place because it works over months and years. The last point I want to look at before changing strategies, is the results of an update on Friday vs Monday.

So for Friday, the results were not good. The top buys gained +0.81%. This is very small compared with the top sells; the top sells gained +2.56%. Overall the decisions on Friday led to a loss of -1.75% for the week.

For Monday, the buys gained +0.44%. This is not bad compared with the top sells; the top sells gained +0.81%. Overall the decisions on Monday led to a loss of -0.37% for the week.

So the sells saw similar movement. There was more buying in companies with low earnings, and weak prices, than there was buying in companies with high earnings, and steady prices. This can't last forever, and the earlier we decide to update our holdings, the better we'll perform.

I still have hope for a weekly strategy, but this week we have another problem. I included higher p/e stocks in the buys this week because they have strong price movement. I also included companies with higher growth in the sells because they have weak price movement. The buys this week have p/e's in the 20-35 range. The sells have long term growth of 1-6% and yields of 3-5%. The sells are all utilities.

My guess is the high p/e buys are trading on momentum; people are buying almost everything that was down over August. I have a different conclusion today than on Friday. I thought the momentum is over because no one was buying growth stocks at p/e's of 20 or less. Now I think the momentum can keep going, but you have to buy high p/e stocks. On the other side, electric utility companies are still growing, but their price is weak and their p/e is high compared to their growth.

So these are the buys and sells for next week. The buys fall in mostly a building sector, or in cloud storage. The sells are all utilities.

Buys EME MLM ITT LII FIX MSA ANET

Sells XEL ETR NI AES BKH D ED

I expected to have a +10% return a year for this strategy, so it makes sense to stop and cut the loss at -10%. I'll use the -1.75% for the first week. The buying and selling works better on smaller timeframes. I'll say you have to watch your gain and loss more importantly than you wait for the day or week to end. It's not how long you're invested, it's how fast the price moves. So with this note to end on, I'll be updating the thread based on the movements in price vs any set period of time.

[antioch6]

I couldn't even wake up in time to buy the Top buys. They are all down 3%+ today. This justifies my original thought that there were not enough buys, and the market was weak. It almost looks clear to me that that the companies presenting themselves at the top of the buy list were priced to sell. Contruction companies are cyclycial, so when I see CAT DE and URI at the top of my list, I'm nervous. I've been saying it all month or two on the boards: how long can this housing and construction cycle last? There is momentum, the earnings are good, the p/e looks good, and the companies are good companies too. So what's going to change? I go crazy or nuts buying stocks like that after a few weeks because I don't know why anyone else would be buying or why the stock is going up if we already know the story. Who am I selling this to? Who is buying this? I feel unethical selling something higher than I bought it to someone for no reason.

Anyways the portfolio is the same as last Friday, with 3 buys and 7 sells. it's up 0.75% today which is huge for a day. I said I'm going to start daytrading this now so there shouldn't be any more huge losses of 1-2%. If you can keep up, the gains are 0.40% a week, approximately. I'll be stepping out so I'm closing the positions and will be daytrade starting tomorrow.

[antioch6]

Okay I am back. So I rescheduled my appointment for September 21. I'm making the buy and sell list now. It looks like a mixed day, with half of stocks down -1.2%, and another half flat for the day. I made an error last week. Half the market was up 3-4%, and the other half was up 1-2%. The top buys chose the stocks up 3-4%, because I emphasized short term momentum. They were all down 3% today, so imagine if we had to hold them the entire week. This week, i choose to focus less on short term momentum. I am still grasping the concept of buying more on any single day or selling more. This means timing the market, and everyone knows it's too hard to time the market. So I forced myself to pick bad sells last week, and i forced myself to pick bad buys this week. The only way to protect yourself from bad buys and sells is to trade faster than someone else. The key here is to target small gains and losses, instead of large short term losses or gains. This keeps the idea of investing together, where we are sacrificing our short term pleasure, for long term satisfaction.

So there are only 2 hours left today. I'm looking for the top buys and sells; casually. I notice the harder i look for ideas, the more likely someone will sell me something that sounds good. The special ingredient is not trying too hard, and letting the strategy do the work. The main difference and lesson from the past two weeks is don't pick p/es that are too low, and don't worry about momentum. It's hard to watch everyone make money in the stocks hot at this time, so we're at risk of forcing our way in. The biggest winners short term end up being the biggest losers at some other time. i'm no longer obsessed with making the most money every week, but now I will think about long term consistent results. Everytime I get emotional or obsessed with being the best, I'll remember these two weeks and realign my thinking long term.

So here are the top buys and top sells. They are only good in the moment, and maybe even only for the day. If you don't have time to daytrade, use them as a chance of consideration.

[antioch6]

It takes me a while to place the orders. The account is already up 0.3% from the trades I placed.

Buys MNSO PSTG TJX GOOGL ANET V LULU

Sells LNN NKE CBRL SRE CSX MRTN CLF

It feels like the market is back to normal; last week was a little unrealistic. So after today, from staying consistent, we already near recovered the losses from last week. I have a good idea - instead of monitoring each position individually, I'll monitor the entire account to determine if our strategy is working. This is very important, because we should make money every day. If there is a single day where we lose money, something is wrong.

The only thing that scares me are large drops on news for buys and large gains on surprise buyouts for sells. I'm starting to give up and focus on staying in, up or down. This might be lazy, but i'm tired from all the writing. And now i have to check when these 14 companies report earnings, when they report dividends, etc? The largest loss I can ever expect from this strategy is -10% in one day. If we lose 10% in one day, it would be reason to give up and a shock to our confidence. There is no way around this, because that's why people invest in the first place; they get lucky. They get a lucky 10%; it comes down to chance. There is no way to avoid big losses once in a while, so we have to stay disciplined and keep our strategy.

One last comment - think of it as going to the casino - you are going to have fun, but you might lose money. Here, we actually have a chance to make money, but we could get un lucky and lose.

[antioch6]

I sold MNSO at the end of day. It was down more than all the sells, and there wasn't enough reason to hold it. I bought BKNG in the last seconds to balance the holdings.

[antioch6]

I closed PSTG LULU because they were dropping too much. It looks like a mixed day. The sells aren't dropping, and the buys are dropping some. I'm net selling now so the momentum is turning down. The only scenario I can imagine is selling below support and panic selling lower until we finally end this 18 month sideways trading pattern, maybe even since the 2021 highs. Anyone I know that manages millions of dollars or has millions of dollars and trades is skeptical of the market, so there might not be doctor or momentum money to stop the fall below support. In the meantime, I'll recognize that buys failed the past two weeks, so I'll be slow to add them back and stay net selling in the meanwhile.

[antioch6]

I closed TJX GOOGL because they were dropping more than the sells. The momentum is starting to the downside. I'll look for buys to hedge the sells, but timing the market using the buys and sells is working. The selling is not bad today, but it's rotating and the stock going down the most are moving in a sideways-down-sideways pattern. The stocks that look strongest are dangerous because they are moving in an up-down-sideways pattern, so buying on momentum is causing losses. There is no momentum in this market, and prices are slowly sliding lower. Sells are not making large profit but they are balancing out the weak buys and overall it's better than buying.

[antioch6]

i closed ANET and BKNG and SRE because they were falling too much. The overall pattern is the same. Stronger companies are moving up - down - sideways, and weaker companies are moving down - sideways.

[antioch6]

I closed CBRL and buy MELI. It looks like no one is panic selling, and buyers are slowly entering. i'll close my sell in my other thread and expect a nice few months of buying; until there is finally recession concern. From what I hear, a recession should start by the end of the year, or eary next year, or middle of next year, or late next year. We already heard this last May and June, so I'm not sure where this recession is coming from. i'll say I didn't notice or feel the 2008 recession, and in my mind it wasn't a big deal because it literally had no effect on my life. Everyone knows stocks go down once in a while, so what were people so worried about back then? There are rumors of fears the financial system was done, that everyone invested would be poor. Isn't that a great thing? Everyone that makes money from buying things and holding them for no utilic purpose would have no money? People think they are going to die or something. Don't we all live together? Shouldn't we help each other if we need food, shelter, and transportation? Instead some people just created more money and that makes u.s. digital cash plentiful, in the power of people that buy things and don't use them. It's a waste because people actually work for money for food and spending, so we have a chance to end these problems, but we choose to remain stable and maybe even stationary, while people without these things learn to live without.

I don't see what the problem with a recession, or negative gdp or maybe inflation. These are all problems that can be fixed by people. There's not enough money to pay for things, send people money. There's no growth in the economy, so, maybe people are happy? There is a recession, maybe that's a fancy word for something else happening. People say there are higher interest rates, so the banks are not loaning as much. People need money to pay for things, we should be worried about what they're spending on. If someone needs money, why wouldn't we just send it to them as people together? That means people that pay for their food, shelter, and transportation with oil will make less money. So instead of getting angry, we should find who is paying with oil. There is definitely a place where things are too nice in the world, and a place where things are not nice enough. At the end of the day, we're just bodies standing or laying down or doing something, so as long as people are happy, maybe they don't need nice things. And people who have nice things might not be happy; i know there's not a balance because there are many things wrong in the world, so there is still a lot of work to do.

[antioch6]

Yesterday was fairly calm. We had a good day previous and finished slightly higher today with fewer positions. I'm saying we are back on track after re-managing positions day-to-day. Here are the Top buys and Top sells at the current time:

Buys CSCO CAT HAL COR PCAR EXPE CAH

Sells TMO NKE UPS ABT EL ILMN ETSY

I need to add this warning: the companies are current at the moment, but anything can happen and they could change when the market opens. There is always a surprise news announcement, economic disaster, or change in investor emotions that could lead to unexpected moves up and down. The best we can do is manage risk everyday and try to make enough for our expenses. If we all shared and had the same standards this would be easy, but there are millionaires that want 10 or 15 percent for no reason, and there are people with a few thousand that want the thrill of risk. I'm happy trading everyday; I'll increase my risk and time the market if I need more money.

[antioch6]

I closed TREE AND MNRO. i opened buy CAT HAL PCAR CAH STLA, sell TMO NKE EL ILMN.