Stenzrob's specials

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at least you have taken the time to try and develope a plan Stenz. better than just floundering.

Sometimes taking the loss to prevent further loss turns out OK.
I only wish I'd been quicker.

On 1/15, I went on a stock liquidation spree and bought QID.
This is the result from the two days since then:

Stock , Sell price , 1/17 close
HRBN , 21.25 , 19.90 (-6.35%)
REXX , 11.60 , 10.13 (-12.67%)
IDRA , 12.06 , 11.17 (-7.38%)
AXTI , 4.90 , 5.00 (+2.04%)
CYBS , 15.62 , 13.23 (-15.30%)

QID , bought at 45.10 , now 48.02 (+6.47%)

Major stenz pronouncement:
My view is that we are now in the early stages of a serious bear market that will last another 6 to 18 months. The bull market that started in early 2003 is over . All the indices (S&P, Dow, Nasdaq) peaked in October 2007. I will watch to see if I'm wrong, but right now, my crystal ball is saying that this is not just another correction. There will be bounces along the way, and I will attempt to trade them, but basically the market is toast until sometime in 2009.

This major trend turn is what I have been waiting to see if I would recognize ever since I was burned (like so many) in 2001 and 2002.

It's pointless to debate fundamentals or economics. Trends maintain themselves. As the losses start to mount up, more and more regular folks will start to pull their money out of stock funds. The fund managers will have to sell the stocks from their portfolios whether they are undervalued, great long term growth stories, or whatever, in order to satisfy the redemptions.

Fund reallocation
After selling individual stocks and buying QID in the self-directed portion of my IRA on 1/15 as discussed above, I also calculated new allocations for the mutual funds portion last night and placed the orders to make the adjustment. Over the past year, the stock funds had grown to several percent above (and bonds below) their targets, so reallocation was about due anyway. The self-directed portion has outperformed all other allocations (except international) - was 4.5% a year ago and is now over 5.5%, but that is not subject to reallocation. The agreement I made with my wife when we transferred a bunch of loose IRA's and 401k's into single IRA's for each of us and reallocated about a year ago, was that 4.5% of the total at that time was what I could play with. There is a virtual wall around it - no money goes from mutual funds to self-direct or vice versa. I can only sell shares in a mutual fund if the proceeds go directly to another mutual fund as part of a reallocation. The only way that I get to actively trade/manage a larger portion of our retirement funds is to grow it myself into a larger portion. This way, if I suck at it, the losses are contained.

These allocations are designed to be significantly higher than average risk with a retirement timeframe of about 10 years.

Normal allocation:
Bonds 15%
SmlCap 15%
MidCap 15%
LrgCap 25%
Internat 25%
StenzPicks 5%

Bear Allocation:
Bonds 25%
SmlCap 10%
MidCap 10%
LrgCap 20%
Internat 20%
BEARX 10%
StenzPicks 5%

I'm no economist, and have done enough trading based on my own analysis to know that I'm no genius either. Since my pronouncement that we have just begun a major bear market could very well be flat-out wrong, the adjustments to my portfolio are what I would call incremental. Increasing bond allocation only makes the portfolio as a whole more conservative, and the portion that is specifically geared toward a bear market is only the 10% in BEARX, and that StenzPicks is likely to be in and out of an ultrashort ETF like QID until this bear is over.

Replaced 4/5 of the sold positions with a dose of QID at $45.10.

Intel's miss should be good for QID: INTC is down over 10% and QID up about 3% after hours.

Replaced 4/5 of the sold positions with a dose of QID at $45.10.

Removed the stops from AXTI and CYBS and just sold them outright.
AXTI at 4.90, 24% loss. CYBS at 15.62, 14% loss.

Cutting losses

This market is nasty, and could get worse, so I am liquidating a few positions.

Sold HRBN at 21.25 for a 21% loss.
Sold REXX at 11.60 for a 10% loss.
Sold IDRA at 12.06 for a 5% loss.

Holding AXTI, currently -24%. Stop limit set.
Holding CYBS, currently -13%. Stop limit set.
Holding LUNA, currently -20%.

S&P500 50 day ema has crossed below the 200 day, and has closed below the 400 day ema and not recovered very quickly. This is the kind of persistent weakness that was seen in 2000.

http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$SPX&p=D&yr=3&mn=0&dy=0&id=p43666580611

bought some REXX for $12.95, for no reason other than a new high.

I'm gettin' hammered in this market downturn, but still holding.
LUNA down 12%, HRBN and AXTI down about 10%, CYBS 7%, and IDRA is up slightly.

Another stock that has been on my watch list has an interesting lesson today about analysts - INCY was downgraded on Friday 1/4 to hold, fell from 10 to 9.4 on that downgrade, spend one more day there, and after pre-announcing positive test results this morning is now up to almost $12.

My AXTI position was doing fine and breaking out to new highs until it was downgraded "on valuation concerns". This looks to be finding support and I am expecting it to return to being a profitable position for me in the next few weeks.

bought some HRBN at 27.02
bought some CYBS at 18.17

AXTI was doing just fine until some analyst downgraded it, saying that everything is fine, really, they just want to buy it cheaper.

Bought some IDRA this morning at $12.72.

I think this biotech stock is still largely undiscovered. A deal was signed with Merck in December that pays them $40m upfront and up to $381m in milestone payments as they proceed with development of their cancer drugs, yet the market cap is less than $300m. Analyst estimates for revenue have not been adjusted to reflect this.

But, stenz, you don't go for the story, you go for the momentum now.
Wassup' wit dat?

After the announcement, the weakness of early December was stopped in it's tracks and volume has been steadily above average until it hit my radar yesterday on the new 52 week high (breakout). Made this my POTW pick, thinking it would open under $13 and rise to around $13.50. Everything went according to plan, except that some idiot must have placed a market buy order this morning which the brokers were happy to fill at over $13.40 before it settled down to 12.70 to 12.80 within about 10 minutes.

As usual, I have no idea how far it might run, or even if it will run at all, I will only watch to see what it does. Already up over 4%, provides a bit of breathing room.

Bought some COIN (Converted Organics) for $5.05.
This is a speculative play, half my usual position dollar amount, and I'm willing to hold it for a while if it doesn't do well in the short term.

As it turned out, it did well in the short term, I am out at $5.92 for a 17% gain on the day. I'll continue to watch it.

Just bought some AXTI for $6.44.
It is challenging record highs today, in the face of a nasty market.

Seems to be breaking out on heavy volume.
Life is good sometimes.

Just bought some AXTI for $6.44.
It is challenging record highs today, in the face of a nasty market.

Bought some COIN (Converted Organics) for $5.05.
This is a speculative play, half my usual position dollar amount, and I'm willing to hold it for a while if it doesn't do well in the short term.

Bought some IDRA this morning at $12.72.
Much better than the price at the open, which is why in real life I never make a market order, especially at the open.

Currently holding only LUNA and now IDRA.

Sold out my WATG and CYBS positions on 12/28.

WATG was bought at 10.55 on 12/5,
sold at 11.05 on 12/28 (+4.7%).

CYBS was bought at 17.38 on 12/13,
sold at 18.33 on 12/28 (+5.5%).