Portfolio of the Week

[New-born baby]

Great going!

HUGE % gains by top five! Congrats Strenz, Spike and Peanuts, Jiesen and Karel. Congrats to all the greenies this week.

CA$$$$$$H Money to start off next week, please.

[IIC]

Congrats Stenz, Spike and Peanuts...

[riverbabe]

Frx

Congratulations to all the winners!!! Great picks!!! I have a lot of catching up to do! So, time to try to recoup and regroup! Riding a horse backwards can be painful in the POTW!

I'll take FRX long next week, please Peanuts. Prudential has raised its price target considerably, and it reports on Tuesday. The chart is looking very good!

Unfortunately, I'll be sitting in divorce court with my daughter in Chicago, hoping to end a grueling 2-1/2 year battle. But "Judge Judy" has been ruling sympathetically in her favor lately, so all fingers are crossed that it finally can be finalized this week. I'll only have access to the hotel lobby computer, so I won't be able to follow FRX (or anything else) during the day. Ah well, suspense is fun, right? Thanks, Riverbabe

[IIC]

Peanuts...I will take BRKR long at the open...Good Luck Everybody...IIC

[peanuts]

my POTW

Based on the chart and the sector action, I will be taking HRT long at the open.

[spikefader]

Well done Stenz and peanuts. Good write-up.

APN long for me this week, thanks.



Good luck all.

[skiracer]

Great job this week Stenz, Spike, and Peanuts. Peanuts could you explain that weekly sheet to us and how you have it set up please.

[scifos]

DE long next week please.

[Gary611]

Pump & Dum-p

CYBI long for the week, good luck to all!!

[peanuts]

Great job this week Stenz, Spike, and Peanuts. Peanuts could you explain that weekly sheet to us and how you have it set up please.

I'm not sure what needs to be clarified. Maybe you have some direct questions?

Each player starts the year with an account balance of $1000

Each week, a player's balance is adjusted by their respective weekly score.

To double your money in 52 weeks, you need to get at least 1.35% return each week.

The purpose is to expose what it means when somebody says that they made 'so and so' percent in 'such and such' time. It is also meant to show the detrimental effects of just 1 poor performance, and what it takes to comes back from a big loss.

A few members should understand exactly what I'm taking about. This little portfolio tracking is all about risk and return management. If people begin to get satisfied with 2-3% gains, but don't cut losses short, 5 weeks of 2% gains can be wiped out by 1 week of a 9% loss.

example, starting with $1000:

week 1: 1000.00 x 2% = 1020.00
week 2: 1020.00 x 2% = 1040.40
week 3: 1040.40 x 2% = 1061.21
week 4: 1061.21 x 2% = 1082.43
week 5: 1082.43 x 2% = 1104.08

...so after 5 long difficult weeks of earning 2% each week, $1000 compounded each week yields a total return of $104.08 or 10.41%.

However, imagine if during the 6th week there is a loss of 8%. This puts the portfolio value back to 1015.75... less than the total portfolio value after the first week!!!!! So you fight so hard to make the 2% each week for 5 weeks straight, but never protect those gains in the sixth week, and really end up with a net gain of a small fraction of the total return after week #5.

Spike and Runner have been trying to drive home the reality of this risk return management to many people here, but few are actually picking up what they're dropping. Sometimes it takes undeniable statistics to wake some people out of their sleep.

Hopefully, this will help members with their own personal portfolios.

[skiracer]

I should have been more specific. I was looking back at post #10018 and I think that you have plugged in this weeks percentages and the total plus or minus percentage for the first two weeks but what are the rest of those numbers representative of for the successive weeks. Just curious.
Another point that I was thinking of was that if there is a -3.00 % penalty for not playing in any given week what about anyone that just stays in cash all week and does that for a number of weeks. They have no risk, their portfolio stays at a fixed amount and then they play the next week and if they are in the positive at the end of the week how does that get computed.

[jiesen]

Cash=0% gain

I should have been more specific. I was looking back at post #10018 and I think that you have plugged in this weeks percentages and the total plus or minus percentage for the first two weeks but what are the rest of those numbers representative of for the successive weeks. Just curious.
Another point that I was thinking of was that if there is a -3.00 % penalty for not playing in any given week what about anyone that just stays in cash all week and does that for a number of weeks. They have no risk, their portfolio stays at a fixed amount and then they play the next week and if they are in the positive at the end of the week how does that get computed.

Ski, I believe a position in $$CASH$$ would give you a 0% score for the week, and by doing so week after week, someone who's ahead (like me!) could at least keep the gain indefinitely.

That said, Peanuts, please put me in $$CASH$$ for next week!

Also, congrats to Stenz, Spike, and Peanuts for the superb picking last week. I can't believe you took my bronze with just a 0.05% lead there, Peanuts! If you just would have rounded to the nearest 0.1% instead, we could have shared the prize, but nooo, you had to go and be all accurate about this.

Thanks for doing the cumulative scoring this way, too. You expressed perfectly the reasons for doing this, and it's exactly why I had posted cumulative results in the past contests. I'm just glad I don't have to do it anymore... I felt bad when I got lazy and neglected that duty. Now I can focus some attention to POTY updates instead.

[skiracer]

Ski, I believe a position in $$CASH$$ would give you a 0% score for the week, and by doing so week after week, someone who's ahead (like me!) could at least keep the gain indefinitely.

Jiesen,
What I was thinking is that if you fail to enter a pick or at least enter CA$H for the week then you get a -3.00% penalty for the week. But if you enter CA$H at the beginning of the week and stay in CA$H all week without making a pick then there is no penalty but also no gain. You could go several weeks without any penalty and without losing any money by staying in CA$H and then play one week and if you had a positive result for that week could basically have a pretty good total without putting yourself at any risk. You might not have as large a total as someone who plays every week and has a positive result every week but there is no risk in doing that while the players that enter every week are at a much larger risk of keeping their total on the positive side when they enter a pick and play every week. How about if you stayed in CA$H every week without making a selection and then played one week and win that week with a 20% gain. Would your total reflect a 20 % gain and be $1200 which would seem great but while the others that had entered a pick every week would be at risk of a lesser percentage and total having played every week and the associated risk of having to produce a winning percentage that many more weeks in a row.

I was thinking that maybe there should be a rule providing for some smaller penalty, less than the -3% if you didn't make a selection and play, for staying in CA$H the entire week and not making some selection at all during the week thus avoiding any risk at all for the week or perhaps larger than the -3% for perhaps taking advantage of the true intention of having the CA$H position available at the beginning of the week to see which way the wind will blow. That way the CA$H position wouldn't be misused.

[dmk112]

CLAY - long pls

[mimo_100]

start me in CA$H

Since this is a 4 day week and I haven't had time to research so far this year -- so start me in

CA$H