Quick Update

 Small changes:

• Sold Gold.  Look to buy it back in the coming months.
• Bought a little crypto earlier this week.  
• Cut short exposure a little.  Added a tiny amount to precious metals.
• Bought Big Tech today, plus some software.

Still just aiming to be short stuff going down and long stuff going up.  Hope the bifurcated market continues.  Probably get a chance to buy more and cover more shorts early next week.  Before reloading on the short side.

Gotten shorter

Market up for the past 5 nights, I added shorts, mostly in the last 2 days: interest rate sensitive sector, cyclicals, Europe and other countries which have lower growth than the US, and a few others:

My short trades (30%) are bigger than my long trades (10%) because:

• The trading shorts also offset the fundamental longs (around 45%).
• Narrow market breadth: even as indices risen, most stocks are falling.  Easier to find stuff to short.
• Market up for past 5 days.

Short term, I am near my max position size for most of the shorts.

My aims now:

• Keep shorting stuff thats going down on bounces.  Don't overthink it.  Preference for stuff that can still keep falling when economic growth, inflation and interest rates go down.
• Review all the individual fundamental picks, do I want to hold them into a bear market?
• Buy stuff thats still going up on dips.  Especially big tech.  Might get a 2001 blowoff top - this time its probably NVDIA which is sucking cash out of the rest of the ecosystem for their chiiiipsss....

Quick Update

Market up a lot in the past 2 days.  Took profit on some Big Tech, software and crypto.  Covered some shorts.  Then bought back the crypto end of Friday's session after it corrected.

Next week, look to take a little more profit, then Short more.  Prefer to short stuff that: even apart from high rates/oil, will do badly in a contracting economy.  I might still be short it 3 to 6 months later.

Quick Update

Just before market close Thurs 1st Oct US time.  Market up.  Sold Oil.  Added to my shorts in small increments:

Quick Update

Last 2 nights:

• Added some Big Tech longs.  Then took some profit.
• Cut some of the Crypto trades that weren't working last night.

Day-to-day many individual trades I'ver taken are too choppy.  I may consider:

• Take profit on individual trades sooner.  On extreme overbought/oversold.  Sell/cover half, leave the other half to run.
• Only trade the more liquid ETF.  Ignore ETFs and stocks with a high spread - only experienced traders should touch them.
• Position size by volatility.  Or simply only trade the lower beta ETFs.  eg: If I was trading gold, pick GLD instead of GDXJ.  Less likely to be shaken out.

Reframe what I am trying to do:

• Even through the market as a whole is unclear, there are clear trends.  Look at three month charts of bitcoin/ETH (up), Apple/MSFT/NVDA (up), XLU (down) or the Russell (down).
• I'm trying to jump on board the trends, at a safer place where I don't lose too much when the trend changes, and in a way that I won't get shaken out by noise.

Under current conditions - near the end of the economic cycle, with rising rates, fighting an oil-war in the mid-East - take smaller and safer trades.  Don't swing for the fences.

Portfolio down; Sold LATAM

Portfolio was down 1% last night: mostly from LATAM and gold.

I sold 2 of my LATAM positions.   These were longer term trades, or shorter term investments.  Bought several quarters ago as South America had upcoming elections expected to swing to the right.  Now thats behind us, the macro outlook for the next few quarters is bad, and the price action starting to reflect this.  They were cyclicals (banks), not buy-and-hold-forever stocks.  Took profits of 20% and 35%.

I need to think about the remaining LATAM position.  It fell due to stock specific factors, and the factors above are more balanced.

My new crypto position from last week is down a bit, I could buy more or cut loss.  If it does work out, I must remind myself to take some profits when overbought.  Crypto is really volatile.

Only consolation is that my short term trades, both long and short, are mostly working.  I may take some profit in oil if it keeps going up next few days.  Now 34% net cash.

This year has been tough for my account.  Up 9% YTD, but been through a grinding 9% drawdown in the past 7 months.  I remind myself that I've been through worse, a learning experience.  My trading style does not do well in non-trending markets.  Eventually the market will start trending again, probably to the downside - if it hasn't started already.  Need to be ready for that.

Bought some crypto

After falling one-and-a-half years, crypto broke out last month, I managed to buy a tiny bit.  It broke out again 2 weeks ago and corrected over the past few days, letting me buy bigly, up to a 6% position.  Lets see if it keeps going up.

Other than that, just made a few small trades:

• Managed to add to some shorts, and Europe, Russel, some rate sensitive.
• And to some longs: software, consumer, and refiners (long oil/refiners is that same as shorting the market).

No change over the weekend.  I had thought that Xi and Trump might come to some sort of deal.  For example, the US could allow Iranian oil to be sold to China, if Xi lifted the export ban on refined products.  Instead, the opposite may have happened.

And there was never any chance the Iran/US sides could reach a deal.

Expect the same as before.  Iran gets slowly strangled, as oil/product grinds higher, pulling most stocks down, even as mag7 and the indices rise.  Eventually the IRGC loses effectiveness and Hormuz gets fully restored.

Longer term, expecting a bear market next year.  Here is a good interview: