Reduced Exposure

Since the rally started a month ago, my performance has been bad.  Minus 1.5% vs plus 8% for SPY:

What happened?  Two things.

First, the stuff I am holding did not go up.

Energy Infrastructure and Var Energi.  Almost 30% of my holdings:

Precious metals (was around 15 to 18% of my portfolio).  Down in the second half of the month, as US economic growth re-asserts itself.  I got stopped out of silver and platinum last week.

A bunch of misc US ETFs.  Mostly flatlined since the 17th:

EMs.  Again flatlined since the 17th, except for Korea (semis):

Second, the market has been volatile, since I went bullish on the 17th.  A few days up, a few days down.  With a slight downward bias.  I hate choppy markets.

Macro doesn't work so well in this kind of environment.  It works well mapping the rates-of-change of the economic cycles.  eg: After N straight quarters of growth, comparisons are so hard you can predict the next few quarter's growth rates will be lower.  But it doesn't work so well in hot wars.  No way to model what Trump or the Mullahs are going to do.

Used yesterday's pop to:

• Cut back on the things not working.  Especially gold.  Ethereum.  
• Cut back some higher beta plays.  Mostly LATAM.
• Cut back some things shot up.  Other EMs and ETFs still working.  I may buy them back at a lower price if I get a chance.

I need to change my mindset.  I'm usually worried about missing out on the next big rally.  Need to remind myself that its OK to hold cash, and I can sit back wait for trades to come to me.  And also to take some profit if the market moves my way for a few days.

I'm not a fund manager trying to raise money.  I don't need to beat SPY all the time.  Can reduce my risk when I'm not comfortable.

I made a lot of money being piggy in the last 2 years.  Time to change, need to be more nimble in this kind of market.  Or maybe just less exposed.

Gotten shorter

Got a lot shorter yesterday.  I think the market falls this quarter.  This is the max short I'm willing to go.

I moved a pile of cash into my IB account, so I have some leeway in case the market moves against me (ie: my longs go down and my shorts go up).  Risk Management means "try not to die".

Edit: Jan 13th: Went another 2% short, couldn't resist.

Lessons Learned Trading Bear Markets

Trading bear markets is tough.  This post is about me finding a strategy to short bear markets, in a timeframe suitable for me.

My original plan was to simply short and hold into the depths of the bear market.

I had not counted on how sharp the bear market rallies would be:

Source: Wifey

I haven't covered my shorts, and I added to them last week.  But the last vicious bear market rally has given me some sleepless nights.  My shorts moved from a 70K profit to a 20K loss in 2 months!  I learned that prune juice helps constipation.

My timing wasn't great.  The chart below are my shorts (pink arrows) and coverings (blue arrows):

I can't trade day-to-day in the short term.  And its uncomfortable hodling shorts for the long term.  So I need to trade in the medium term - around the bear market rallies.  How can I do this when bear market rallies are unpredictable?

• Simply wait for the BMRs to occur, and as they do, add more.  Add a little at a 5% rally, more at 10%, more at 15% and some at 20%.
• If the BMR doesn't occur, don't short.  Take the attitude that I'll short if the market gives me the opportunity, but I don't have to.  I always have the choice to happily sit in my dividend stocks and cash, waiting for valuations to go low enough or for the macro outlook to change.  We get the worst results when we feel compelled to do something.
• Take some profits when it feels great.  When the market has dropped like a rock for several weeks, your profits are exploding night-by-night, and you are the king of the world...take some profit - maybe 1/3rd or half of my short positions.  I guess everyone learns this instinctively as they trade.
• Don't look at my percentage allocation (eg: shorts vs longs).  Successful short positions shrink, so at the bottom of a crash, they'll be small positions, just when I should be covering (making them even smaller).  Don't have a "target allocation".

We may be halfway through the bear market now.  As we get closer to its end, hodling shorts becomes a really bad idea.   I need to trade around the bear market rallies.  And start taking profits.  Wait for the next leg down...

With the last few days drop, my shorts are now profitable again.

Maybe this bear market rally ended last week:

Source: Keith McCollough

China reopening, oil, and doing nothing

I think China is reopening.  Rising cases occur when you reopen:

But official deaths have not gone up.  A quick google search shows a median of 18 days to die from covid, so we should know the death rate by now.  The latest numbers have 1 covid death yesterday:

Source: Worldometers.com

There's 2 risks to the reopening:

• China numbers are bullshit, so no one knows what the real hospitalisation/death rates are.  Low level officials will make up whatever numbers they think are desired.  And I'm sure no one reports bad news to Xi.
• Everything depends Xi.  He can reinstate zero-covid tomorrow.

We're getting a lot of confusing scenes out of China.  Protests, lockdowns and confusion.  It will be localised cycles of easing and tightening as they try to flatten the curve.  If they don't lock down soon, it will be too late, and they will have to let it spread.  So there's a small chance Xi imposes a harsh lockdown soon, and a bigger chance - growing larger by the day - that they just let it spread and try to slow it down.

My "China reopening play" is oil.  Zero-covid reduced demand by an estimated 0.5 to 1.5m bpd.  Long term I think oil goes up anyway, but China makes me buy it now.  Bought more CNQ and Equinor in the last 2 weeks, now its a 9% position (at buying price).  1% more to go.

Its a very oily portfolio: 10% in oil producers, plus another 35% in things correlated to oil (Gas pipelines, palm oil and LNG).

Also mechanically adding to my shorts as the S&P500 goes higher.  And the existing shorts are also growing bigger as the market gets higher; my shorts are now in the red:

Need to remind myself not to get too short, else the bear market rally will rip my face off.

Can't find anything to buy with the remaining 30% cash.  Despite a year-long bear market, stocks aren't cheap enough yet to catch falling knives.  I wait, either for things to get cheaper, or for the macro tide to turn so I can buy cyclicals like capex commodities.

Its hard, sitting in cash, foregoing dividend income, not going long or short.   I try to imagine myself as a multi-millionaire in the future, after the current bear market, recession and subsequent commodity bull.

Doing nothing is the hardest thing.

Quick Updates on shorts

A violent bear market rally started 3 days ago, just after I built a comfortable short position.  The S&P 500 is now up 11% from its lows.  Although my shorts are getting hammered, my longs are doing OK, so I don't feel much pain.

I still think its a bear market.  It is going to take more than a quarter to work off the stimulus excesses of 2021.  The rally's job now is to convince as many people as possible that its a bull market.

Bear market rallies of 20% are historically common.  I'm currently 33% short.  Aim to go up to 37% if we get a 20% rally in the S&P 500 (to 4572), and 40% if we get a 40% rally (very unlikely).  I don't think the duration or height of the rally can be predicted, so just guess based on history.

Quick update: shorts and gold

I've increased my shorts, buying on the small 1-3 day bounces.  Now I'm 24% short.  Most likely we get a crash into the next month.  Lower prices beget selling, as hedge fund redemptions start, till finally everything gets sold.

So I'm still looking to short more on bounces.  We are so oversold, we could get a rally first.

I've cut my gold position, from 10% to 4%, taking a small loss.  Gold has not been doing well, even in a falling market.  Maybe its because interest rates are rising.  Maybe fear from the Ukraine war has died down (sell the news).  I don't know.   Sell first, ask questions later. 

Sometime, it will be time to buy stocks.  Don't know when.

Increased My Short Positions

Been shorting the bounces for the past week, now am 15.5% short with all positions nicely profitable.  Still bearish.  The fed is tightening into a slowdown.  Like a train heading off a cliff with the fed pressing the accelerator.  

The market probably bounces next week, I'll load up on more shorts.  15.5% short is small compared to 98% long.

Theres a small chance the market crashes next week, if that happens I'll hold my shorts, not trade around them.  They are a hedge.

Real money in the markets is made by being long.  These shorts are just a trade, maybe 2-6 months, to help me survive until its time to go long again.

Going short

I think the market keeps correcting in the next 2 months.  Maybe 6-8 months.  Economic growth is slowing, the Fed is tightening, and the market internals are crap.  Should be at least as bad as Dec 2018.  Right now its like the market has run off a cliff, but hasn't dropped.

I added some shorts on Friday's open, which are now nicely profitable.  This market cycle is my first attempt at shorting.  This piece describes how I'm trying to do it.  A value investor trying to turn into a short seller.

How do professionals short?  Risk managing shorts is tough.

John Hempton at Bronte Capital described how they do it as fundamental long-term investors.  They search for fraud.  Like companies with mysteriously high margins, or where the products/numbers don't make sense in the real world, or ones run by previously fraudsters.  These stocks can go up several times on the way to zero - sometimes ten times  - so they manage risk with a lot of small positions.  Around 50-200 positions for a short book thats 50% of their longs.  They avoid heavily shorted stocks.  And continuously monitor positions to avoid gamma squeezes.  Its not possible for an individual investor.

Short-term traders risk manage by watching the screen all day, recognising when the position starts acting against them, and cutting their losses quickly.  They might be successful with a 2-to-1 failure rate, with failures typically cut a few hours after being placed, while successful shorts run for days.  I don't know how to trade, and I'm asleep most US market hours, so I can't do this.

Why am I going short?

I don't wanna sell my stocks because:

• We are living off the dividends (my salary gets added to my portfolio every month).
• Inflation should drop from 8% to maybe 3-4% this quarter.  Holding cash with 3-4% inflation, is still losing.
• The commodity producers I'm holding (oil, copper & palm oil) have not yet fallen with the market.  Some have wobbled a bit.  These stocks probably get hammered in the next few months.  But they might not.  I'm still bullish on commodities/inflation long term, selling them now to buy back later is a risk.  For oil, for example, there are good reasons why it may go higher in the next few months (starts at 10:22), 

So I'm shorting to hedge my longs.  So I can stay long for longer.

How am I doing it? 

First, I'm using Hedgeye's risk range and following The Macro Show to determine what and when to short.  Basically, they look at what has historically gone down in the current economic conditions, confirm that is it going down now, then look for times it is overbought to short it.  They trade a lot, far more frequently than I can, so I have to adapt their process for my needs.

So I've got to be more of a trader when shorting.  When I buy something, there are hundreds of reasons: the company has a moat, its undervalued, or management is god-like.  When I short, its because the price is going down.

Second, I'm only shorting ETFs or funds: index, country or sector funds.  Hedgeye's individual stock shorts are often too quick for me, sometimes covering on the same day.  And individual stocks can move too fast: better than expected (or less worse) earnings results can make them gap up.  Or maybe Musk decides to buy them over.

Third: I hope to hold these shorts for a few months, or until the market turns.  Won't be doing much trading in and out, since I'm not a good trader, even when I'm awake.

The main lesson I've learned is how fierce bear market rallies can be.  I shorted Q's in March.  QQQ had been dropping a while and was overbought, it was a good day to enter the short.  But it moved against me:

It was a 2% position, which was too big for a volatile instrument like QQQ.  Should have started with a 1/2 percent or 1% position, then added to it if it moved against me.  Need to keep my short positions smaller half the size of my longs, and remember that bear market rallies can rip your face off.

Right now my positions are:

• 98% invested in stocks (....the 2% cash is my last few month's salary).  Around 80% in low beta dividend payers, the remainder are commodity producers.
• 10% invested in Gold.  Yes, on margin.  Gold should go up when the market falls.  
• Offset by a total of -8.5% short positions.  Q's, Russel and Junk Bonds. Half these were added Friday.   May add more country shorts, eg: Korea, HK, Europe.

This piece is all I know about shorting.  If you've got this far, you'll realise I don't know much.  Its more a learning experience and probably too small to be a serious hedge.  Maybe it gives me some extra pocket money to buy more shares after the market has crashed.

My Dividend Portfolio

I started building this portfolio 18 months ago.  Its been a wild time!  From an "high-and-dry" market in late 2019, where I'd be desperately scrounging around for something to buy like an animal in the desert, to the liquidity crunch in March, where you would buy something a deep value, get punched in the face by Mr Market dropping it 10% in a few days, then repeat again...to the breathtaking recovery which no one believed.  

I was lucky that covid occured when it did.  If you can't build a portfolio when a once-in-50-year pandemic occurs and the end of the economic cycle, you never will.  My timing wasn't great.  I only bought 10% of my portfolio in March.   You can make a lot of mistakes in this business, but as long as you manage risk and don't buy shit that goes to zero, you'll make more than you lose.

My dividend portfolio is now worth SGD 670K, after the last few weeks market hiccups, and can probably pay me SGD 2.7K per month.  Here it is:

What next?

• Keep grinding away at my day job, plow all my salary back into the market.  Its still fairly valued, I can find things with a 5% yield.  No need to time the market too much.
• The portfolio is weighted heavily towards Singapore REITS.  Try to diversify away from this.
• Reits and Utilities weight it heavily towards companies that benefit from low rates.  At some point of the economic cycle, we start expecting higher rates.  Look to buy dirt-cheap banks to balance this out.  "Neither a borrower nor a lender be."
• Keep learning to trade.  I have a small trading portfolio (~SGD 120K), where I learn to trade by following Hedgeye.  Commodities look like a good bet now.  There may come a time when I can't add to my dividend portfolio (like late 2019), and I may need to learn to trade at different points in the economic cycle.

What I am doing

I am using two strategies: 'dividend stocks' and 'market timing'.

Am now 40% invested, all in dividend stocks/REITs/trusts, mostly SGX listed. The big ones are Netlink Trust and Manulife US REIT, with smaller positions in Frasers Centerpoint Trust and Mapletree Commercial Trust.

I think the last month's rally is a bear market rally.  I am waiting for a correction to continue buying Frasers Centerpoint Trust and Mapletree Commercial, plus Brookfield Infrastructure Trust.  This will take me up to 60% invested.

I'm willing to catch falling knives when buying dividend stocks.  Even though they will be affected by the recession (except Netlink), all the SGX-listed stocks above should survive without raising capital, unless revenue drops by more than half.  Once the economy recovers in a few years, I should have a dividend stream that I can live off.  Then figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life.

For the remaining 40%, I follow Hedgeye for market timing. They have called the cycle well, moving to bearish in mid Feb, and warning of a likely 20% correction on 4th March.  I wait for them to call a turn in the cycle before buying.

I've been covering a lot of stocks here lately, so I have a list of things to buy when the market does turn.  The shopping list:

• Inflation plays (growing inflation, slowing GDP): Oil (Equinor), TIPs, maybe Natural gas cos.
• Growth plays (growing GDP, slowing inflation): Copper (SCCO),...maybe the travel companies (Groupo Aeroportuario, Booking, Safran, Rolls), maybe Delfi
• Growth+Inflation plays (growing GDP, growing inflation): Interest rate plays (Banks, Computershare, Interactive brokers), maybe Oil above.
• The travel companies may also be buys after some uncertainty from the virus clears up, then we are just dealing with a normal recession.

If you put a gun to my head and forced me to buy something today, it would probably be Delfi, Groupo Aeroportuario and Berkshire Hathaway.  I haven't found any high quality stocks that are cheap.

Natural Gas

Harris Kupperman's natural gas trade looks interesting.  WTI going negative sends a clear signal that oil is not profitable, therefore shale oil shut ins should decrease the supply of natural gas.

What are the chances of it happening?

Around 30m Bcf/day of natural gas production is associated with oil (p19), out of 92 Bcf/day total.  So around 1/3rd of it is associated.

For demand, the EIA predicts a drop in demand due to covid-90, due to less commercial usage (especially restaurants), less industrial and exports.  Slightly offset by an increase in home demand.

There are many moving parts to the thesis.  What are the risks?

1. Shale oil producers may not begin to cut back until next year, due to hedging.
2. Even if the supply of natural gas drops, demand may drop further.
3. Trump may put tariffs on imported oil, or simply force the Saudis from targeting US shale production.  There are good reasons why the US needs its own oil industry.

How would I play it?

Initially I wanted to follow the textbook and but the lowest cost producers.  Cabot, here.  But there are too many things about this industry that I can't understand.  I do not understand industry decline curves, or how much companies have to reinvest to maintain reserves.   Nor well level data.  Or takeaway capacity from the different producing regions.  This industry is difficult to understand, and full of liars.

Better to spread my bets and just trade the FCG ETF.  That removes company specific issues, though it concentrates on the Marcellus.  Most of the companies there are generating cashflows from operations, though many are loss making - but they look like they won't go to zero.  I do not know enough to cherry pick companies or create my own ETF.

This is far from a certain thing, so if I took the trade, I would trade around the position to manage risk.  Take my signals from the market and play a rising natural gas price as it happens.  Don't throw all my bets down on the table and say 'this is definitely going to happen'.

I do not know if or when I'll make this trade.

Sold Boustead. Waiting and looking for things to buy

Sold Boustead a few days ago at 59c.  Its a low beta stock, so convert it into cash which can buy something that goes up more.

The only stocks I have now are my dividend portfolio, and IAG which has fallen too much to sell (I would consider buying it now if I didn't own it).

I have SGD 250K invested, and 500K in cash.

I think the bear market is not over yet.  I am following Hedgeye for market timing.  They called market crash before it happened.

For the dividend portfolio, I will continue to slowly buy dividend stocks if they drop further. Targets are FCT and MCT.  My trades are recorded in InvestingNote.

For the rest, I am building up a list of stocks to buy.  I'll post them here on this blog, for the liquid ones.  I will buy when Hedgeye calls a turn.  This may be one or 2 months after the bottom - following this strategy means I may end up buying after some big up days.  Can't expect to get the bottom.

Sold CAH and MCK

Sold because we are still in a bear market.

These are low beta stocks that "only" lost me around 20%.   Loss of ~ USD 7K.  They are reasonably valued and good companies - I may buy them back later.

Now I only have 2 stocks outside my dividend portfolio.  Queued to sell Boustead today (another low beta), but probably missed.  IAG has fallen too much for me to sell - worst timed investment ever.

My portfolio value is around SGD 750K, with over half cash.  I will concentrate on finding things to buy when the recovery comes.  We have zero interest rates, fiscal stimulus, and $30 oil...there is going to be a boom.  Just need to wait for the virus to clear up, and the market's volatility to burn itself out.

Stopped the Systematic Strategies

Last week I stopped following these strategies, both the momentum and The Acquirer's multiple.

Returns have been quite bad since starting in February:

• 2% for the momentum strategy.  Its been a choppy market.
• -28% for The Acquirers Multiple.  Value investing has done badly compared to momentum, since 2009 (1) (2).  I'm sure it will come back, I just don't know when.

On a daily basis, both strategies are high beta, and follow/magnify the movement of the Russel 3000 index.  If the index is up 1%, they're usually up 2-3%.  Same for down.  Holding 'value' - at least this kind of 'deep value' - meaning companies that are nearly dead - does not protect you.  On down days, they do worse than the market.

The reasons for stopping:

• Its hard to stick with when it goes wrong for long periods.  When you manually analyse and select own value stocks one-by-one, if a stock goes down, you can try to see why.  Has something changed with the fundamentals, or the macro environment?  Or have perceptions changed?  Has the whole market dropped?  Did you make a mistake?  You can (at least) try to look at the stock with a level head and see if you should cut losses or hold.  With a portfolio of non-discretionary stocks, theres nothing to do except to have blind faith,
• Manually analysing stocks takes more time and effort, but I can choose when to do it.  In most cases my long term investments won't be affected by missing a few weeks of work.  The exceptions are if results are unexpectedly bad, or for sudden crises (eg: HK protests) - though even these take weeks or months to play out.
• It was a pain in the ass to stay up trading 9:30-10:30 Monday nights.  I found Interactive Brokers pretty hard to use, sometimes I sold the wrong amount and accidentally ended up short.  It was only one hour a week, but it was a chore, and I didn't like doing it at nights.

I think the main advantage of the non-discretionary strategies is that it keeps you in the market, so you avoid FOMO.  However they get whipsawed in a trendless market, and will not protect you agains a 1987 style crash.

In the end, I decided hold cash, while building up a dividend portfolio.  I think this suite my personality better, and I can measure progress by dividends collected, instead basing it on stock price fluctuations.

Right now I'm 2/3rds in cash.

Like a diet, the best investment strategy is one you can stick with.

Dividend stocks: My first big bet

I bought a lot of Netlink Trust and a little Manulife US REIT in the last few weeks.  Enough to give me around SGD 6K of dividends a year.

Now I've got 70,000 shares of Netlink Trust at an average of 85.4c, and 26,800 shares of Manulife at an average USD 0.861c.

Why did I pick these stocks?

• Netlink Trust is a defensive counter, one of the few whose earnings would be unaffected by a recession. And still (barely) trading at a reasonable yield.  Long term, its residential revenue should follow the growth in Singapore household formation.  Its Non-Building Access Point's (NBAPs) should grow with internet-of-things/smart-city coming now, and 5G coming later.  I can't see any disrupting technology on the horizon, though I need to remind myself to keep a lookout.
• Manulife US Reit is developing a good track record after listing on SGX.  It is trading at a decent 6% yield with freehold buildings, unlike local REITs trading at a sub 5% yield with leasehold properties.  The risks are a recession (affects all stocks/REITs), and tax law changes (affecting any US-property REIT listed overseas).

Why did I buy now?

           Scared of missing out.

           Netlink Trust shot up on the day I placed my largest order, and I missed it.  Strong enough that my broker said it would unlikely come down that day.  After thinking about it: I am buying the income stream.  I'll still be happy if I buy at a higher price, and it comes down later, as long as I collect my dividend.  I'll be unhappy if I miss it now, and it never comes down again.  Which is unlikely, but possible - look at Vicom.  There's very few stocks giving a 5+ % yield that would also be unaffected by a recession.  The market was still offering me the chance, so I bought it.  Never regret.

The market narrative now is all sunshine and rainbows, especially for dividend stocks.  The Fed is expected to cut rates.  Worst case - for someone like me shopping for dividend stocks - is that this narrative goes on for another year.  Until the either the economy starts expanding, goosed by low rates, or we do finally get a real recession.

I am now 60% invested.  I don't feel the need to buy anything else this year, but can do so if the market drops.  December showed how quickly the narrative can change.  I am waiting.

Dividend Portfolio

Inspired by posts like this and this, I've decided to slowly start a dividend portfolio.  I'm looking for stocks with a 6% yield -  the hard part is to judge if its sustainable.

I aim to buy SGD 8K worth of stocks per month for the next 3 years.  Plus a little more when I get my bonus.   This should give me a 300K portfolio in 3 years, with an income of 18K per year.  I expect a serious downturn in the next few years, which would make me buy faster.

I've started with:

• Cromwell Reit (10,000 shares) - not great, but had an 8% yield which is probably sustainable.
• Netlink Trust (12,000 shares) - low yield, under 6%, but very stable.  I can't see any threat from 5G, and NBAP revenue may grow from IOT.
• Manulife REIT (6,800 shares) - 6% yield, US economy still looks strong, the main risk is taxation (resolved for now, but always in the background).  Impressive Management.  [Update 21st May: Bought another 7000 shares]

Should give me enough dividends for kopi everyday.

Some REITS I've looked at but haven't bought:

• IREIT Global main tenant seems to be in long term downsizing.  Too bad, its good otherwise.
• CapitalMalls Malaysia Trust has reasonable 7% yield, as the Malaysian Retail market is currently oversupplied - could I buy for a cyclical upswing?  I decided not to as 1) The only players that seem to maintain their advantage are the 5 premier malls with 1m+ square feet.  Although CMMT's Penang's Gurney Plaza is good, it is not unbeatable.  2) Small, mixed use malls and individual strata malls are disadvantaged.  So why did CMMT buy Tropicana (mixed use) and Sungei Wang (strata)?  As mall operators they should know these problems, especially as they've seen it play out in SG before.  Why such stupid acquisitions?
• Singapore Industrial REITS have high yields, but are paying out 100% of their distributable income, even as they have short leases.  So you need to deduct 1 to 3 percent from the yield to get the 'true' long term yield.

I'll look at Frasers Logistics and Industrial Trust next.  Maybe Malaysia later - there may be some lower priced REITS there, as their industrial, office and retail property sectors are in a property glut.

Systematic Trading: Week 10

Momentum (Clenow)

On Monday night:

• Sold EHTH at 59..89.
• Bought CVNA (Carvana Co): 54 shares at 69.6)

Systematic Trading: Week 8

Although the market is up, my momentum portfolio is now down 1% from starting.  The TAM portfolio is down 5%.

Value (The Acquirer's Multiple)

No change.  Waiting to rebalance late next month.

Momentum (Clenow)

Sold LCI and NVCR.
Bought DBD (Diebold Nixdorf: 271 shares at 13.25) and TLRA (Telaria: 494 shares at 7.23).

Systematic Trading: Week 7

US market went up slowly but steadily this week on trade deal news.  I bought 2 stocks in each portfolio on Monday (6th Apr) - now both are fully invested with 25 stocks each.

My Acquirers Multiple portfolio is down around 2%.  My Momentum portfolio is up around 1%.

Value (The Acquirer's Multiple)

Bought the next 2 stocks from The Acquirer's Multiple All Investable Stock Screener.  I will now wait for quarterly rebalancing.

Momentum (Clenow)

Bought 2 stocks:

• GH (Guardant Health), bought 50 shares @ $77.53
• TNDM  (Magenta Therapeutics Inc), bought 232 shares @ $16.66

My Portfolio

Is around 50% cash, 30% systematic and 20% discretionary.  

I'm sitting on the fence.  I want to be in the market because it can go up - I don't think we've had the final burst of euphoria that marks the end of a cycle.  Its like we're in 1998.  But we're also nearer to the end of the cycle than the beginning - and its hard to find stocks I want to buy-and-hold at these prices.  The systematic strategies help me participate in a rising market, but limit downside if the market drops like in 2008.

Systematic Trading: Week 6

The market has not been doing well, and its starting to look like a false breakout.

Nevertheless, RUA is still above its 200 MA, so I've been buying.  Bought the below on Monday night (25th Mar).

Value (The Acquirer's Multiple)

Bought the next top 5 stocks from The Acquirer's Multiple All Investable Stock Screener.

Momentum (Clenow)

Sold 1 stock:

• Sold LIVX at avg price of 5.465.  Loss of $330.

This is what the losing trade looks like:

Bought 6 stocks:

• FSCT (ForeScout Technologies), bought 91 shares @ $43.61
• TNDM  (Tandem Diabetes Care Inc), bought 57 shares @ $68.65
• EOLS (Pyxus International Inc), bought 169 shares @ $23.59
• PYX (W. R. Grace & Co), bought 140 shares @ $28.15
• AVLR (Avalara Inc), bought 72 shares @ $54.31
• NVCR (Novocure Inc), bought 83 shares @ $47.82