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For bottom pickers and knife catchers

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Interesting to see that my Knife catching isn't going to bad, even after
the fall of Friday...outa my 5 picks i have 4 bouncers.

Approximate prices
  • PPX 1.60 > 2.05
  • TOL 6.05 > 6.65
  • FCL 1.00 > 1.35
  • MRE 2.50 > 1.95
  • TRY 1.65 > 1.95

Thing is i brought the 1 that didn't bounce.:mad:
 
So_Cynical said:
Interesting to see that my Knife catching isn't going to bad, even after
the fall of Friday...outa my 5 picks i have 4 bouncers. Thing is i brought the 1 that didn't bounce.:mad:
Click to expand...


Ya reckon? A look at the percentage moves is more revealing.
  • PPX 1.60 > 2.05 = 28%
  • TOL 6.05 > 6.65 = 10%
  • FCL 1.00 > 1.35 = 35%
  • MRE 2.50 > 1.95 = - 22%
  • TRY 1.65 > 1.95 = 18%
 
Re: Bottom pickers and knife catchers

Schmuckie said:
Yeeesssssss!!!!!

Since posting this, I bought a few more shares. Aurelian got taken out this morning, and I sold all my shares for a pretty profit at the opening.

Used the proceeds to buy a whole whack of EQN shares -- speaking of falling knives.
Click to expand...

LOL, my pick hey! EQN is definately a falling knife! Fire at the site, delayed construction, copper prices coming off, not looking good in the short-term! Luckily, I don't think the turnaround will come until it actually nears production, then it should really take off and I will look to add to my position. Copper still looks in high demand relative to supply from my last view of the stats despite it technically looking terrible!!!!!!

People also forget too about the uranium stocks they have in the ground!
 
Trembling Hand said:
Ya reckon? A look at the percentage moves is more revealing.
  • PPX 1.60 > 2.05 = 28%
  • TOL 6.05 > 6.65 = 10%
  • FCL 1.00 > 1.35 = 35%
  • MRE 2.50 > 1.95 = - 22%
  • TRY 1.65 > 1.95 = 18%
Click to expand...

Its important in any trade to know where you are in terms of position of the move in a stock.
PPX is at the end of a current wave 5
So is TOL and TRY so no suprises there.
MRE is still in a wave 3 so no suprises it kept falling.
FCL is in a wave 4 correction leading to a wave 5 completion so another good move which is likley now to come off.

PPX and TOL likely to continue.
TRY conflicting analysis for longer term
MRE unlikely to turn bullish--yet.
FCL likely to turn here or at best go to around $1.50 before turning back down.
 
Just did a quick tot up of the numbers in this thread. Interesting.

51 bottom picks. No trade closures.

24 are ahead
27 are behind

Open profit % is 262% (10.9% average open profit per position)
Open loss % is 470% (17.4% average open loss per position)

Be even more interesting to see what the figures are in a few months.
 
MichaelD said:
Just did a quick tot up of the numbers in this thread. Interesting.

51 bottom picks. No trade closures.

24 are ahead
27 are behind

Open profit % is 262% (10.9% average open profit per position)
Open loss % is 470% (17.4% average open loss per position)

Be even more interesting to see what the figures are in a few months.
Click to expand...
Michael, you're missing the point of the thread. It's not a competition between you and anyone else.

This was about picking stocks that have been sold off to represent fundamental value, or stocks technically finding a potential bottom.

I started keeping tabs just for interest sake, and to keep people honest.

I shouldn't have mentioned having stops, or anything about trading for profit or mitigating losses, because that was not my purpose here.

I lump this thread with the POTENTIAL Breakout Thread, in that it identifies some stocks that people may want to research themselves as potential invesment or trading opportunites.

If you want to prove that you can throw a dart at the board and then just manage the trade to make profit, then you're most welcome to do so. The start New Thread button is on the top left of the page.

Cheers,
kennas
 
Kennas surely its fair enough for some to runs some stats? That in its self is a very interesting and worth while exercise.

Something that I find most people don't do and for good reason. It would depresses them.
 
Hi,

Those numbers of 24 winners and 27 losers, are really very good in the current market. A quick look at the July stock picking competition shows only 9.88% currently in profit.

So Michael, how would dart throwing have gone in the same period, I would guess much worse.

brty
 
Trembling Hand said:
Kennas surely its fair enough for some to runs some stats? That in its self is a very interesting and worth while exercise.

Something that I find most people don't do and for good reason. It would depresses them.
Click to expand...
Yep, fair enough, it's why I started doing it.

The intent is different.
 
Put me down for CFE. I can't imagine why there are sellers at today's price. The companies cash position alone justifies a higher price. Yesterday's news that the Russian bid is still around must add value as investors investigate the potential of CFE. DYOR

PS. I have also caugth the falling knife. Let us see if I get it by the handle and not the blade.
 
kennas said:
Michael, you're missing the point of the thread. It's not a competition between you and anyone else.

This was about picking stocks that have been sold off to represent fundamental value, or stocks technically finding a potential bottom.

I started keeping tabs just for interest sake, and to keep people honest.
Click to expand...

Interesting (and confusing) viewpoint.

So the point of this thread is to post your bottom picks but NOT to actually do any follow-up on this to find out if the bottom picking premise has any validity. I would have thought that such information would be quite valuable.
 
brty said:
So Michael, how would dart throwing have gone in the same period, I would guess much worse.

brty
Click to expand...

I will work out how to extract a report from my own trend following system (which is close to dart throwing) only taking trades opened from 1-Jul and post the results.

It will indeed be interesting to keep track of this in parallel.
 
Noika - probably should put this on the MCR thread but it has to be a bargain basement price. I'm guessing cause I havent looked at the previous annual report, but I guess they'd still make money at $5-7 a pound and anything extra is profit, maybe everyones projecting the down trend? Then why the hell would copper hold up so well??? I'll still consider accumulating, but it's hard to let go of the bloody knives when there's such negative sentiment around the whole market just because the banks had it too good and forgot to run a measuring tape over their business models. Banks are run by 'smart' people aren't they?
 
MichaelD said:
Interesting (and confusing) viewpoint.

So the point of this thread is to post your bottom picks but NOT to actually do any follow-up on this to find out if the bottom picking premise has any validity. I would have thought that such information would be quite valuable.
Click to expand...
Yes, you are probably right.

My point for the thread though was just to identify possible bottoms or value, but not a complete trading/investing methodology. That's covered in plenty of other threads.

As I mentioned, similar to the potential breakout thread.

You've wanted to turn this into an investment competition between FA/TA verses your trading technique, which is just a diversion from what my intent was.

There's been some good ideas presented here, and once they're identified it's up to the individual to do with them what they like.

For the record I sold my pick of KMN about a week ago. Still think we may have seen a bottom, but just tracking sideways now, and I wanted some more cash in the bank.
 
Yes, this is the problem, those current stats Michael posted are very very short-term, let's remember, these picks represent long-term fundamental value and as such, gains will probably not be realised for some years.

Furthermore, these trades are just a one off by most people, they are not managing them. So when do you know if some of these companies stated have already been prooven invalidated due to a recent release? Is everybody going to update their position should they choose to exit? I personally will update mine should I choose out of EQN. Fundamentals are not simply buy and hold forever.

You can add CCP to that also. Which is a very spec buy simply for a good R:R play.

I will be happy to run a competition along with a few others who use fundamentals or like me, occassionally will use them, who wish to post their fundamental picks and then state any updates should they choose to add to a position or exit a position, which can be compared over a longer timeframe with someone such as MichaelD and his T/A system. You can see my own T/A system performance from now on in my blog. Though, this month will probably be nearly as poor as these fundamental picks. :( But I think most T/A systems would this month, other than perhaps a scalper such as TH. Scalping futures is the only thing providing me with some rice and water at the moment, literally!!!! lol.

Again, since I don't make many fundamental trades, only the very odd one, we will need a few others prepared to make some and actively manage them.

Justification of your fundamental positions would be needed, along with Michael providing justification for his entries/exits etc. But MM will have to be taken out of the equation as there will be numerous posters. So will have to work on a pure % basis.

I think it would be an interesting result either way.
 
kennas said:
You've wanted to turn this into an investment competition between FA/TA verses your trading technique, which is just a diversion from what my intent was.

For the record I sold my pick of KMN about a week ago. Still think we may have seen a bottom, but just tracking sideways now, and I wanted some more cash in the bank.
Click to expand...

I am not at all wanting a "competition" - I truly have no idea why you seem fixated on that concept. A competition would be a waste of everyone's time.

What we have here in this thread is the postulate that bottoms can be picked.

As you no doubt are aware, I do not subscribe to this view.

Nonetheless, I'm interested in knowing whether such stockpicking can outperform how I currently trade, either short term or long term, and the only way to tell is by keeping track of performance.

There's a tremendous amount of value to be gained by doing this in real time and studying how the two disciplines perform in parallel.

(btw, I did not see you call a bottom on KMN in this thread so I did not include it in the calculations).

MRC & Co said:
Yes, this is the problem, those current stats Michael posted are very very short-term, let's remember, these picks represent long-term fundamental value and as such, gains will probably not be realised for some years.

Furthermore, these trades are just a one off by most people, they are not managing them. So when do you know if some of these companies stated have already been prooven invalidated due to a recent release? Is everybody going to update their position should they choose to exit? I personally will update mine should I choose out of EQN. Fundamentals are not simply buy and hold forever.
Click to expand...

Agreed, the stats are short term hence I made no comment on them when I posted them and will only update monthly.

One very obvious point is that slightly more than 1/2 the picks continued to fall in the short term - it will be interesting to compare this to what my trades since 1-Jul have done which I will do and report on.

I also agree that money management is an issue, and the best one can do with stock picks is equal % position sizing, versus fixed fractional for my trading.
 
tech/a said:
Its important in any trade to know where you are in terms of position of the move in a stock.
PPX is at the end of a current wave 5
So is TOL and TRY so no suprises there.
MRE is still in a wave 3 so no suprises it kept falling.
FCL is in a wave 4 correction leading to a wave 5 completion so another good move which is likley now to come off.

PPX and TOL likely to continue.
TRY conflicting analysis for longer term
MRE unlikely to turn bullish--yet.
FCL likely to turn here or at best go to around $1.50 before turning back down.
Click to expand...

Hey tech/a

I don't see any waves in MRE. I only see a straight down move from $6.06 on 7 May to current price :confused: Can you please elaborate? Maybe on the MRE thread? :)
 
Summary of my long term trades since 1-Jul-2008 (counting only trades opened since 1-Jul-2008);

7 now closed trades - total closed loss 1.6%
19 open trades - 7 showing a profit, 12 showing a loss - total open loss 0.6%


Bottom Picking;
51 bottom picks. No trade closures.

24 are ahead
27 are behind

Open profit % is 262% (10.9% average open profit per position)
Open loss % is 470% (17.4% average open loss per position)
 
One last post on this for now. I've now applied fixed % money management to all the bottom picks (equal $ values per initial position). This allows much closer comparison of performance;

Bottom Picking:
51 open trades - 24 showing a profit, 27 showing a loss - total open loss 4.1%

Mine:
7 now closed trades - total closed loss 1.6%
19 open trades - 7 showing a profit, 12 showing a loss - total open loss 0.6%
 
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