My Investment Journey

[peter2]

Thanks for the update. It shows your ongoing commitment.

I was thinking that there must have been an indicator to exit some of those losers, but in some cases the divs offset the capital losses (reason to hold). There are a few that haven't paid any div though. Overall you might have been able to save 2K, but this doesn't make up the difference to the benchmark index (XSOAI).

Cutting the losers (that don't pay any div) earlier is only part of the solution to beat your benchmark. How about adding to the winners with the cash from the losers?

There's no easy solution as I think it's likely to require multiple small adjustments. It starts with cutting losers that don't pay a div, adding to winners in dips and then taking partial profits when the prices are too high (overbought) according to your model.

Another view is that your under-performance in the first two years has you behind your benchmark and that it'll take another few years to make up for it. Your changes in strategy have improved your performance in the recent years.

 

[KnowThePast]

Thanks for feedback, Peter.

I have to admit I ignore dividends pretty much completely in my analysis, I just look at the total return. I've played around with dividends a lot in backtests, but never found anything to pursue further.

Position sizing and adding to winners (or whatever other criteria), is something I would like to do. However, given the amounts I have on an average trade, the brokerage cost would be significant.

My sell criteria is the reverse of my buy criteria. In other words, I hold as long as my original buying logic continues to hold. For this strategy - irrespective of price.

Yes. definitely have been catching the last 2 years, hopefully I an continue the trend.

 

[Cam019]

No July update @KnowThePast?

 

[KnowThePast]

No July update @KnowThePast?

Sorry, forgot all about it.

I'll just post the July one in a few days.

 

[KnowThePast]

Apologies again for the missed update in June, which also happened to be the end of year one. Too much work.

I will count the last year as 13 months, to save myself the effort of tracing back all prices and interest.

For the year, portfolio returned 17.08%, compared to 14.55% (XAOAI) and 7.73% (XSOAI). First time that I have beaten both indexes in one year.

It's been very quiet year for me, with very few trades. Existing ones keep ticking along without triggering my sell criteria. And there aren't a whole lot more stocks that tick my buy criteria either. This will probably change somewhat after the reporting period.

 

[KnowThePast]

Monthly update - portfolio has gained $90 (0.04%) for the month.

 

[KnowThePast]

Sold MWR, 1035 @ $0.37 for a loss of $964.48

There will be a few more stocks that will no longer meet my criteria after the reporting season, I will sell these off in the next month.

 

[KnowThePast]

Sold a few positions that no longer meet my criteria:

Sold NWH, 3750 @ $1.181 for a profit of $1,329.15
Sold CKF, 1068 @ $5.90 for a profit of $4,831.54
Sold ICU, 10370 @ $0.035 for a loss of $1,148.75
Sold TCN, 30302 @ $0.047 for a loss of $910.17
Sold BYI, 1050 @ $0.70 for a loss of $333.95

BYL has gone into liquidation in the meantime as week, so it's probably safe to mark it down to zero.

 

[KnowThePast]

Monthly update - portfolio dropped $613 for the month.

 

[KnowThePast]

Sadly, this is going to be my last monthly update on this thread.

We've decided to buy a house, which will require significant investment in extensions and renovations. So, I have now sold most of my holdings to free up the cash.

It's been a pleasure having all of you as my audience over the years, thank you for all the advice given. This has been an invaluable learning experience.

I may post random things here every now and then, who knows, I might even start another portfolio one day.

For now, I am also busy with a start-up called ForwardCaster, which will commercialise my back-testing engine in the near future.

 

[noirua]

My investment journey has been one of success and failure combined with stupidity, frustration and near self destruction and mixed in with a tiny bit of genius completely confused with not knowing what it was or is.

A robot would just invest or punt in shares with out the slightest reaction to making a profit or loss. So that is the way to invest. If after selling for $100 profit, two days later that could have been $1,000, so what - the robot would be completely non reactive to it. If I sell at a $800 loss only to see an announcement rocket the share 500%, so what. If a company goes bust on you and you lose $10,000, so what. If you lose everything or gain $1 million, so what. If you can be that robot you are part way to success.

Taking this to personal extremes it has taken me umpteen years to get over my ride.

Can you invest to take yourself to the brink and ignore profits and losses as in the poem 'IF'. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if---

 

[KnowThePast]

Hi everyone,

Time to revive this thread!

As I mentioned before, I've been involved with a startup that uses my backtesting engine - www.forwardcaster.com. While development is still ongoing, lots of features are now ready and we have just done a soft launch of the first version.

As a short summary - you can create an automated strategy based on any fundamental factors, backtest it against different markets and time periods. Then, you can track it daily, share it with others, as well as subscribe to other people's strategies.

For all my readers, old and new, I'd love for you to try it and appreciate any feedback. If you like it, I'd love to have you as a user.

Anyone that has been an active participant in this thread, please send me a PM and I'll set you up with a free subscription. The site is here: www.forwardcaster.com

I hope to see you all there!

P.S.
I will be practising what I preach and start up a new portfolio that will be tracking a strategy on the site.