burrocrat's Account Talk

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Whipsaw said:
Burro, at least your not 'in' in... you may be internalizing the Ark system too much :nuts:
Click to expand...

i care about the system and its members and i think it can be a successful stragididy so naturally i want to see it do well. it seems that we got bailed out by the market fates today, so that is good. who knows what tomorrow brings?
 
Well I'll be darn if I can figure out what's going on with this market. I had hoped to get in when the S&P closed at 1865 - 1870, but after todays close of 1951.70 we are nearly 90 points above that. I guess the system worked this week burro and barring some catastrophe tomorrow, some nice gains are going to be had this week.

So looking at the 6 month S&P chart, there are a number of things keeping me on the sidelines. For one, todays close is very near the upper bollenger band. Slow stochastic has had a negative crossover and continues down. Conversely, MACD continues up and is now close to 0. And the final thing that is keeping me on the sidelines is todays closing is 51 points above the 18 day average.

In the past, I would throw caution to the wind and jump in with both feet, only to have the market head down as soon as I got in. I guess suffering a 7% loss in 2015 has made me much more cautious. With that said, I remain 100% G fund and will stay that way for now. Of course, I could move to the F Fund, but that rising trading channel that Tom spoke of in today's commentary looks a little long in the tooth to me and with my luck, it would head down if I did...:blink:

Guess I'll just wait for the next opportunity...Besides, some of my biggest gains have occurred in the month of March. :D
 
ravensfan said:
I guess the system worked this week burro and barring some catastrophe tomorrow, some nice gains are going to be had this week.
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it hasn't worked yet... remember the ark system trades over the weekend and gets monday's cob price as a buyin so it missed those gains just in time to eat tuesday's loss. it is just above zero on the trade so far and at minimum has to survive tomorrow and if it issues a sell signal this weekend also survive until this coming monday's close before being out. so let's not count any chickens before they hatch. but this is for dang sure better today than where i expected to end up a couple of days ago.

it is always nice when one sees something and goes out and gets it, but i am just as ok with dumb luck.
 
burrocrat said:
it hasn't worked yet... remember the ark system trades over the weekend and gets monday's cob price as a buyin so it missed those gains just in time to eat tuesday's loss. it is just above zero on the trade so far and at minimum has to survive tomorrow and if it issues a sell signal this weekend also survive until this coming monday's close before being out. so let's not count any chickens before they hatch. but this is for dang sure better today than where i expected to end up a couple of days ago.

it is always nice when one sees something and goes out and gets it, but i am just as ok with dumb luck.
Click to expand...

Did not realize that, but I see your point. Hopefully, today will be a nice up day and that sell signal comes over the weekend. On another note, one of the blogs I follow posted this morning that this latest upward movement , breaking through 1950, was on low volume. I recall JTH once stressing the importance of volume, low volume equals weakness and high volume equals strength, so the thought here is that this is a false breakout and we are headed back down very soon. I've been hoping for a close of 1865 -1870 to enter the market, so perhaps it is still in play. But let's hope the downtrend doesn't start until Tuesday...:D
 
burros-ark 160228
burros-ark update: the u.s. markets healed themselves up a bit last week, gaining about 1.5-2.5%, but the i-fund is lagging and now crossed under the s-fund. i don’t think that means we’re doing well, just the least worst bag of crap in the world economy. i still see significant downward pressure on the markets for some time to come as things are out of whack with fiscal and political reality. but that doesn’t mean it will be a steady slide and we need to play a bit in the fire to keep our money warm and growing. The ark system eeked out a small less than 1% gain as the buyin missed monday’s run up but caught tuesday’s fall, but still that’s money to the good and I’ll take it. i was travelling this week and had a unique breakfast experience: nutella spread and strawberry cream cheese on a plain cold bagel. it was suprisingly delicious, some kind of fake chocolate silky hazelnut butter with the richness of cream cheese and chewy thick bread, like a candy bar only presumably more healthy. some weeks you’re the cake and some weeks the icing, i want more of it.

View attachment 37322

burros-ark signal: hold (confirm previous buy signal). there was no movement among the individual arkers and there is no compelling reason to change course, gonna just keep sailing along and hopefully catch some more of this gradually rising tide. hold. hawk said something last week that made me stop and think… about personalizing the performance of the system and i think he is right. Of course i want the system to do well, and there is then a risk that i make decisions to protect its gains rather than listen to the message it is trying to tell me. my personal inclination would be to get out and hope monday holds positve to lock in a gain, but that is not what it is saying. nothing has changed from last week and it turned out good so the ark system is staying long equities. hold.

View attachment 37323

burros-ark stuff: i mentioned elsewhere on this forum that i saw a movie this last week: deadpool. it is the most vulgar profanity laced, gratuitous nudity saturated, inappropriate adult sick humor ridden, awesome special effects and gruesome violent fight scene laden bit of entertainment porn i think i have ever seen. and funny as all hell. i want to see it again. it reminded me that even if your world is crashing down, it pays to keep a sense of humor about it. so here we go, strapped in for another week’s ride, let’s see where it takes us.
 
FAB1 said:
I rode the Bull one day too long.

Ez come ez go, it was still a good month for FAB1.
Click to expand...

In retrospect I should have stayed long... sold @ 1921 and last day of Feb closed at 1932.

I was looking for a lower entry point and that did not happen.

The long TSPer's are way below still though in 2016.

So selling rallies is not "unwise" IMHO.

Have fun everybody!
 
hoooo wheeee! that is some dang fine sugar the market poured on us today! fire it up!

there is only one thing to do when you get the ball, run with it! wheeee!

 
Thanks Burro! I came very close to pulling out 2-29 but rethought it after reading the ark's choices and stayed in! Very nice!
 
burros-ark 160306
burros-ark update: this market is a sneaky one. judging by the tsptalk autotracker, not many folks saw a -15% drop coming to start the year, and then when there was nothing to hope for on the horizon just continued pain and doom and gloom, the market makes up 10% or so to the good. this is good of course for those folks who stayed in as their losses have been cut to something managable that allows for a better night’s sleep, but the prior drop pushed many out of the market and they missed the gains. i suspect that anybody on the positive side, no matter how little, has to be feeling pretty good about themselves, i know the paltry 0.43% my personal burrocrat account is doing gives me comfort that at least i avoided the big drop. i think the burros-ark system is proving its value as it is bound by trading frequency rules and also must consider many other factors besides just my whim and/or fear, this has kept it in when i would have chosen to be out and it has scored some good gains. i think this market is going to continue to be a difficult one to time and trade, there is just so much national and global uncertainty to consider that it is hard to predict what may move the market any given day. on a positive note, we are well into the month of march and things are warming up and the snow is melting and the days are brighter and longer, i even heard the birds chirping the other morning so that is good, the world keeps on turning.

View attachment 37461

burros-ark signal: sell. things seem to be normalizing with elvira and exposure creeping into more average ranges after three weeks of market gains, but this has me worried as the market recently has done just the opposite of what and when most people have thought it would do. a couple of arkers moved some or all into equities this week, and i think more are close to doing so as well now that the market is comfortably performing and we can be more certain of its direction. danger, warning sign, contrarian sell. s-fund and i-fund are practically tied, and so is the c-fund and arker-average. things seem to be consolidating and waiting for a big move in some direction. i have more fear that will be down again than optimisim that it will be up. part of the system’s (and my personal effort too) overall strategy is to ladder up gains, then lock them in and reduce risk and exposure during uncertainty, so the system is getting out. so far it has had a great performance in a tough market, but it still needs to get to monday’s market close to exit the trade so we could still eat a loss and i hope it isn’t a big one tomorrow, +7.47% has a nice ring to it. sell.

View attachment 37462

burros-ark stuff: not much stuff to talk about this week so i will post some other data that goes into making the system tick. on the whole, arkers are holding their own against the funds and at least not seriously underperforming. also, everybody seems to be well off the lows they had or could’ve had given how the year has gone so that is good. f-fund has been a solid performer in a risky market but cannot keep up with well-timed exposure to equity gains, and i-fund is now under-performing the s-fund. there is lots to think about and consider in these conditions, happy trading and good luck out there.

View attachment 37463

View attachment 37464
 
Burro,

I haven't really 'sprung' - just loosened a bit... My 'timing' has been awful lately. For the past two years the 'market' trends have been invisible for me. My style has been outa favor. Yowser...

But, at least one potentially negative for the market is done for. If the oil ticks try to cut oil production our national resources will fill the gap. My guess is that oil has reached a stable point. That means that all those day traders and speculators will get bored. Who cares if a barrel of oil rises or drops fifty cents. Also, who really cares if one group of oil ticks goes all jihad on another group of oil ticks - the media will get excited, but our local oil production will rise to fill the gap. Now, the EuroTrash should remain concerned. They may have to 'sink forward' the Frog's 'Charles de Gaullel' aircraft carrier as a show of force. The EuroTrash hard power of almost 30 aircraft will dominate the region while we watch tick on tick action footage during prime time!!!
 
I really have been my own contrarian indicator of late. Very bearish looking for the other shoe to drop as the market climbed, considered jumping in on Friday but then figured that would be capitulation at the top (futures are down, we'll see...). Would like to see a 'rhyme' with the election year chart Tom posted.
 
Just noticed the IFT isn't all-up-in-dare. Maybe Tom will help a brutha out?

Good stuff this week. To be honest, I was hoping for another 'hold' since I'm getting close to break-even. Not willing to eat a small loss. Waiting until the market shoves a 20 lb burrito down my throat...

Man, for better or worse, I'm feeling like a buy-and-holder right now. Can't seem to pull the trigger yet.


burrocrat said:
burros-ark 160306
burros-ark update: this market is a sneaky one. judging by the tsptalk autotracker, not many folks saw a -15% drop coming to start the year, and then when there was nothing to hope for on the horizon just continued pain and doom and gloom, the market makes up 10% or so to the good. this is good of course for those folks who stayed in as their losses have been cut to something managable that allows for a better night’s sleep, but the prior drop pushed many out of the market and they missed the gains. i suspect that anybody on the positive side, no matter how little, has to be feeling pretty good about themselves, i know the paltry 0.43% my personal burrocrat account is doing gives me comfort that at least i avoided the big drop. i think the burros-ark system is proving its value as it is bound by trading frequency rules and also must consider many other factors besides just my whim and/or fear, this has kept it in when i would have chosen to be out and it has scored some good gains. i think this market is going to continue to be a difficult one to time and trade, there is just so much national and global uncertainty to consider that it is hard to predict what may move the market any given day. on a positive note, we are well into the month of march and things are warming up and the snow is melting and the days are brighter and longer, i even heard the birds chirping the other morning so that is good, the world keeps on turning.

View attachment 37461

burros-ark signal: sell. things seem to be normalizing with elvira and exposure creeping into more average ranges after three weeks of market gains, but this has me worried as the market recently has done just the opposite of what and when most people have thought it would do. a couple of arkers moved some or all into equities this week, and i think more are close to doing so as well now that the market is comfortably performing and we can be more certain of its direction. danger, warning sign, contrarian sell. s-fund and i-fund are practically tied, and so is the c-fund and arker-average. things seem to be consolidating and waiting for a big move in some direction. i have more fear that will be down again than optimisim that it will be up. part of the system’s (and my personal effort too) overall strategy is to ladder up gains, then lock them in and reduce risk and exposure during uncertainty, so the system is getting out. so far it has had a great performance in a tough market, but it still needs to get to monday’s market close to exit the trade so we could still eat a loss and i hope it isn’t a big one tomorrow, +7.47% has a nice ring to it. sell.

View attachment 37462

burros-ark stuff: not much stuff to talk about this week so i will post some other data that goes into making the system tick. on the whole, arkers are holding their own against the funds and at least not seriously underperforming. also, everybody seems to be well off the lows they had or could’ve had given how the year has gone so that is good. f-fund has been a solid performer in a risky market but cannot keep up with well-timed exposure to equity gains, and i-fund is now under-performing the s-fund. there is lots to think about and consider in these conditions, happy trading and good luck out there.

View attachment 37463

View attachment 37464
Click to expand...
 
jonfresno said:
Just noticed the IFT isn't all-up-in-dare. Maybe Tom will help a brutha out?

Good stuff this week. To be honest, I was hoping for another 'hold' since I'm getting close to break-even. Not willing to eat a small loss. Waiting until the market shoves a 20 lb burrito down my throat...

Man, for better or worse, I'm feeling like a buy-and-holder right now. Can't seem to pull the trigger yet.
Click to expand...

thanks jonfresno, it looks like i forgot to update the autotracker yesterday when the signal flipped. i'll pm tom.
 
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