JTH's Account Talk

[tsptalk]

I've also wondered if the new higher priced shares and lack of splits has added to the lower trading volume.

It used to be you rarely saw a stock trade over $100 before they would split it. They wanted investors to be able to buy in blocks of 100 shares. Now the share prices go into the multiple hundreds of dollars, even into 4 figures, without splitting keeping share volume lower.

Just a thought.

 

[JTH]

I've also wondered if the new higher priced shares and lack of splits has added to the lower trading volume.

It used to be you rarely saw a stock trade over $100 before they would split it. They wanted investors to be able to buy in blocks of 100 shares. Now the share prices go into the multiple hundreds of dollars, even into 4 figures, without splitting keeping share volume lower.

Just a thought.

Yea that's a good point, and then I wonder how the whole new Robin-hood fractional shares works. And then perhaps some trading companies already own the shares, with their customers buying & selling amongst each other.

 

[JTH]

I've always wondered if I could buy my way down to the very bottom, and have just enough cash leftover to buy a pizza.

These are the levels identified in the 2025: The First 4 Months blog.

 

[JTH]

EDIT 15-Session including the day of the 19-Feb High

"Bear with me"

Measured from the 15-Session high to low (not the close)

From the 19-Feb High to the 11-Mar Low we've lost -10.07%

From 1962-Present, the 14-Session High/Low has lost -9% to -11% 217 of 15,923 times.

At present this 2025-Correction ranks 148 worst of 217 within the -9% to -11% 15-Session range.
Under these same conditions the 15-45-Session High/Low win ratio ranges from 0% to 7% (not good)

Under all 15-Session High/Low conditions (not filtered) 11-Mar-2025 ranks 294th worst of 15,923 putting it in the bottom .018%

The 15-Session High/Low has been < 0% 605 times under Pres. Cyc. Year 1 and Quarter 1.
Under these same conditions the 15-45-Session High/Low win ratio ranges from 6% to 37% (not good)

But, from those 605 events, the 15-Session High/Low was the final low 85 times, so this does give us a 14% chance the low is already in.

 

[JTH]

Good morning my fellow constitutionalist.

I've heard numerous reports this is one of the faster -10% corrections.
I can't speak to that but we can say this is one of the faster -10% drawdowns within a 15-Session window.
From this perspective since 1983, it ranks 192nd worst of 10,664 placing it in the bottom 1.8%

The absolute worst 15-Session drawdown started 22-Sep-2008 losing -33.10%

 

[WorkFE]

22-Sep-2008 losing -33.10%

That was brutal, remember it well.

 

[nasa1974]

I lost 12.82% that year.

 

[JTH]

2008 Year in review...

Finished -14.89%

Due to a deployment, I was in the I fund from Sep 07 to Feb 08

Worst was -18.38%

Best was -3.03%

Next year's goal... Beat the G-Fund

22-Sep-2008 losing -33.10%

That was brutal, remember it well.

I lost 12.82% that year.

I had to pull up an old post because I don''t have those files anymore, looks like I lost -14.89% that year.

SPX lost -38.49% in 2008, but what was perhaps more brutal is many folks (myself included) didn't jump back in early enough in 2009 which earned 23.45%. I think in 2009 I lost -3.27% so in reality my 2-year return was slightly worse than SPX.

 

[JTH]

Last night I deployed more cash, with reserves now sitting at 17.5%
I'll hold at these levels, if we go south of -15% I may take another bite (we'll see).

Anyhow, here's the latest Blog: Will we go lower?

And for next week we have Options Expiration which may prove to be the catalyst we need to throw in an exhaustive top or bottom.
From the last 12, it would appear that the Day prior to OptX (Thursday) has the lowest win ratio.

 

[JTH]

Jessica speaks my lingo

The 1% Rule: Equity Vol and Future Returns​

 

[nasa1974]

Jessica speaks my lingo

The 1% Rule: Equity Vol and Future Returns​

The information she is providing is easy to understand.

 

[JTH]

Good morning

In my younger days I remember a time would I could spell most words like a normal adult and could even type decently.
One thing I've learned is the combination of typing, spellcheck, and retirement has given me a severe case of cartography.

I was at the doctor's office the other day and had to sign my name numerous times on documents like I was buying a house. For one, I couldn't see well (need reading glasses), I didn't even recognize my own signature, and half-way into the process my hand couldn't even hold the pen.

Here's an open-ended question for all of you, what will AI do to us?

 

[tsptalk]

There will be little research. We just have to ask AI for the answers.

We sort of had that with search engines, but even with them you had to look for the best sites that talked about your subject, then look for the answer.

 

[Whipsaw]

I avoid AI like the plague, nothing good can come of it. It may seem like a time saver, then the answers jibe with your take on it, trust sets in and the answers will take on a different slant...

 

[tsptalk]

I admit I played with AI while looking at the NCAA brackets. "It" was very confused. It picked an eventual winner, but the individual matchups were messed up. It had many of the matchups incorrect. It would pick the winner of a game between two teams that weren't playing each other. I would correct it, it apologized and gave another answer that was equally confused.

It's not that smart yet (but don't tell it I said that.)

 

[JTH]

One thing for AI, I wouldn't use it for cultural or political opinions.

But if you keep it within a defined set of boundaries it can work really well. I'm currently working with AI to help me structure a large database of historical data. It has vast capabilities, but it's also like talking to child. You cannot make any assumptions with it, if you learn to ask the right questions (sometimes many sub-questions) then you can keep it aligned with your objectives.

It reminds me of when I first started learning to program with BASIC, (Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code). Any error's that were caused within BASIC were usually not the program, they were me.

 

[nasa1974]

Good morning
Here's an open-ended question for all of you, what will AI do to us?

"Terminator" "2001 a Space Odyssey" "I Robot"

 

[JTH]

Not much to report, I've been working on a large historical data project with many sub-projects that will eventually get correlated together. It's been somewhat time-consuming and some nights I'm dreaming in code. But, hey I'm not getting paid to do it, so I must enjoy it

Thus far this week has given us a very brief higher high, my guess is folks were getting out of bad positions and cutting their losses. So yea, I think a bunch of sellers stepped out on that last high.

If this week closes down that will be 5 concurrent weeks down, this hasn't happened since May-2011 which was a 6-Week Streak.

 

[JTH]

Observations On Tuesday.

The lowest volume we've had since 24-Jan (The Jan-High)
The Average True Range was the lowest since 14-Feb (3-sessions prior to the Feb High)
The Candlestick's body was 2.7% of the ATR which is in the bottom 3% percentile range.
__Although I've yet to do extensive studies on Candlestick-ATR, "Generally-speaking" our last 6 were continuation patterns and not reversals.

" our last

 

[JTH]

Good morning

For some randomness, I'll post a correction chart from previous times. The 67/68 Correction was interesting and we might find some commonalities with 2025. The Sep/Oct top started off with a swift -6.61% pullback which finalized with 7 consecutive sessions closing down. This was the final peak of 1967 which closed the year with a 20.09% gain.

While in 67 the index peaked in September it did work to recover prices giving us a shallow double top fake-out in Jan-68. But this is where the fun ended, with a 35-session decline starting off with 8 consecutive closes down. In totality this was a -10.11% correction which took 110 sessions to fully drawdown, and 37 sessions to recover. One interesting observation, the bottom of this correction was tested 8 times.

Like 2024, 1967's September closed higher than October.
Like 2025, 1968's Feb closed down & March closed down YTD.

1967 Closed up 20.09%, 1968 closed up 7.66%
2024 Closed up 23.31%, with 2025... TBD