MrBowl's Account Talk

[MrBowl]

Re: Tapering?

The volatility sucks, but its best to stay the course. The US is not going into a recession in the near term.

Josh Brown is very wise and often pretty funny. I recommend reading all of his columns, especially the latest...

The Reformed Broker

Also, his opinion on what kind of year we are in for seems spot on to me. I won't be a "buy and hold" S fund sitter all year. I will try and sell tops and buy dips if I can spot them.

So Far, So Meh | The Reformed Broker

 

[MrBowl]

The market fell last week on relatively high volume, but today when the selling took place the volume was light. Then came the reverse and a strong move up during the last half hour or so. Could it be that we finally exhausted the weak hands and bargain hunters rushed in at the end? It seems like that to me. Time will tell, but I think the market behavior told a positive story today.

 

[Cactus]

Re: Tapering?

I won't be a "buy and hold" S fund sitter all year. I will try and sell tops and buy dips if I can spot them.

Good luck with that. The rally at the end of March lasted only a couple of days and then sank even lower. Some folks like Jason & Whipsaw managed a successful hit-N-run entry/exit, but a lot of folks like me rode it down even lower. Be careful out there. :worried:

 

[JTH]

Re: Tapering?

Good luck with that. The rally at the end of March lasted only a couple of days and then sank even lower. Some folks like Jason & Whipsaw managed a successful hit-N-run entry/exit, but a lot of folks like me rode it down even lower. Be careful out there. :worried:

Yeppers, if you asked the average Hedge Fund Manager to play by our rules, they'd laugh and say it was "impossible." Then I'd say "You're right, it is"

 

[MrBowl]

It's been talked about for awhile that the S Fund behaves more like the Nasdaq than the other TSP Funds. And, of course, the Nasdaq has really stunk lately. In the most recent dip the S Fund fell almost 7% while the C Fund fell just over 4%. My gut tells me that the S&P is headed back up to somewhere in the 1890-1910 range. But, how will the S Fund perform in the near future?

I still have my IFTs left. If the S Fund plays catch up then it has more upside potential than the C Fund, provided that my gut feeling is correct. In that case I should ride with the S Fund awhile longer. I also think that the overall market may see another dip in a month or so. Since Dec we've been in a trading trend of higher highs and lower lows. This trend can't continue, but perhaps I will attempt to play it until it doesn't so maybe I will make my first exit of the year at or above the recent peak (if we return there).

Longer term, though, such as 2-6 months, will the Nasdaq continue to stink up the place? That would mean avoiding the S Fund would be the proper strategy.

 

[MrBowl]

I'm in the S Fund, but I will be watching the S&P 500 to decide when to bail to the G Fund, and it will be soon. My target is any close at or above 1890, then I plan to use my first IFT of the year the next day. I think the trend of slightly higher highs followed by a dip will hold, plus I never do well in May through mid June.

 

[JTH]

I'm in the S Fund, but I will be watching the S&P 500 to decide when to bail to the G Fund, and it will be soon. My target is any close at or above 1890, then I plan to use my first IFT of the year the next day. I think the trend of slightly higher highs followed by a dip will hold, plus I never do well in May through mid June.

Very disciplined of you, "Sell in May" is just around the corner but the 1st 2 days are historically strong, you may want to hold our until then.

 

[MrBowl]

Very disciplined of you, "Sell in May" is just around the corner but the 1st 2 days are historically strong, you may want to hold our until then.

JTH, that's good to know. I hadn't looked at seasonality per day.

I did do a little study on the past 10-15 years and in most years there is a 4-6 week downturn, and in some years those have unfortunately defined my year. What was interesting was that the actual best day to "Sell in May" varied from late March to around the first 10 days of May. So, we can count on some unpredictability with the start date of a spring downturn, and they don't automatically happen every year.

One thing I wonder about, did the recent dip release a pressure valve? Seems like we've had dips every 7-10 weeks and if that trend holds then we may be well into May before another dip is due. More questions than answers, of course!

I must give some credit to Jim Cramer. Last Wednesday on Mad Money he did an analysis of HFT trading, bonds, and a few tweets that he saw all occur about the same time on Tuesday, right as the final low point in the market came and the final reversal happened. On that Wednesday show, with investors bloody and bruised from the recent sharp dip Cramer said "The Selling is Finally Over". I thought that was pretty bold to say so soon since we've seen some recent reversals fail.

 

[Cactus]

We punched through the 20 day SMA on the Wilshire 4500 this morning, but I would expect some resistence at the 50 day.

 

[MrBowl]

Thanks, Cactus. I just checked it out and it looks like the 50 day SMA is around 1008-1009, so we may already see some flattening in the w4500 today

 

[MrBowl]

Re: Tapering?

I stayed in the S Fund on Friday for a couple reasons

1) I thought the jobs report was good enough that perhaps it will carry us upward for a few more days

2) 5 of the previous 7 Fridays were down whereas 5 of the previous 7 Mondays were up, so it makes sense to BUY on Fridays and SELL on Mondays. Well, I didn't move out of the S Fund today, either

It's a fairly flat day so far. I may be greedy, but I like to sell on days that I am confident will be up. JTH had some good advice and I hope I'm not blowing it by not following what he said.

 

[BichonFreeze]

Re: Tapering?

MrBowl,

I'm sure you'll be fine. If tomorrow is flat ahead of Yellen speaking on Wednesday, I'm thinking it'll be in the positive. Disney, Whole Foods, and DirectTV are some of those announcing tomorrow. Disney has been having a strong year off the heels of Frozen, so it'll be interesting to see what happens.

In any event if it's green around 11:50 tomorrow, I'll be selling to avoid Yellen's yelling.

 

[MrBowl]

The S Fund today produced one of the most hard-earned and torturous 0.20% that I can recall. I'll happily take it, though.

I keep holding on in hopes that it will return to recent highs, or at least above the G Fund for the YTD, but in reality the smarter move would be to jump to the C Fund, or perhaps the G/F Funds. I will probably make my first IFT in the next few days.

 

[MrBowl]

I would wonder if a better move in this volatile market might be to wait for the next good up day, or a high near previous 2 week high, and get out in to safety...then wait for the next 3-4 day downturn and then get into the C...or maybe even better, surprisingly the I Fund.

Then again, things are so volatile that what looks like a down day 2 hrs into the open ends up being a big up day the last 2 hrs...AND vice-versa.:nuts:

That's close to what I was thinking...hope to return to recent highs and then make a move. The I Fund could be really attractive if Putin really backs out of the Ukraine. But you can't trust him, and if he bluffs the I Fund will be hit hard.

The 4 hr lag time really messes with people. Ideally, one would be so far in the black (longer-term than days or even weeks) that what happens on a sell day doesn't really matter, and the market be so far down (also longer-term than days or even weeks) on a buy-in day that it also doesn't matter. But, that is more a dream for me than reality.

 

[MrBowl]

Re: Tapering?

and the final number is only 0.12%. I won't complain about a positive close, though. It was a fortunate finish.

 

[MrBowl]

I was hoping to exit the S Fund on a day when it was the best fund. So far today fits, but only by a little. Anyway, I pulled the trigger and went to 30% F and 70% C. It gives me a slight hedge against a downturn, which is pretty common in May, and keeps me positioned in the C fund in case the recent dips took the pressure off the market and will allow an UP May, for a change.

One obvious thing, and Cramer has hit on this a lot, is that the rotation out of high flying glamor/growth stocks (NASDAQ) and into value stocks (S&P) seems to be a large trend and will likely continue. With the S Fund having a lot more in common with the NASDAQ than any of our other funds I followed the pack. I could've done this a month or more ago.

The other aspect of my move is laziness. A confession: I mostly just monitor the S&P to get overall market sentiment, trends, and its the index I use to attempt to find market bottoms and tops. So why not be in the S&P, especially in a year when the S Fund rarely behaves like the S&P.

 

[MrBowl]

I jinxed it. That dang 4 hour time lag is the gator and I'm the non-observant golfer that keeps missing fairways.

 

[MrBowl]

I took a big gamble on Wednesday. I don't always have good luck with the I fund but I jumped in with 100%. I felt like the China-Russia deal may lead to some gains, but the main reason is that I anticipate an ECB rate cut in less than 2 weeks. Perhaps the near term will be one of those times that the I Fund rides the best rocket. If not, there's always more chances around the corner.

 

[MrBowl]

I haven't posted much this summer. I tried a few things and it was an up and down 3+ months (mostly flat)

I jumped into the G fund about a week ago in anticipation of a few things - memories of many bad events this time of year, such as 2001 and 2008 etc, a Fed meeting that will dwell more on interest rate hike plans, and the expectation that tech stocks would be sold to have cash ready for BABA on Friday. If all goes as I expect I'll go 100% S Fund on Friday, but it often doesn't so I'll play it as it comes.

 

[MrBowl]

I didn't jump in on the 19th like I had planned to. I was just too busy at work. And that worked out good. As the losses mounted for the stock funds I weighed whether to jump in, almost daily. There was even a day that I tried to log into tsp.gov but I forgot my 50-digit login, so that saved me too. Finally, I was home on monday and able to look up my login information. I decided to jump in because I was negative for Sept and there was only one trading day left that I could use to move into positive territory for the month. That was a poor idea.

So now I'm down 2.5% in two days, going from just a bit above the G Fund for the year to negative for the year, just like that! I have some things I look for during a correction that signals my buy-in. Wanting to be positive at the end of the month isn't one of them. The S Fund is now down about 8% over the past month. The news items out there aren't as potentially catastrophic as they were in the summer of 2011 when the S fund dropped 22% in 11 days (The bottom of that correction, and low point of that year was midday Oct 4!).

Although there's talk of some elements of the economy slowing, plus China's possible slowdown, I don't think the U.S. is heading into a recession any time soon. QE is ending, but I think that the mental (investor sentiment) aspect of it has been factored in, but I could be wrong.

I think we'll see the markets turn around by the end of next week. There's only one more thing I'm looking for, and that happens over two days. If I was out, the earliest my buy-in day could be is Tuesday or Wednesday. Since I'm in I'll hang on and let the S Fund bring me out of this dip. Remember, after the Oct 4, 2011 low the S Fund ended up +17% for the month!