SSP portfolio's. Profits are eaten away by comissions.

[DB]

I feel the portfolios are flawed for investers with under 10k. I have been following the V4+ for several months. I like the V4+ because it has the best performance and lower stock turnover. I follow the allocation and market timing of the V4+ and found the commissions have eaten away ALL the profits. I have $9.99-$19.95 commission each time i buy or sell, average of $400 a month or more if we have market timing sell and buybacks. It would be nice if SSP could have a  3 stock, 4 stock or 5 stock only portfolio to eliminate a lot of the rebalance commissions every week. anybody have a better way to follow the portfolios or does SSP have any suggestions. thank you guys.

[ge]

Hi

If you buy or sell at least 10 times a month you should change your brooker and try disnat direct. I pay 5$ the trade but minimum 10 trades monthly.

https://www.disnat.com/en/fees/ddw_fees_commissions.asp

[jpenns]

The best thing I can suggest is finding a different broker.  Questrade has 5-10 dollar commissions.  Cutting your commissions in half would be very helpful.  Also, I don't rebalance religiously when a new order comes in.  I try to minimize the buy and sell orders I make, which sometimes results in having some disproportionate sizes for a while, but that works itself out eventually.  For instance when the last v4 order came, I could sell aum and then buy a little more of uex and dnt to balance things out pretty much perfectly.  My return might not be quite as good as SSP, but then again it might be a little better, it's just chance as to whether the stocks I'm more heavily weighted in do well or not. 

Also consider not following the market timing indicator.  The posted benefit right now in v4 is about 17%.  If you're below 10k, that might not be enough of a difference to make your commissions worth it.

Last suggestion, combine your money with a friend or family member's investments for a better return to commision ratio.  Or borrow some money to invest from the bank or on broker margin.  You can deduct the interest from your taxes, and SSP will certainly outperform the interest rate over the long term.

[DB]

   Thanks for the feed back. Questrade sounds like a great option and also limiting the rebalancing every week should help a lot. I am going to try to readjust my portfolio and see how it goes. Once again thank you for the responses

DB

[ge]

If you follow the portofolio low peg ratio the commissions indeed become pretty hight. Here is the last order:i: 20 stocks

Low PEG Ratio

Opération    Symbole     Nom
Acheter    WIN:CA     Wi-Lan Inc
Acheter    P:CA     Primero Mining Corp.
Acheter    FRC:CA     Canyon Services Group
Acheter    FGL:CA     Forzani Group
Acheter    CAS:CA     Cascades Inc.
Acheter    QUX:CA     Quadra Fnx Mining Ltd.
Acheter    G:CA     Goldcorp Inc.
Acheter    CF:CA     Canaccord Financial
Acheter    CLM:CA     Consol. Thompson Iron Mines
Acheter    SSO:CA     Silver Standard Resources Inc.
Acheter    PRE:CA     Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp.
Acheter    AEM:CA     Agnico-Eagle Mines Limited
Acheter    CG:CA     Centerra Gold Inc.
Vendre    COM:CA     Cardiome Pharma Corp.
Vendre    SMA:CA     Smart Technologies
Vendre    BWC:CA     Bridgewater Systems
Vendre    ATH:CA     Athabasca Oil Sands Corp.
Vendre    AGI:CA     Alamos Gold Inc.
Vendre    TCK.B:CA     Teck Resources Limited
Vendre    NGX:CA     Northgate Minerals Corporation
 

[bryanmcn]

At one point SSP started a "virtual" account with buys and sells including commision slips factored in. That seems to have been forgotten. Any chance of reviving it?

[garilou]

This brings us again to the minimum capital that one should invest in a portfolio.
The lower the capital, the smaller the positions, the higher the fees/position ratio!
I have this problem in my CELI (TFSA) where my total capital is much lower than in the other accounts, and I can't hold more than 2, maximum 3 positions at a time, or else, the price/action at the buy is pretty much higher, and the reverse when I sell.
If one has to trade rapidly, and not hold very long, fees take quite a big chunk of the profit off, or if you are kicked off by a stop, makes the loss bigger, even if the fees are small.
Although theoretically, with BUY and SELL orders, with SSP one should not need stops, and just wait for a sell order.
But the problem of the fees is the same.

10 stocks in a portfolio that changes positions often needs a good start capital.
Assuming that you follow one of SSPs portfolio, you can't put your total capital in it, if you want to keep also some cash and some fixed income "things".
Unless you are pretty rich, I doubt that you can strictly follow  2 or 3 SSP's portfolios.

[bryanmcn]

I've read that $50,000 in a discount brokerage account is the minimum you need to get started trading stocks.

[garilou]

Hi Bryan!
It's been such a long time!

I don't think that you need absolutely $50,000.00, it really depends on where you open you account.
When I started at TD Waterhouse, I did not have $50,000.00.
But my fees were 29.99 per transaction, quite expensive.

But to have lows trading fees, many require a larger amount than that.

I have looked around once for my son, there are some discount brokerages that do not require a minimum to get the low trading fee, (and lower as at TD Waterhouse).
But I do not know how good they are.

But if one "trades" in the sense that one does not hold very long, and if one wants more than 2 or 3 stocks in a portfolio, I think under $50,000.00, it is really difficult.
Unless maybe if we are in a very well established bullish market.

What does not seem the case for now, even if the MTI just switched to "UP", I am not sure that the big needed correction is over.
My own ON-OFF switch matches pretty close SSP's MTI, but turned ON a few days before (on March 17), for all markets but the Nasdaq.
Today, it turn to ON also for the Nasdaq, but the volume today were again so low: I think people are still unsure.

[DCA]

Well I started with only $1000 so "to get started" can be done with that.  However, I would think to follow a plan like one of the portfolios here and get reasonably close to the same return advertised would take ~ $5000 per position.

D