Selling rules

[wm]

What are the SSP selling rules? It will certainly be useful to know when we can expect SSP to send a sell signal. For ex. TIM is down 40% from its one month ago high but was still not sold by SSP...

[Super Stock Picker]

Hello,

Unfortunately, we cannot predict when a sell will happen. Our criteria are based on relative filters and not on a fixed exit price as you might be more familiar with.

So, as you can see, we can still hold a stock that has started to fall or sell a stock that is still rising.

As a result, you will sometimes end up by selling a stock far from its top price, but also you will some other times hold a stock during its correction and enjoy even more return afterwards.

Some members have also made some research about the impact of using stop loss orders. Here is a link to one of those posts:
Quick notes on stops, more later.

[bryanmcn]

I stopped out of TIM weeks ago. It has been on a down trend ever since it failed to break through its previous high in late October.
Whats the return and whats the risk? High returns often mean high risk (read volatility).
I would suggest that many traders would give up a significant part of their returns for less volitility.
As for risk, most people don't understand it, including a lot of professionals. We have seen how high the returns can be with the SSP but how many of us are trading using its exact rules?
All of the momentum portfolios have a one year return of over 100%. Is there one reader out there (including the SSP managers) with a portfolio over $50K that can say that they have gotten a one year 100% return?
Anyone?
I have tried to follow it but ended up stopping out. I guess I'm just too risk averse (ie wimpy) but I'm quite happy with my 30% return ...thank you very much!

[mrrammstein]

Personally, I have a fair amount of confidence in the SSP system, and if they are holding onto a stock during a downward trend, theres a good reason for that.

I'm sure that anyone that stops out ends up re-buying low anyway.

I think a lot of the answers to questions of when/if to sell during these times should be answered by your own research.  I personally sold off TRE long before SSP did when I read of deuthschebanks downgrade of the company to a sell, suggesting that the stock would drop to 12 dollars a share.  It was my understanding that Deutschebank was a large player in TRE, or had some sort of association, and if they were saying this, chances are it was for a good reason.

Either way, it is indeed difficult to follow the SSP exactly in situations like this where you see all your profits evaporate - it's just a personal decision you ahve to make as to what you want to do i think, as the basis of the SSP is to ignore market trends etc or whatever it said in the FAQ, which is why SSP is so successful

[Super Stock Picker]

All of the momentum portfolios have a one year return of over 100%. Is there one reader out there (including the SSP managers) with a portfolio over $50K that can say that they have gotten a one year 100% return?
Anyone?

Hello Bryanmcn,

We did have enjoyed 100% return over one year, but it was not with an account over $50K.

But, we also received within our recent testimonials, a message from Denis, that has enjoyed 100% in his account this year. He also sent us screenshots of his account statements to be published on the site. This will appear in a new testimonial section soon, but for the time being, they will be attached to this post.
His account went from $50K (December 06) to $104K (October 07) following the Ultimate Price Momentum v4, but he was not following our allocation method. His positions were dollar averaged each week instead.

[DCA]

Part of the reason I never look at unrealized gains:  I did have over 100% return on my SSP portfolio since Feb.  But then the recent drop in CUQ, TIM & TRE trimmed about 100K out of it!  My Feb and Oct statements would only make a great testimonial if nobody looks at November.

D

[bryanmcn]

This is extremely impressive gentlemen! I wish I had the family jewels to stick with the program for a year. I apologize for doubting SSP's feasability.
Maybe its time to buy!
Bryan

[mrrammstein]

according to the charts, everything is still on a downward slope, and analysts say we are only 70% away from where the market needs to sink to before it goes back up.  They say it needs to sink to the lows it hit in august before it turns around

but definitely the time to buy and double up is approaching!

[bryanmcn]

My crystal ball is broken but the TA's definition of a down trend is quite specific. It is when the chart shows lower lows and higher lows.
An uptrend is defined as making higher lows and higher highs.
If you look at the chart of XIU you see that we have not beaten the low of mid august and in fact the activity of the past couple of trading days, indicates that we may be reversing. That would mean we have set a higher low.
If in the next few weeks we beat the high set at the end of October then the TSX is on an uptrend. That would be good!
If we do not beat it and set a high lower than that, then we are on a down trend. That would be bad ... very bad.   

[mrrammstein]

in that case i will hope for your scenario to play out rather than mine!!! 

[dhamel]

The account statement shown on this post is mine.  It is now down to 86,280$ as of today.

What is important in following a trading program is to stick to it in the drawdown period.   By studying the history of SSP, we can see that drawdown in the 40% zone have been there before, and that SSP have gracefully recover from it.

I actually experiment it this year, my account whent from 50K to 72K and then back to 52K, to bounce back to 104K.   Had I took panic at that point I would not be back here.   

I have now adjust my allocation strategy to reflect the SSP allocation model.   Happen that by doing that I had reloaded a lot of TIM at it's peek. 

As of monday with the selling of ET I will have:
4250 TIM and 1400 CUQ

---------------------

Denis

[wm]

Dennis,

this is impressive, especially when we can see 2007 (SSP) returns comm pared with those in 2006.

wm