SSP during a drawdown

[bryanmcn]

Hi Louise
Fel has been flat or slightly bullish in an extremely bearish market. IMHO the markets cannot keep this downward momentum forever. The TSX is flirting with the same lows it made in Jan of this year. If it turns around it could rise dramatically and stocks like FEL that have held their ground will advance more rapidly.
Or so my thinking goes. We shall see ...

[garilou]

Hy Brian!
I asked you that question because I had not seen that it was an order from SSP!
From the moment you decided to "jump back in", I guess I do not have to ask you to explain your choice. But probably no one should obey SSP's orders blindly.

So thanks anyway for you explanation. As to the TSX, I do not yet see clear bullish trend, I am still more on shorting then buying!
But I am really getting prepared to jump in too!

Do you follow one specific SSP portfolio, or do you just choose among the different buy orders that you see?


Louise   

[bryanmcn]

Louise
I follow the Weekly and V1. I try to hold those stocks unless they are obviously in a downtrend (which they were all summer). I often hold on to a stock for a while after it has been sold by SSP depending on the pattern. A search through old SSP picks can be rewarding as well.
 
SSP seems to hold on to a stock even as it drifts lower because it is outperforming the TSX. To me thats like saying "that horse is less dead than this one".

Of course SSP must stay 100% invested and do not presently short so in a down market the portfolios suffer.

I agree with you that the TSX still has strong downward momentum but there are some sectors that seem to be bucking the trend. For example, Canadian bank stocks seem to be reversing. 

[garilou]

Hi again, Brian

To me thats like saying "that horse is less dead than this one".   

This is funny!
As what you say about SSP:

SSP seems to hold on to a stock even as it drifts lower because it is outperforming the TSX. 

I have never read that this was part of the "secret recipe" of what would trigger a buy or sell order from SSP.

But like you, when I'll jump in, I will probably not hold loosing stocks too long if this means to loose a good part of a profit or too big a loss).

As for the TSX... still another down day today.
For the Canadian banks, you might be right, but it does not seem very clear yet, especially today!

The prediction that the financial sector would go up when the Oil price would go down seemed to confirm it-self for a few days, but the oil is still going down, and the financial sector does not seem to react proportionally positively.
They seem to try, but never get to break their resistances.

After I shorted TD a few weeks ago, and got our just in time to cash a not too fantastic profit, but right before an upward movement (at first I thought I had covered to early, but I was happy to have done so the 2nd day).
I am thinking about shorting it again today or tomorrow if today's fall seems to confirm. By now, the price is still higher as the one I had when I covered, but I thought this was a short term up trend.

As for now, I think the only sectors that could be promising in the markets would be telecommunications and "Consumer Staples": Jean Coutu could well being coming out of its terrible performance from past 3 years.

All this again IMHO.

Louise

[garilou]

Bryan!

I checked FEL all day, and thought about you (and probably others)!
Must have been hard to hold!

An energy stock in days like now.
And no dividends to compensate...

But I think in an intermediate term, it will go back up.
I'll probably join you with this stock, but not before it will be around 10 or less.

I guess it was a hard day for most today.
I had 2 other stocks that went up almost all day, and fell back down in the last trading minutes 
I was only saved by my short on WTN!
I have lowered my stop for the third time! From now on, I really don't mind to be stopped out on this one.
Thanks SSP!

Good luck for the next days... some time the wind should turn...
Louise

[DCA]

Well we have speculated at times as to whether cash is a posistion.  It looks like as of Monday close cash is.

'Tis a bit like that Bugs Bunny cartoon where the plane runs out of gas just before smashing into the ground.

DCA

[garilou]

Hi DCA,

Well we have speculated at times as to whether cash is a position. 

Yes I remember, and I used to say "NO!  cash is not a position, you are either long or short!"

But after winning so much on my WTN short, I lost about 60% of my profit in 24 hours on another short that was made on the most bearish stock you could think about, both fundamentally and technically!

So by now, me too am also mostly on the cash side, or sometimes I start to play the "Day Trader": Buy and sell the same day or the next day.

But this mean constant checking. having your sell order button right under you finger, and re-asking for the RT quote every 2 seconds: some days I can, some other days, no: this a really a full time job!

you wrote:

It looks like as of Monday close cash is. 

I also believe that the past 2 market days were totally crazy, and just a "bullish engulfing": however big money the US government will spend to save Wall Street (did nothing to help the poor people who were loosing everything on their houses), it wont change much on the short and middle term: I suspect this Monday (or coming week) will be the days of "profit cashing" for the day traders, and will be a dark day too!
Save the world economy? How generous!
Just save the rich people! And sell the US economy to the Chinese.

Putting a ban on the short shelling is in my opinion really not even a band-aid: if buyers are not there, the stock goes down anyway! Sure the mere threat of it forced the shorters to cover, and this has been a big part of those "three digits" up-days, but it won't last!

I'll look at it, and maybe re-short that stock that hurt me so much! All summer long, everyday I had a small gain only thanks to my short positions.

Can't wait the "short portfolio" that SSP is preparing, but they said it won't be ready in the near term.
However bullish the market was, I've always done better on the short then the long positions.

But now... yes looks like a Bugs Bunny cartoon!

Louise

[bryanmcn]

Indeed! Cash appears to be a position for several portflios!

At end of trading day Monday the V3, V4, and V5 will all be without positions. That will stop the downward momentum for sure. Ha ha!

[garilou]

Bryan!

That will stop the downward momentum for sure.   

Bryan, you miscalculated!
All SSP followers selling SSP portfios stocks will create a HUGE (lol) selling pressure and will increase the downward momentum! HA HA HA!

[bryanmcn]

What I meant was that the SSP portfilios downward momentum will stop.

[garilou]

Ah OK :-)

But Brian, you did not comment my reply to you, in TSX Predictions (sure was the wrong topic but...):
http://www.superstockpicker.com/forum/index.php?topic=666

I'm curious.
SSP won't reply, (if he does) before Monday. 

[bryanmcn]

I participated in the poll. I chose "I wish I knew".

My crystal ball is broken right now.

No idea. The trends are down but my hopes are up.

 Bryan

[garilou]

No,Bryan,
that's not was I talking about!
(See what happens when we use the wrong topics!)

I was talking of my reply:

« Reply #16 on: Yesterday at 17:35:46 »
in http://www.superstockpicker.com/forum/index.php?topic=620

to your reply:
« Reply #15 on: Yesterday at 16:12:40 »
where you talked about the sell of SPY

Louise   

[bryanmcn]

Sorry Louise

I've searched through the posts and can't find where I talked about selling SPY. Can you repeat the question?

Bryan

[garilou]

Bryan,

Sorry. I made a bad typo. It was not SPY, it was about FSY.
In topic:

Re: TSX predictions
http://www.superstockpicker.com/forum/index.php?topic=666
your reply:
« Reply #15 on: 20 September 2008, 16:12:40 »

You wrote:

I can't figure out why the SSP algorithm would indicate a sell for FSY.

This is the message I was talking about.
Since I worked hard on my reply (doing research and trying to find out maybe why), added a technical chart.
I would have liked to have feedback.

Louise