May Wrap-Up

Sorry for not posting for awhile, but as most of you know, the market has been crazy during the last few weeks. The big daily up and down swings are not good for my method of investing, as I want the market to pick a direction (up or down, I don't care) and stick with it for at least a few weeks (preferably a few months). During the main part of this correction, I did manage to get out of all of my stocks and into some of the 'down' ETF's like HXD and HSD so I actually minimized my losses and made a bit of money during the worst days. Just when I thought the correction would last for a bit, a couple of strong days led me to get rid of the down ETF's and back into stocks.

YTD at the end of May, I was still up 2.5%. This is behind my goal of a 1% gain per month for the year but not bad considering the markets are down YTD for the most part. The goal is to make as much money as possible but to outperform the markets themselves may be a more realistic goal since most people don't do that successfully.

Currently, many of the stocks I follow are in 'don't hold' territory - stocks like Agrium, RIM, Westjet, CP Rail, Baytex, Manulife, Manitoba Telecom, and many others - but I have been buying some other stocks recently.

I currently own BCE, Enbridge Income Fund, Encana, Loblaw, Riocan Income Fund, Rogers Communication, Silver Wheaton, and the ETF's HGU (double gold stocks up) and HSU (double US S&P up). Many of these stocks had a very bad June 1 but bounced back nicely on June 2. This type of volatility is not for the faint of heart and, as I said earlier, is not good for my investing strategy as it gives me many false buys and sells.

For the most part, the securities I own are currently even to up a bit, although this can change quickly. Many investing professionals (such as the ones on CNBC and BNN) are recommending to sell securities into any strength and to sit in cash until the end of the summer. The 'sell in May and stay away' strategy is well known as a summer strategy but I will continue my method and hope for either a summer rally or a correction (as long as we don't get one day up, the next day down I am pretty happy).

I don't think my 1% per month gain average is realistic now, and I am now hoping for .5% per month for the year, which will still substantially outpace fixed income (and the markets themselves, at this point). Of course, the year isn't quite half over yet so anything could happen, but 'an outbreak of stability' doesn't appear to be coming anytime soon, with European debt crises, Korean political problems, the BP oil spill, Chinese weakness, and other issues weighing the markets down. While most people do want the markets to go up, it seems to be much easier to trigger big market sell-offs on bad news (even if it is not really even THAT bad).

May 2010 was only my second down month in the last 19 months (October 2009 was the other one, and I had one EVEN month), so I guess that isn't too bad considering the shape the markets have been in during most of that time. I will continue to use my method, and see where that takes me. You just have to learn to take a deep breath some days, and take it (the losses) in stride.