Merry Christmas Everyone

While Christmas is a great time to spend time with family, it is a pretty boring time for stock trading. With the low volumes last week and more low volumes expected for the upcoming week, things can be pretty slow. That said, the hope for a 'Santa Claus rally' this year is high - given that 3 times out of 4 when the markets are up over 10% so far in the year, the markets gain during this week, averaging a gain of almost 1%. With the markets declining last year in the week following Christmas, it has more people optimistic about this year. For me, the more other people are optimistic the more I am pessimistic, as things never seem to happen if everyone expects it to.

My portfolio was up slightly last week, and I am at a 7.8% return for the year so far. I am behind the major market averages but I didn't have to stomach many of the large swings that the market experienced.

Currently, I am about 56% in securities with the remainder in cash (waiting to be deployed). My current holdings are BIN, ECA, HSE, HSU, OCX, PBN, PWF, S, SC, SLW, T, TCW, TRP, WJA, and YLO. There are a few buys for the market open on Dec 28 - ECA, WJA, and YLO that I already own, and I think I will buy some TCM. Thompson Creek has been performing well lately and since I don't own any I will try to buy some next week, since the current price is pretty close to the 40-day moving average.

One more week (3 days, actually) to go, and we can wrap up our returns for 2010.

Less than 2 weeks until the end of 2010...

With the year coming to an end, the evaluation of the returns from 2010 can begin in earnest. Did your portfolio beat the indices? Did you feel confident enough in the markets to leave your money invested through all the ups and downs? Did you take some money out of stocks and put it in bonds instead?

For me, I am at a YTD return of 7.5% so far this year, so I am behind the major indices a bit but I haven't had to stomach much of the roller-coaster ride the markets took (since I am less invested invested in stocks when the market is weak and more invested when it is strong - but rarely ever fully invested).

I didn't buy any fixed income at all - I looked into it but I couldn't find anything guaranteed that would give me more than .5%, even on a $100,000 deposit. So, I decided that it was best for me to leave it in cash, ready to invest in equities when the moving average graphs dictated it.

Right now, I am about 38% invested in equities. They include BIN, HSE, OCX, OSK, PWF, QBR.B, S, T, TCW, TRP and YLO (about half of which I only bought yesterday and today). All signs point to the markets moving upward but I am always skeptical when everyone seems to agree on the direction that the market will take (it usually goes the other way). I will keep following the moving averages, buying and selling as they indicate, so I may very well be buying more equities on Monday.

Most of the ETF's that I follow (for commodities and the market indices) are in the 'hold' territory but I don't currently own any of them since I got stopped out on temporary weakness. This has me re-thinking my practice of putting in manual trailing stops and thinking about strictly sticking to the moving averages to sell. This is hard to do, however, as you often have to watch your gains evaporate before things move back up again.

I started the year with the goal of achieving a return of 1% per month, or 12% for the year, and I won't hit that target. It does look like I will hit my revised goal of 0.5% per month (or 6% return for the year, and I may even hit 8% if the year ends well.

I likely won't post again before the end of 2010 but I may post if I get some time over the holidays. In any case, I will try to post early in the New Year to summarize my 2010 results.

Will there be a Santa Claus Rally this year?

As we approach the end of 2010, I am sitting at a YTD overall return of 6.3%. After it was clear that I would not reach my goal of a 1% per month return, and I lowered my goal to 1/2% per month, it would seem that I am on track to reach that goal (but the year is not over yet).

I am currently about 61% invested in securities (the rest in cash). I currently hold the following ETFs and stocks: BCE, FTT, HEU, HFU, HQU, HSU, HXU, PWF, QBR.B, RUS, SLW, SU, YLO, ENF.UN and PMZ.UN.

I am sorry to say that I was holding COS.un on Friday when they announced their distribution cut and the gap down at the open went below my stop loss so I lost quite a bit there. I sold out near the end of the day, due to the uncertainty that they face moving into 2011. It will, no doubt, recover somewhat but I don't want to hold it any more.

I am looking at a few securities for Monday - HJU, HNU (although investing in natural gas is not for the faint of heart), and CP. I still want to be invested these days since bad news (mostly about European debt) has not been crushing the market lately as much as it had before. That seems to indicate market strength, to some extent, although I am still only relying on the moving average graphs to decide what to buy and how long to hold it. I still don't rely much on market news at all, although good news (or the lack of bad news) can certainly help you sleep at night.

While 2010 hasn't been spectacular, most of the markets have done reasonably well so I don't expect alot of tax-loss selling at the end of the year. This should help the markets close out the year strong and move into the early part of 2011 in good shape.

We will see what the next few weeks hold, to see how our final 2010 numbers look.