After a good gain on Monday and up and down days on Tuesday through Thursday, the week looked okay. That was until the massive sell-off on Friday. Not many of the securities that I held went below the 50-day moving averages but some of them did sell on Friday after I had set stop-losses under them to protect the gains I have already made. After having a great January in 2013 and then losing it all in the following months, I am trying to do better at conserving gains once they are made.
At the end of this week, I am still 71% invested and the rest is in cash, ready to deploy. I was down .67% for the week overall, while the Dow, by comparison, was down 3.5% for the week. If the market continues to slide, I will, no doubt, sell more things as they hit their sell signals, and I can always buy them back later when the buy signals come back.
One thing about using moving averages is that you want the market to pick a direction and keep moving in that direction for a while. That way, the averages have time to catch up and new buy or sell signals can be set up. If the corrections are too short-lived, the buy and sell signals come quickly after one another, and it is a bit frustrating. While I am not exactly trying to 'time the market', I also don't want to sit in securities while they plummet - it can take months or years for them to come back, if ever.
I still hold many precious metals securities - HBU (gold bullion), HGU (gold stocks), ZJG (gold small cap stocks), YRI, K, and MTO. I also own other miners like TKO (copper), PDN (uranium), S (various), FM, and LIM (iron ore).
My holdings are rounded out by DWI (sold some at higher levels, then bought it back after it dropped), EMA, LTS, LW, and MBT.
For Monday, there are a few securities that are at buy signals that I am looking at, depending on how the market looks - HBU (considering buying more, because even if the price of gold moves up, gold stocks could easily get caught in the downdraft), HOU (oil is looking stronger), HSD (down goes the DOW), XVX (has the TSX-V exchange bottomed?), and TLM (takeover rumours, but stock is near its recent highs).
With the way last week ended, I am a little skittish about putting more money into the market BUT buying when everyone else is selling is a great way to get the securities at lower prices. You know the old adage - "Stocks are the only thing that people don't want to buy when they are on sale". It is hard to go against this, but following the moving averages does help to take much of the emotion out of investing, which is one of the keys to good profits.
For 2014, I am up 8.28% YTD, so I am still pretty happy with that.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Friday, January 17, 2014
A Great Week for My Stocks :)
For the 5 trading days this week, I am up about 7.1% overall - an exceptional return for one week (many would be satisfied with this return for a whole year). The challenge is to pare back holdings of good performing stocks and selling some of them into strength to lock in gains. Right now, I am over 95% invested in securities (more than I would like, but I follow what the graphs tell me), and it worked out well last week. I ended last week 78% invested in securities (by securities, I mean stocks and ETF's).
As I mentioned on Monday, this week began with the Goldcorp offer for OSK, and I sold my shares into the offer at the end of day. I said at the time that I thought the offer would be improved but wanted to deploy the money elsewhere - OSK is a bit higher now than where I sold it at 6.25 but not much.
Another gold stock I hold - AUQ - actually went up MORE since its January 9th close than OSK has (33% vs. 31%) and that is WITHOUT a takeover offer for AUQ. Due to this rapid increase, I sold half of my position yesterday and half of the remaining shares again today. I kept some OSK in case it keeps going up, but I wanted to lock in gains.
Note: While I do use the 50-day moving average (MA) line to decide when to buy stocks (and usually when to sell them), if they exceed my target price (especially if done rapidly, on no news), then I have no problem locking in gains. I didn't sell them outright - I put in tight stop losses on them - but they sold on dips.
Right now, gold securities are doing well, and I bought the ones I did because their price passed upwards through their 50-day MA. I still hold HGU (gold stock ETF), ZJG (small cap gold stocks ETF), YRI (large producer), and smaller producers SAS and MTO. The last two are the most speculative but both are current gold producers and MTO, in particular, has been growing their monthly production steadily all last year and they produced over 4,500 oz of gold in December.
I also own some base metal plays, which also hit buy signals recently - FM, LIM, PDN (uranium), TKO, SLW, and S.
A stock I wrote about on Monday - DWI (Dragonwave) - announced earnings this week and also announced a new contract with 'a large US carrier' but did not give a value for the contract. A couple of days later, DWI not only announced a deal with a company to sell their products to the Chinese market (which is growing out cell networks rapidly and needs lots of hardware), but the first sales under this contract have already been delivered. Needless to say, DWI jumped on this news and has largely kept the gains throughout the rest of the week. I sold about 15% of my DWI that I purchased at lower levels to lock in some gains, but still hold the rest.
To round out my holdings, I have EMA, SLF, CR, LTS, L, and MBT, Of all of the securities I own right now, none are showing sell signals - they are all holds except LIM and LTS that are current buys (I already have some of each so I won't buy more right now).
This fantastic week for me was during a week that the overall stock markets (especially in the US) didn't do that great, but that is largely due to my gold and base metals holdings. I also saw a story today about how there may be a shortage of physical gold and how this could really drive up gold prices if people start demanding physical delivery of their gold. While all of this news is good for the gold stocks I hold, it isn't the reason that I bought them in the first place, as I simply follow the moving average.
I could easily give back some of this week's gains once trading resumes this week, but it sure feels good to have such a good week. I am up 6 days in a row now, and 8 of the last 9.
As I mentioned on Monday, this week began with the Goldcorp offer for OSK, and I sold my shares into the offer at the end of day. I said at the time that I thought the offer would be improved but wanted to deploy the money elsewhere - OSK is a bit higher now than where I sold it at 6.25 but not much.
Another gold stock I hold - AUQ - actually went up MORE since its January 9th close than OSK has (33% vs. 31%) and that is WITHOUT a takeover offer for AUQ. Due to this rapid increase, I sold half of my position yesterday and half of the remaining shares again today. I kept some OSK in case it keeps going up, but I wanted to lock in gains.
Note: While I do use the 50-day moving average (MA) line to decide when to buy stocks (and usually when to sell them), if they exceed my target price (especially if done rapidly, on no news), then I have no problem locking in gains. I didn't sell them outright - I put in tight stop losses on them - but they sold on dips.
Right now, gold securities are doing well, and I bought the ones I did because their price passed upwards through their 50-day MA. I still hold HGU (gold stock ETF), ZJG (small cap gold stocks ETF), YRI (large producer), and smaller producers SAS and MTO. The last two are the most speculative but both are current gold producers and MTO, in particular, has been growing their monthly production steadily all last year and they produced over 4,500 oz of gold in December.
I also own some base metal plays, which also hit buy signals recently - FM, LIM, PDN (uranium), TKO, SLW, and S.
A stock I wrote about on Monday - DWI (Dragonwave) - announced earnings this week and also announced a new contract with 'a large US carrier' but did not give a value for the contract. A couple of days later, DWI not only announced a deal with a company to sell their products to the Chinese market (which is growing out cell networks rapidly and needs lots of hardware), but the first sales under this contract have already been delivered. Needless to say, DWI jumped on this news and has largely kept the gains throughout the rest of the week. I sold about 15% of my DWI that I purchased at lower levels to lock in some gains, but still hold the rest.
To round out my holdings, I have EMA, SLF, CR, LTS, L, and MBT, Of all of the securities I own right now, none are showing sell signals - they are all holds except LIM and LTS that are current buys (I already have some of each so I won't buy more right now).
This fantastic week for me was during a week that the overall stock markets (especially in the US) didn't do that great, but that is largely due to my gold and base metals holdings. I also saw a story today about how there may be a shortage of physical gold and how this could really drive up gold prices if people start demanding physical delivery of their gold. While all of this news is good for the gold stocks I hold, it isn't the reason that I bought them in the first place, as I simply follow the moving average.
I could easily give back some of this week's gains once trading resumes this week, but it sure feels good to have such a good week. I am up 6 days in a row now, and 8 of the last 9.
Monday, January 13, 2014
Market Uncertain, But Almost Fully Invested
All the pundits and business TV channels are talking doom and gloom right now and are predicting corrections in the US stock market of 10 - 15%, and they are also predicting that gold will fall further. Well, listening to this 'news' isn't part of my investing strategy, thankfully, and I simply need to follow the moving averages and watch the graphs.
As of yesterday, I am a bit over 78% invested right now, with the rest in cash (but with a few more securities showing a BUY signal. I am holding quite a few precious metal securities right now - HGU, SLW, AUQ, and YRI and I just sold OSK today. I had bought OSK on Dec 30 at 4.71 during tax loss selling (when it showed a buy signal) and sold it today at 6.23 after Goldcorp made an unsolicited bid for OSK. The final price paid for the OSK shares will likely be higher but since it is tied to G's share price (and I already have enough other gold stocks), I decided to sell my OSK and move on.
I also have some base metal securities - PDN, FM, LIM, and SAS and oil & gas stocks like CR and LTS. Rounding out my securities holdings are SLF, EMA, LW, and MBT.
I am more heavily weighted in base metals and precious metals overall than I would like to be at any one time but the bottom line is that I follow the buy signals and right now there are a lot of them in these areas. The US markets and Canadian financials have been going down lately, and I have not been in those markets since I sold my shares to lock in gains (sold HFU, HSU, and HQU).
There are a few securities that I am looking to pick up tomorrow (new BUY signals), including MEG, S, and ZJG (junior gold ETF, that I may not buy since I already have a few gold stocks). G is also a new buy, but having just sold my OSK (that will likely turn into G shares when the takeover is approved), I may avoid G.
A few of my current holdings are also close to a SELL signal, including LIM and LTS but I won't let go of them until their share price goes below the 50-day average, as is my guideline.
If stocks DO correct, then even if the price of gold bullion goes up, the price of gold shares may follow the market down, but I will just keep an eye on the charts and make that decision when the time comes.
Lastly, another of my holdings - DWI - has done pretty well the last month or so and they came out with earnings today after the close. They lost money in the quarter but less than expected, and they also announced a new contract with a large US wireless carrier (although they didn't give the contract value), so I think it may go up a bit tomorrow (it isn't close to the moving average line, so no real danger right now). This stock has suffered lately but looks to have bottomed about a month ago and this new contract should really help them out.
Until next time...
As of yesterday, I am a bit over 78% invested right now, with the rest in cash (but with a few more securities showing a BUY signal. I am holding quite a few precious metal securities right now - HGU, SLW, AUQ, and YRI and I just sold OSK today. I had bought OSK on Dec 30 at 4.71 during tax loss selling (when it showed a buy signal) and sold it today at 6.23 after Goldcorp made an unsolicited bid for OSK. The final price paid for the OSK shares will likely be higher but since it is tied to G's share price (and I already have enough other gold stocks), I decided to sell my OSK and move on.
I also have some base metal securities - PDN, FM, LIM, and SAS and oil & gas stocks like CR and LTS. Rounding out my securities holdings are SLF, EMA, LW, and MBT.
I am more heavily weighted in base metals and precious metals overall than I would like to be at any one time but the bottom line is that I follow the buy signals and right now there are a lot of them in these areas. The US markets and Canadian financials have been going down lately, and I have not been in those markets since I sold my shares to lock in gains (sold HFU, HSU, and HQU).
There are a few securities that I am looking to pick up tomorrow (new BUY signals), including MEG, S, and ZJG (junior gold ETF, that I may not buy since I already have a few gold stocks). G is also a new buy, but having just sold my OSK (that will likely turn into G shares when the takeover is approved), I may avoid G.
A few of my current holdings are also close to a SELL signal, including LIM and LTS but I won't let go of them until their share price goes below the 50-day average, as is my guideline.
If stocks DO correct, then even if the price of gold bullion goes up, the price of gold shares may follow the market down, but I will just keep an eye on the charts and make that decision when the time comes.
Lastly, another of my holdings - DWI - has done pretty well the last month or so and they came out with earnings today after the close. They lost money in the quarter but less than expected, and they also announced a new contract with a large US wireless carrier (although they didn't give the contract value), so I think it may go up a bit tomorrow (it isn't close to the moving average line, so no real danger right now). This stock has suffered lately but looks to have bottomed about a month ago and this new contract should really help them out.
Until next time...
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