Saturday, February 8, 2014

February Starts as January Ends

Well, another tough week for my investments this week.  Ahead of Monday's big drop, I was not only mostly out of equities but I was also in some of the 'negative' ETF's, as they had signaled a buy.  This looked great on Monday but then the market came back for the rest of the week, more than making up for Monday's losses (my gains).  The markets seem very uncertain right now so I am not sure why they aren't still correcting, but that is the nonsensical part of investing in the markets.  When using moving averages, I want the markets to pick a direction (up or down, I don't care) and keep going in that direction for awhile.  When the markets have swings from positive to negative, that is what creates a lot of false buys and sells and causes problems for my method.


YTD, my return is still positive, at 3.8%.  This still compares well with the TSX YTD return, which stands at 1.2% for 2014.  My goal is to stay ahead of this index, but weeks like this past one won't help me.


At this point, I am 69% invested in equities.  I do have a sell signal on one of my ETF's - HQU - so if it continues to go down on Monday (ie. the Nasdaq goes up), then I will sell it.  A similar ETF - HSD - is also close to a sell signal.


A few of the securities I hold are at buy signals right now (I will hold, but won't buy more at this point) - HBU, DWI, and PDN.  The signal is bullish but I already bought these at similar levels so I won't buy more of them at this time.


My portfolio also includes gold miners BTO and MTO, commodity miners PDN, TKO and LIM, energy stocks LTS and PD, and utility EMA.


There are a few securities that closed with a buy signal on Friday that I will take a look at on Monday, including HEU, HQU (the opposite of the HQD I hold), HZU (silver ETF that really interests me), XVX, CCO, MEG, T, TBE, and WIN.


I get into some bad habits sometimes (trying to day-trade), which I did this week and it cost me.  It looks like easy money but it is really hard trying to decide when to get in and out, so I need to stick to my strategy that worked for the early part of this year.  Up and down markets may be in the cards, though, for the next few months, and this makes it very hard for my strategy.

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