Portfolio Performance for October 2008

Drawdown city. Stay in this game long enough and you'll encounter months like September/October. In fact, they happen so infrequently...it's almost like recalling a memorable storm from years back. I still remember the panic my mom went into whenever there was a hurricane in the Gulf. She'd stock up on food, plot the hurricane on those maps the National Hurricane Center would give out, and fret, fret, fret. 99% of those hurricanes would peter out, stall, or miss us entirely. But, she still remembered living through the devastation of Hurricane Carla...and felt the fear every summer 30+ years later.

The human mind is a funny, funny thing...behaving binary with pain. If you've never experienced the pain of a hurricane, snowstorm, loss of a loved one, or the falling knife of the market...you're set to 0. You operate without fear. But, once you experience the pain...you're set to 1. And everything you do from that point forward is now based off that pain. Based off that switch.

And that switch is a bugger to reset. Most people can't do it. The instant the pain hits they begin tweaking their life as if the odds of experiencing that pain again has increased to a 100% certainty. Funny part is...

• the odds of experiencing the pain hasn't increased
• all those tweaks won't do a thing to prevent future pain.

Smart people get stuck in this trap...a lot!

What's my point? Invest in the market knowing the worst will happen. The foundation of your investment strategy should be able to withstand the storm. If you're busy tweaking your strategy right now in an attempt to avoid the next storm, trying to pick and choose your investment spots, thinking all the work you're doing will sidestep the next storm because you figured out how to handle this storm...then your bit is set to 1. And this cowboy quote likely fits:

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

And with that the performance charts for the month of October 2008.






We're experiencing a fairly hefty drawdown as is the market. I've received several exit signals over the past 2 months. At one of the highest level of cash since investing in the market. And doing nothing but patiently waiting out the storm.

That, and preparing for a cold Missouri winter.

Later Trades,

MT

Portfolio Performance for September 2008

September came and went. October brought the perfect storm...I guess. Looking forward to October's portfolio performance in relation to the market...to see how bad things really are. Until then...let's cover September's performance.

September's VAMI


September's ROI


As you can see, not a great month of performance. And while the downside doesn't feel good...my greatest concern is the upside that will come. When it does...the portfolio will lag the market due to the relatively high level of cash. But, nothing we can do...but be patient and allow the system to do its job.

Last thing you want to do during turbulent times is hit the panic button. Or worse, try to figure this market out. You don't figure a hurricane out while you're in the middle of it. Don't buy a generator, food, and flood insurance during a hurricane. Those are things you buy prior. The only thing you can do when the storm hits is batten down the hatches and hope you prepared enough for the damage to come. After the storm is over...reassess what you did right and what was lacking. Oh, and clear those fallen trees from your portfolio.

On a side note...I've spent the weekend putting together a new office. I've bought several office pieces and trying to find the optimal setup. Once I've got everything moved in...I'll share some pics of the new digs.

Later trades,

MT

Portfolio Performance for August 2008

Some very nice weather happening here in Missouri. In fact, in all my life I've never had weather like this in August/September timeframe.

Back in Texas, it's usually some of the hottest times of the year. But, feels like Fall already in Mid-Mo.

Can't wait to see the leaves turn colors. Of course, my kids are looking forward to piles of leaves to jump and play
in.

Maybe this weather change will bring the market out of the doldrums. By the way, the picture above was taken while visiting the Devil's Ice Box.

And now for the August returns...






Still, nothing going on with the market or the trading system. Though, plenty to do with the system testing platform. I'm exploring the numpy library for python to determine how big a role this library should play in the platform's architecture. For those curious...check out my delicious bookmarks on numpy.


Later Trades,

MT

Sector Allocations for August 2008

Quick look at the sector allocations for the portfolio. Please note that cash is not included in the breakdown. Next on my development list.

MT

Portfolio Performance for July 2008

July ended with a surgery for yours truly. I had my gallbladder removed. I had a rough few days of recovery but starting to feel normal again.

I had a set back this month in regard to the testing platform. The redesign has severely extended the simulation runtime. So, I've spent much of my time finding the bottlenecks of the code and determining the optimal solutions. Very thankful python has such great profiling tools at the ready.

You know, performance tuning code is sure a lesson in humility. All my years of programming...I feel I should have a good handle on the slow areas of my code. It only takes a profiling report to show how wrong I am.

Very similar to trading the market. Trading decisions are based on our experience. Where we think the money-making opportunities are. Only takes a simple backtest to showcase how wrong we are.


And with that...some charts for the month of July...





Not a whole lot of movement in the portfolio occurred the month of July. Just another month of sitting and waiting. Letting the system do what it does best...waiting for the market's next move.

Later trades,

MT

Portfolio Performance for June 2008

June was a great month for the family. My major project came to a successful close. And with that a huge amount of time freed up. With that, we made our first trip back to Texas in 2 years. It was a very nice visit. We were able to see family, play on the lake I grew up on, and enjoy some much needed Texas culture.

June wasn't as great for the portfolio. But, did manage to beat the market for the month by a fairly large margin putting us in the lead for the first time this year. I believe a big reason for this outperformance was due to the pulling of weeds back in March and April. This allowed new positions to take hold in the portfolio garden.

Goals for the month of July?

• Complete the upgrade that will enable testing of multiple systems against a common portfolio. This will allow exploration of various allocation methods. And judge the effects of merging long-term systems (trend capturing) with short-term systems (volatility harvesting).
• Wrap-up the upgrade that allows ranking of signals and existing positions in order to initiate trades.
• Modify how cash is tracked in the testing platform. Currently, cash is a static variable. Goal is to convert cash into a unit series to enable dynamic pricing. This will enable sweep accounts in the portfolios. And allow the switching of cash instruments.

Later Trades,

MT

Portfolio Performance for May 2008

I've been neck deep in one heck of a massive project at work. Today is the first day in months that I've got a breath. And with that breath, I figure I'd post the portfolio's performance from the past few months.



As you can see, the past two months have been the best months of the year for the portfolio. Still not great...but much better than before. In fact, in the chart below, you can see the portfolio's monthly return finally beat the market for the first time this year.



You might have noticed a change in the charts from the prior month's reporting. That's due to a change in Icarra's chart rendering methodology. This new methodology proved more difficult to post images to this blog. So, I rolled my own portfolio software. Which is definitely a work in progress. Over time, I hope to develop the capabilities to track and share more details on trade statistics from this software.

My ultimate goal is to merge my backtesting application with this portfolio software. This way I could compare simulated results with real-time performance.

What are my next investment experiments?

• I'm curious how the elements of permaculture can be used in selecting investment vehicles for the portfolio.
• Would Janet Brown's investment methodology improve my system results?
• When receiving a large number of buys for a given sector...is it better to buy as many stocks as I can under my risk limits? Or more appropriate to opt-out of all the individual stocks and buy an ETF in that sector to capture the obvious sector-based trend?
• Measuring systems that utilize different levels of cash throughout their system life cycle. If system A's performance is better at all conventional levels (Sharpe, ROI, etc.) than system B's...yet system B uses 50% less cash...are the comparisons valid? I don't believe so...but how do you compare then? Via converting unused cash to utilize market-based returns? This is a tough one.

That's it from here where we've had so much rain in Missouri that I'm beginning to think I'm back in East Texas.

Later Trades,

MT

Portfolio Performance for Feb 2008

Another month in drawdown. This is where the lesser experienced would begin to question the validity of their system. Has something stopped working? Did the market change? If you design your strategy based on a helter skelter of methodologies...you may have a point.



But, if you build your system based on capturing the market's inherent behavior: stocks can exceed 100% returns but never exceed 100% loss (unless on margin). Then you know when the market turns south...you'll turn south. Nothing you can do but weather the storm. The fortunate thing is you have allocated your money based on this knowledge...that there will be storms. And you must wait for the storm to pass...the skies to clear...and the markets to return.

Below are the sector breakdowns for the portfolio. The cash level increased 35% from last month's level. Again, the increase in cash will reduce the portfolio's drawdown should the market continue to stall. But, decrease our returns should the market recover.



In fact, you can see in the chart below the difference the cash level is making to the portfolio.



February's drawdown is beginning to slowdown in comparison to the benchmark. As we move further and further into the market's downturn...the portfolio will begin to break off from the benchmark due to the rising cash level.

This rising cash level is due to 29% of the portfolio's positions hitting trailing stops since Jan 1st. In that same timeframe, our new new positions increased by 4%. Is this good or bad? Neither. Just the way the market works.

On a side note...the weather here in Missouri is toying with us. You can tell spring is trying to push it's way in...but the winter isn't giving up without a fight. Crazy thing to be riding bikes in short-sleeves one day and bracing for snow the next. Markets and weather...what fun.

Later Trades,

MT

Portfolio Performance for Jan 2008

I would like to have done a better job at my first portfolio performance post. But, I'm afraid I've been extremely busy at my day job. So, please be patient. My hope for future performance posts is to include much more information about the returns and portfolio breakdown.



One of the difficult items I've found in preparing for posting of portfolio performance is the lack of good tools. I've tried quite a few products the past few months and was about to give up hope until I found Icarra. Sweet product. One of the hardest things to create is a simple product. So many developers miss the mark...the tendency is to focus on the bells and whistles. Icarra hits the mark with it's great charts, sector breakdowns, and ease of trade entry.

This is a good segway into developing a portfolio. As an investor, you have unlimited choices. Question to ask yourself...do you focus on the bells and whistles? Or do you hunker down and keep your choices simple...your strategy simple. If you find yourself changing your portfolio on every market downturn just because you feel like you should be doing something...then maybe it's time to refocus. Are you really improving your portfolio returns? Or just keeping yourself busy?

Now, back to portfolio performance. There are some things to note. I have not entered my actual entry prices into Icarra. Just too much data to sift thru in order to accomplish that. Instead, I have entered all the positions as if I bought them on the last day of 2007 (12/31/2007). From this point forward I will enter all sells, new buys, dividends, interest, etc. into Icarra. But, keep in mind...all performance is based on the clean slate of 2008.

Below is the breakdown of sectors in the portfolio. This is one area that I found some differences in the chart and the actual breakdown in Icarra. But, useful nonetheless. I'll contact Icarra to find the reason for the difference and post in the next performance release.



You can see, I now have a very large cash position in the portfolio. I don't like this, I have to admit. This will cause the portfolio to lag should the market gain back momentum. But, this is the normal process of the system. During market downturns like we've had...the trailing stops are hit and the bugs in the portfolio are killed. Then we have the waiting game for new signals. The goal, of course, is to be 100% invested in the market...that is what generates our returns. But, all seasons have their winters...and this is where we bundle up and wait for the ice to melt.

Another area I want to point out in the sector breakdown is the lack of consistency in the sector weightings. My goal is to have a better balance in the sector weightings. These sector weightings cannot always be controlled due to the nature of the system's signals. Some sectors may be very cold and other sectors can be very hot. Based on the weightings above, the services sector was pretty hot for 2007....and have held up relatively well in the portfolio during our bug killing in the recent market downturn.

Finally, I want to review the monthly returns of the portfolio...



Pretty large differential between the portfolio's monthly returns and the S&P 500's. The system is more volatile than the market and as result drawdowns and gains are larger. This is par for the course with trend following systems in general. It takes a lot of patience to trade a trend following system. Especially, a long-term trend following system. But, I truly believe, that's where the returns are in the long-term.

Can this be improved? Possibly. There are ideas I have yet to test that could trim the portfolio's volatility. And hopefully, I'll get a chance to test these ideas in the months to come.

If you have any questions or would like to see other aspects of the portfolio...drop me a line.

Later trades,

MT

This post is for information and entertainment purposes only. Under no circumstances does this information represent a recommendation to buy or sell securities or any other type of investment instruments.