Tim Pim Blog

How do you make money without picking tops and bottoms?

I am glad you asked…

Successful trading is similar to a successful business. You see, every successful business has a business plan so do successful traders. The astute reader knows that, successful traders have a systematic way they approach the market.

The definition of a trading system is a trader’s business plan; it defines your approach to trading…

1. A properly constructed trading system will leave no room for human judgment
2. It will define your actions given any circumstances that may arise.
3. It is a distinct set of rules
4. Which instructs the trader what to do and when to do it.

The importance of this trading plan cannot be understated. Without a consistent set of guiding principles to govern your trading decisions, most traders will hop from one trade to the next, guided by emotion or hysteria.

I firmly believe that not having a plan, you are doomed to fail.

Trading systems themselves will come in many varieties, although they all take the guesswork out of trading. A trading system will determine for you when to buy or sell. System trading has proven itself consistently to be the most effective long-term trading technique.

In fact, you may have even heard the story about one of the most famous system traders of all time, Richard Dennis. It just so happened, in mid 1983, Dennis was having an ongoing dispute with his long time friend Bill Eckhardt about whether great traders were born or made. Dennis believed that trading could be broken down into a set of rules that others could learn. On the other hand, Eckhardt believed trading had more to do with innate instincts, and this skill comes naturally.

In order to settle the matter, Richard suggested that they recruit and train some traders and give them actual accounts to trade to see which one of them was correct. He named his protégés after visiting turtle farms in Singapore; he decided to grow traders similar to the way farmers cultivated turtles, hence the name: Turtles.

To cut a long story short, Dennis taught his trading methodology to these groups of students who later became some of the most successful traders of all time; proving finally, that anyone can become skilled at system trading.

Just like the turtles, I too have studied under a mentor who tutored me in the science of trading. Now, I pass these secrets on to you.

A trading system is simply a set of rules that address every aspect of a trade such as entry and exit conditions and money management. Regardless of how complex it may be, a good test for your trading plan is to hand it to someone else to read thoroughly. See if your selected candidate asks questions. If they can easily understand all the rules and the requirements of your strategy with little to no questions, then you have compiled a sound investment plan.

All successful traders that I meet do this and they have their exact trading methodology written down.

Since most traders lose money and do not have their trading methodology written down, does not it make sense to do what the masses are not doing? If you are trading now and have not taken the time to write out methodology, then stop trading and get it done!

Why is it so important? When you take time to sit down and spell out how you perceive the markets, you are accepting the fact that you might be wrong. You are beginning to accept responsibility. Once you write down how you perceive the market, the only conclusion you can arrive at, if the market does not behave according to what you wrote, is that your perception is wrong. When you write down how you are going to enter a trade, only if certain events transpire, you eliminate any possibility of blaming the market. You are forcing yourself to have discipline.

In other words, if you determined that certain bullish signs show up in your market then you enter into a long position. If these prior events occur, and you did not enter the trade, that failure is your fault.

The Components of Your Trading Plan:

A business plan has set components; so does a trading plan. In fact, there are three major components within any trading plan and they are entry, exits and money management rules; here is a quick summary:

1. Tested Entry Rules

– Entry rules are a precise set of rules that an instrument must pass before you enter a trade. Entry rules should be simple, direct, and leave no room for human judgment.

2. Confidential Money Management Rules

– Perhaps the most important and least addressed aspect of trading is the ability to manage risk. A profitable trader is one who has the ability to manage the risks associated with trading. A trading system should define exactly how much money you are willing to lose on any given trade.

3. Tested Exits Rules

– Entering a share is all to no avail if you do not know when to exit a position. Having rules that defines your exit is equally important as one that defines your entry.

When you take time to write down your trading rules, you transform your mental reality to a physical reality. You cannot fudge the numbers, or avoid taking responsibility.

By writing down your methodology, you are forcing yourself to create a series of decisions based on how you see the markets and this my friend is just the beginning.

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Trade Selection: Choosing what stock to trade and when to trade it is key to consistent trading success.

What to trade: Stick with market leaders.

Trade Selection suggests components of the S&P 500 index.

At first glance, it seems like such a daunting, overwhelming process. After all, just how
many stocks are out there, anyway? Can we tell when a particular stock is poised to move?
Is there an optimum time to act?

There are approximately 2,000 stocks listed on the NYSE, another 1,000 on the AMEX, and
perhaps another 75,000 on the NASDAQ.

Fortunately, computers, being the incredibly fast idiots that they are, can sort them all
out for us by whatever criteria we choose. However, trade selection demands that we trim
the list down to some workable amount.

Also, keep in mind, not all stocks are alike when it comes to tradability. Some markets
have depth and liquidity and accommodate large positions with ease. Others, lacking the
same characteristics, are so thinly traded they seem to trade “by appointment only”.

“Thin” markets are not only difficult when acquiring positions at favorable
executions but they are absolute “nightmares” when it comes to liquidating positions.
“Execution” is a good name for it!

Even the most liquid of market leaders “gap” unceremoniously when conditions are right,
such as unexpected news, events, etc.

When to trade: Monitor changes in relative strength rankings.

Many investors won’t make a move until they read the latest quarterly report. These are the
“fundamentalists”. They have to see everything confirmed in print.

The problem is not with the reports, but the timing. Financial statements, so
carefully prepared by the companys’ auditors, are reporting past results and
conditions.

When the reports come out for all to see, we know what everyone else knows. Knowing what
everyone else knows is worth nothing. The market runs on future time.

There’s an old saying, “If you see a Swiss banker jump out a window…follow him. He’s
probably going to make a fortune on the way down.”

Big money tends to be smart money. They’re in position to know things before the rest of
us. That’s just the way it is. No surprises there.

If you know how things are going, you don’t have to wait for the reports. You know it’s
going to be good or bad and you act.

When enough money moves a market, enough to change its relative strength ranking, chances
are “smart” money is doing the moving. And they’re “fading” the market. They’re selling
into rising prices or buying into declining prices.

Conclusion: They must have their reasons.

Trade Selection dictum: It’s not necessary to know what they know, in order to do what
they do. As Nike says, “Just do it!”

Professional traders are constantly acting on imperfect information. If they wait until
all information is known, the opportunity will be lost.

Optimum Time to Act:

The optimum BUYS of the year are, in my opinion, to be found among the 5 worst relative
strength performers and the optimum SELLS among the 5 top performers if, as, and when they
begin to change rank in the opposite direction.

Trade Selection: Like a good hunter, patience is not a virtue, it’s a weapon.

The first quarter of 2006 is over. Now is a good time to reflect on stock prices and the opportunities they present.

Bargains are scarce. Equities are expensive. In recent weeks, I’ve heard several fund managers say valuations are still attractive. I don’t agree. Generally speaking, valuations are unattractive. Returns on equity are higher than historical levels. A market-wide return on equity of 15% is unsustainable. Price-to-earnings ratios may not fully reflect how expensive stocks are. Price-to-book ratios are more alarming.

There are two additional concerns. Most discussions of the relative attractiveness of equities focus on the S&P 500 and forward earnings. The S&P 500 is not the most representative index. It may not be the best index to consider when looking at market-wide valuations.

Forward earnings are (necessarily) estimates. Where current returns on equity are unsustainable, projected earnings that use similar returns on equity may overstate the earnings power of equities in general. This can occur even where the estimates appear reasonable given current earnings. If you start with unsustainable base earnings, you are likely to overestimate future earnings even if you truly believe you are assuming very modest earnings growth.

Assets in general are pricey. Value investors have few places to turn if they continue to insist upon a true margin of safety.

Bonds are unattractive. Long-term inflation risks make U.S. treasury, corporate, and municipal bonds a fool’s bet. There is little to gain and much to lose. The know-nothing investor who buys a top-quality bond today and holds it for decades may very well find his purchasing power diminished.

There may be some select opportunities in foreign equities. But, these are difficult to evaluate. Foreign government obligations are also difficult to evaluate, but that isn’t much of a problem for value investors, because most foreign government debt is priced to perfection. You’ll have to be willing to take a lot of uncompensated risks if you want to own such bonds.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. There may be a few bonds out there that are attractive. There certainly are a few attractive stocks out there. But, even those stocks that look very attractive relative to their peers don’t look nearly as attractive when compared to past bargains.

Value investors face a difficult choice. They can assume stock prices will return to historical levels, and hold cash until the correction comes. Or, they can accept the reality they currently face.

There is no logical reason stock prices must necessarily return to historical levels. During the twentieth century, real after-tax returns in diversified groups of common stocks were very high relative to other investment opportunities. There have been various reasons given for why this occurred. Many have said these returns were possible, because of the higher risks involved in holding equities. Over the long-term, risks were somewhat higher than today’s investors seem to remember, but they were hardly severe enough to justify the kind of performance spreads that existed during much of the twentieth century.

True, if you bought at inopportune times, it was possible to remain in a fairly deep hole for a fairly long time. But, if you gave no real consideration to the timing of your purchases or the prospects of the underlying enterprises, you did better than many bondholders who chose their investments with the utmost care.

This is a disconcerting problem. It may be that most investors are overly sensitive to the risk of an immediate “paper” loss in nominal terms, and therefore overlook the much greater risk of a gradual loss of purchasing power. Issuing fixed dollar obligations may be the best bet for any business or government that seeks to swindle investors.

For the sake of the common stockholders, I hope many of the best businesses continue to issue such obligations when money is cheap. Corporate debt gets a bad name, because it tends to be overused by those who don’t need it and shouldn’t want it (and, of course, by those businesses that do need it but won’t survive even if they get it). The businesses that would benefit the most from the use of debt usually appear to have more cash than they could ever need. But, it’s best to think ahead. For truly high quality businesses, the cost of capital will fluctuate far more wildly than the likely returns on capital.

If, during the last hundred years, stocks really were far cheaper than they should have been, is there any reason to believe stock prices will return to past levels? The past is often a pretty good predictor of the future - but, not always. It’s difficult to say whether, over the next few decades, valuations will, on average, be higher or lower than they are today. However, it isn’t all that difficult to say whether, at some point over the next few decades, valuations will be higher or lower than they are today. The answer to that question is almost certainly yes. They will be higher and they will be lower. Maybe for a few years or a few months. Maybe for a full decade. I don’t know.

What I do know is that value investors will have opportunities to make investments with a true margin of safety. But, should they wait?

That’s the most difficult question. Today, I am not finding opportunities that look particularly attractive when compared to the best opportunities of past years. But, I am still able to find a few (in fact, a very few) situations where the expected annual rate of return is greater than 15%.

That will be more than enough to beat the market. It will also likely be enough to provide a material increase in after-tax purchasing power. That’s not guaranteed, but it hardly seems holding cash would offer the better odds in this regard.

So, is an expected annual rate of return of 15% good enough? Is it reasonable to bet on the good opportunity that is currently available instead of waiting for the great opportunity that may yet become available?

I’ll leave that for you to decide.

Copyright 2006 Geoff Gannon

Geoff Gannon writes a daily value investing blog and produces a twice weekly (half hour) value investing podcast at:
http://www.gannononinvesting.com

Jewelry

The advantages are:

• Gold Jewelry is the easiest of the gold to buy and has the enjoyment of being able to be worn.

The disadvantages are:

• Retail Jewelry is often marked up by 300% or more in the shops.

• The real value of Jewelry is in the stones and the value is higher then of the gold.

• Most gold jewelry pieces are different and their values are biased.

Bullion coins and Small Bars

Advantages:

• Gold coins and small bars are considered a liquid market, so sellers and buyers can be found when you need them.

• They are easier obtained for smaller investors. Gold coins can be purchased smaller amounts of money (a 1 kilo gold bar starts over$10,000)

• Genuine gold coins have the endorsement of a government mint which has a degree of guarantee to them.

Disadvantages:

• The possibility of fakes that can only be spotted by dealers.

• The difference between buying and selling price of gold coin and small bar is significant vs. most types of investments.

Gold coins and small bars can good gold investment method for people with sums from $100 to $10,000 especially for people who view physical possession as important.

Big bars

Advantages:

• Big bars are traded as a professional market.

• The bars are serial numbered, and usually do not leave the security of industrial strength vaults.

• Fakery appears to have been completely eliminated.

Disadvantages:

• Big gold bars cost big money, around $160,000 each. Not an easy investment for most individuals. In fact to benefit from a competitive standpoint 1 bar is insufficient.

• For the Big gold bars, the smallest trade size the markets will consider exceeds $500,000.

• Big Gold bar trading is for the bigger companies and inaccessible to the private investors.

By Richard Amburn http://www.goldgrow.com Tips on what type of gold investment to buy. http://www.goldgrow.com

Investment scams are so commonplace that they aren’t given nearly enough attention. Most people believe that scams will be so obvious and apparent that they will realize it when they see one, avoid it, and not be a victim. However, scam artists know that they have started to design more devious methods of capturing a reader’s attention and, hopefully, their money as well.

While the Internet is an amazing tool for communication, it is also a large playing field for anonymous scam artists. Many informative newsletters and online message boards are designed to look like investors are the ones writing and recommending various strategies, but in actuality, these can be cleverly designed scams. Without even realizing it, an investor can follow the recommendations and lose their precious funds.

Many of these newsletters and message boards employ people that will write favorable messages about certain stocks. The key is to discern between what sounds good and what really is valuable. When emotions and strong language is used in conjunction with a recommendation, it may be because it is a scam that is trying to lure someone into investing in that particular stock. Of course, not all tips are meant to do that and here are some ways to separate the truth from the fiction.

When an investor is looking into the purchase of a stock, the best way to begin is to look at the company’s financial statements to see how they are doing fiscally. If the income and debts seem in order, the next step for the investor is to call the company to find out if the claims in the newsletter or spam email are correct. Many times, false claims are given in order to lure an investor into a stock purchase. Find out if the claims are true.

An investor can also stop to check to see if the vendors and other businesses promoted to work with the individual company actually do work with the place that wants the investor to buy stocks in. Better said, find out if all of the facts in the email or newsletter are accurate. Putting larger companies’ names in the stock information can look impressive, but the investor needs to be sure that it’s accurate.

Asking questions is vital for the security of the money that is being spent on the stocks. Taking the time to investigate to see if money is actually being made for the investors is all that needs to be done in order to differentiate between fraud and friend.

Most public companies need to register with the SEC and file reports annually as to their growth and progress. These reports have been audited for their accuracy so that stockholders and investors have a truthful picture of the possible growth or decline of that company. This gives an investor assurance that the company has been verifiedand an investor can easily check with the SEC to get this information.

The states securities regulators are another place that can help an investor to determine whether or not a stock company is legitimate and able to sell the stocks that they claim to sell. The NASD can also help in this verification.

The overall message of investor safety is that they can never ask too many questions. Checking in with the growth of the company that someone is thinking of buying stock in is only fair given the money that will be used in the transaction. The investor wants to be sure that their money is working for them.

Joel Arberman is the Managing Member of Stock Aware, LLC. We publish a free investment research and analysis newsletter and offer investor awareness services. Learn more at
StockAware.com.

Should you fire your financial advisor and hire a month in order to optimize your asset allocation?

Probably so, if you believe proponents of a time-honored indicator of future stock market performance known as “The January Barometer.” The Barometer simply states that “As goes January, so goes the year,” and it’s racked up a seemingly remarkable forecasting record since well before Yale Hirsch of Stock Trader’s Almanac first popularized it as early as 1972.

Since 1938, the direction of change of the benchmark S&P in the first month out of the gate has matched the year as a whole more than a whopping 80% of the time, making January by far the most predictive month on the calendar. The results are similarly impressive if you use the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) as a yardstick and, although it somewhat diminishes the accuracy of the forecasting tool, if you assess efficacy over the next 11 or 12 months to avoid double-counting January’s moves in the periods it’s supposed to foreshadow. Dating back to the inception of the NASDAQ Composite Index in 1971, January achieves the greatest success of any month in anticipating the movement of OTC stocks throughout the following 11 or 12 months, and ranks second only to April in its correlation with calendar-year outcomes. Starting from 1950, an up January has meant about a 13% gain in stock prices through the remainder of the year, while opening with a down month presaged about a 1% loss.

Criticisms of The January Barometer

The historical evidence looked even more compelling at the start of this decade, but The January Barometer laid an egg in 3 of the past 5 years. In 2001, a positive January called a premature end to a bear market that got ugly after Al Qaeda suicide hijackers attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon. In 2003, stocks declined in January, continuing a deep correction in the wake of a sharp initial rally off the final bear market low of the previous October, but turned higher in springtime to climb 26.4% by year-end, still the biggest annual gain since the 1990s. Last year, the market fell again in January, only to see the S&P 500 eke out a 3% gain for all of 2005, although the Dow edged down a fraction of a percent. However, the lackluster display by the blue chips actually understated the effect of the Barometer’s error in a year in which smaller stocks outperformed for a 6th straight time and the average equities mutual fund returned a total 9.5%.

Supporters of The January Barometer sometimes point to the 20th Amendment, a piece of Depression-era legislation also known as the “Lame Duck Amendment,” to explain why it works. The 20th Amendment mandates that presidential terms, as well as those of senators and representatives, shall conclude in January, and calls for congress to convene on January 3. Formerly, they didn’t throw the rascals out until March. Despite ratification in early 1933, the amendment didn’t take effect until 1934. Hence the nation was forced to endure 4 months of lame-duck leadership from a by then wildly unpopular Herbert Hoover after the 1932 election, as the Great Depression deepened and Wall Street surrendered the vast bulk of its spectacular gains achieved during the summer of ‘32, following the stock market bottom.

Now, the president delivers his State of the Union Address, highlighting priorities for the year ahead, and unveils his proposed budget in January, making the month particularly influential, or so the theory goes. Of course, they don’t hold national elections every year, and almost all of the leaders are incumbents or politicians with already well-known agendas. If the timing of the presidential inauguration is so important, why didn’t a “March Barometer” foretell stocks’ future before 1934? From 1897 through 1933, the direction taken by the DJIA in January corresponded to the full year’s results 23 times out of 37, versus just 20 of 37 for March. The record throughout that interval stays the same even if you substitute the S&P for the Dow beginning in 1928, the first year they tabulated daily prices for the S&P.

Staunch defenders of the January Barometer like to commence their record keeping in 1938, citing the especially lopsided congressional margins enjoyed by Democrats earlier under the FDR Administration. This smacks of classic backfitting, however. Could the real reason behind the 4-year delay in implementation of their pet prognostic technique instead be the disastrous performance shown by The January Barometer in the 1934-1937 timeframe? In 1934, the S&P jumped a robust 10% in January, only to slide 19% during the next 12 months. If you sold on January’s 4% dip to kick off 1935, you missed a roaring 57% advance. And if a 4% rise in January 1937 enticed you to bite, the stock market’s October 1937 crash left you licking your wounds amid a 41% plunge. Another benefit to choosing 1938 as a starting point, while ignoring the entire 1897-1937 period, rests in the fact that most market years are up years, and the more recent era captures the secular bull markets of 1949-1968 and 1982-2000, leaving out the worst years of the Depression and the relatively dull markets of the first 20 years of the 20th century. In 1897-1937, stocks went up only 23 out of 41 times (56%), compared to 47 of 67 (one year was unchanged), or 70%, subsequently. January historically ranks as the second-strongest calendar month for stocks, trailing only December.

January Barometer’s Notable Failures

Still, in over a century since the advent of reliable daily stock averages, the January Barometer boasts a 72% (78 of 108) success rate, including a level of accuracy approaching 80% during those years in which the market closed higher in January, as was the case this year. Yet the S&P 500, through Friday, February 10, 2006, remains over 1% lower this month after hitting new bull market highs a few short weeks ago. Accordingly, this seems like a good time to examine some of the January Barometer’s most notable failures following those occasions when it appeared to call for further stock price appreciation.

1902: The DJIA established a final bull market peak in June 1901 and continued to edge down slightly in 1902.

1903: Railroad stocks had risen for over 6 years, more than tripling without a serious setback, when they topped in September 1902. Their yearlong bear market was just getting started when 1903 rolled around, and their eventual collapse would drag down the industrials.

1906: Final bull market high in late January, and the DJIA was nearly cut in half before the end of 1907.

1914: A 5-year bear market, which began with an unsuccessful assault on all-time highs in 1909, climaxes in July 1914 when authorities shut down the New York Stock Exchange at the outset of World War I.

1917: After stocks more than double to a November 1916 final top in the first couple of years of the War, in which America gets rich supplying the Allies in Europe, the market drops 40% by December 1917, as direct U.S. involvement in the conflict looms.

1929-31: Stocks crash after an explosive rally in the summer of 1929 caps an 8-year bull run, ushering in the Great Depression. Optimistic investors prematurely bid stocks higher to begin each of the next 2 years, only to regret it.

1934: After more than doubling in less than a year, the new bull market stalls following fresh highs in February 1934.

1937: A March top culminates an advance of nearly 5 years and 372% in the DJIA before the short but severe 1937-38 “Roosevelt Recession,” which saw industrial production fall faster than during 1929-32 and cut the Dow in half.

1946: A last thrust higher following a 10% February correction merely postpones the inevitable. The 129% DJIA gain in a span of more than 4 years culminating in a May 29, 1946 peak grossly understates the extent of the advance leading up to the high. The S&P does significantly better than that, and other averages leave the blue chips in the dust. Railroad stocks nearly triple, and the Dow Jones Utility Average quadruples.

1966: Another bull market launches in the second year of the decade, only to die in the 6th, as the Dow touches 1000 for the first time en route to a February 9, 1966 closing high.

1994: On February 2, the anniversary date that preceded the 1946 correction, and also in the 4th year of a bull market, stocks begin a 10% correction, as in 1946. This time, however, rather than quickly racing to a final top after the correction is over, the stock market trades in a narrow range throughout the rest of the year before busting out higher in 1995.

2001: The 1990s bull market amazingly lasts over 9 years, taking the NASDAQ Composite from a mere 325 to above 5000 in March 1990. After a run like that, the ensuing bear market wasn’t nearly complete despite a reflex rally in early 2005.

What Can be Learned?

Are there any lessons we can take from the 14 notable failures of the January Barometer described above?

Six of the examples (1902, 1903, 1917, 1930, 1931, 2001) involve false January rallies that developed in the early stages of bear markets. Clearly, we don’t fit into this category. The bear market following the late 1990s tech-stock mania bottomed on October 9, 2002. Our market attained its subsequent high-to-date just last month.

Could we have already seen the final top, or might the entire advance since 2002 represent nothing more than an elongated bear market rally? The latter possibility would be essentially unheard of, given the amount of time elapsed since the low. Nevertheless, bull markets have been known to expire in a shorter time than the 3 years and 3 months required to trudge to the January 11, 2006 closing highs in the DJIA and S&P.

Almost half of all previous misleadingly bullish Januarys came late in long or powerful bull markets, during the years (1906, 1929, 1934, 1937, 1946, 1966) of their final tops. The latter 3 such cases, like our present situation, all unfolded following “second-year lows,” but served up lengthier and more energetic advances than the 2002-06 bull market so far. The 2-month, 12% bounce in the S&P from its low last October 13 would represent an uncharacteristically brief and anemic concluding bull leg, especially anticlimactic on the heels of a flat year. Unlike 1946, 1965-66 and 1994, we haven’t seen a 10% market decline in some time. The largest correction the market could muster in 2005 was on the order of 7%. The less-than-stellar 52% maximum improvement in the closing price of the Dow since its October 9, 2002 trough is also tepid by bull market standards. As in 1942-46, the S&P is ahead of the DJIA, and broader indexes have crushed both blue-chip measures, but the S&P’s reluctance thus far to challenge its all-time high, unlike the Dow after it was similarly cut in half 100 years ago, further attests to the underachieving nature of the existing bull.

Still, this bull market is undeniably long in the tooth, and enough time remains in 2006 to set up a final top and then possibly stage a decline big enough to make a liar of The January Barometer for a 4th time in 6 years.

James Flanagan is a widely known specialist in the field of financial market forecasting and analysis. Using a proprietary, complete database of price history and the methods of W.D. Gann, he has been publishing his forecasts and investment research since 1990 (Past Present Futures newsletter). James oversees all of the research for the Financial, Stock, and Commodity Markets at Gann Global Financial. You can visit his website: www.gannglobal.com
View their website at: www.gannglobal.com