Sunday, August 18, 2019

Caught off guard. Actively Managed vs Passively Managed

During this summer, we were experimenting with moving away from Actively Managed (daily/weekly) to a relatively less Actively Managed (Monthly), and were caught off guard by the market turbulence in the last couple of weeks!  That does mean anything yet, with just one data-point, while we may continue to experiment another time.  While it is well known that Actively Managed is the way to beat the market and top benchmarks, our goal was/is still to find that Optimal balanced "Routine" of methodical monitoring and management.

In our future post, we will post our Daily and Weekly Routines.  We haven't come to any distinction or specific routine for Monthly and/or Quarterly (however, there is the watching-out for Quarterly Earnings dates for current-positions/holders, which of course is different times/dates for each of the positions).

Looking back at recent turbulence:

If we were to be actively monitoring/managing, we see that August 1st was the clear first indicator and August 2nd was a clear sign to start very closely monitoring and possible even pulling out weakening stocks especially those with little/no profit-cushion.

It was simply by fluke that we got back on the wheels 2 weeks later, only to see Market seemingly sprung back up and down again, within 2 weeks!  We did shed a couple of holdings and added more of those holding up well.
TIP: Those shocks showing resilience against a market down-turn could potentially be big winners when market finally starts a real new uptrend (actually the corollary is more true than this.  Any big winners would have shown resilience against a market turbulence!).


Looking back, we probably would have moved to at least 75%-50% cash, too quick, it so happened that most of our current holdings may not be directly exposed to international economical and Geo-political uncertainties.  Most of the holding simply happen to be "US/Canada domestic", except the couple holding that we shed in the last 2 weeks.

Recent SELLs (during last week+):

SFIX   (3x times usual allowed loss of 1x)
ANTX  (held through earnings due to residual 3x profit cushion that evaporated to 0%)
TTGT  (before earnings due to low profit cushion)
CGNZ  (experimental buy gone bad; wrong/bad buy decision)
WPRT  (a genuinely failed good-breakout within 2 days!)
CRSP   (bagged a handsome profit of 1 quarter, before before recent earnings).

Current holdings: (in the order of position size/equity: Big, Med, Small):

DHI   (increased holdings to double, due to resilience to current market condition)
TREX (increased holdings to double, due to resilience to current market condition)
CSIQ    (new buy, after recent earnings)

ZS    (added to existing residual position, during the recent dip; majority profit taken out last quarter).
CVNA  (new buy, after recent earnings)
USAT  (new buy; experimental; not confirmed, under microscope)

NVAX (new buy; experimental; confirmed/worked-out)
ACHN  (new buy; experimental; not confirmed, under microscope)
RUHN  (new buy; experimental; not confirmed, under microscope, high-risk, small position)

In the RADAR for new buys:

New buy opportunities see to have dried up.  There are hardly any that are screaming to be bought.
Here are a handful in our watchlist:

SONO  (may take more time to be prime-time buy; potential ground-floor entry point at first stage).
EB  (same as above)
KPTI   (confirmed; missed first opportunity; but possible next-stage opportunity).
QTS  (unusual and interesting find, while we did a curious experiment by scanning for vehicles that may be a good hedge against current market turbulence, that may be immune to international trade-wars; This one turned out to be a REIT.  Another worthy mention is a ETF called BTAL, which may be too late to get into now).



Sunday, June 9, 2019

The correction (unfortunately!) seems over! Let the uptrend begin!

Our blogging is back again!  It's been a great 2 years, especially 2017!

So far, 2019 has also been great, until of course since early May!  True to the saying, we did end up selling in May and got away!

We were hoping, wishing for a deeper correction, but unfortunately it was a very short lived 10% correction, which for most part we sat on sidelines, scaling down to 85% cash-position in 3 phases (see our annotated picture of Nasdaq chart with our Alert-1, 2 and 3 on May-7, May-13 and May-23 respectively).

We also experimented (for second time) with our "enhanced dollar cost averaging" using Momentum strategy based ETFs during the correction which we used to park (portion of) our cash position.  More on that in a separate blog for another day.  We used the Investors Business Daily's (http://www.investors.com) IBD-50 based ETF, FFTY (both this time and also during the 2018-Oct-Dec correction).

In an effort to bring back our regular featured "Individual Stock recommendations" (+ recent breakouts/buy-opportunities), we will try to publish at least Monthly, if not Weekly.
[In the future we will try to make it into a nice TABLE format with ENTRY PRICE(range), STOPS and/or $ RISK for position/quantity calculation].



P
Symbol
Score
NOTES

GH
n/a
brokeout last week. Little late now

UBER
n/a
IPO watch; buy on pull-back if any
*
SWAV
n/a
new buy rec.

PLAN
n/a
earning breakout last week.  Little late now

BYND
n/a
IPO watch; buy on pull-back if any

TNDM
27
Our 2018 super star multi-bagger is ready for a 3rd stage entry point again.

CDNA
27
brokeout last week. Little late now

EPZM
26
new buy rec. (warning: Low liquidity stock)

SKY
25
earning breakout last week.  Little late now

NTRA
25
earning breakout last week.  A little off ideal entry point
*
DQ
25
new buy rec. (warning: Low liquidity stock)

NEPT
25
new buy rec. (warning: Low liquidity stock)
*
GSHD
24
new buy rec. (warning: Low liquidity stock)
S
UAA
24
new buy rec.
S
SBS
24
new buy rec.

ACA
24
new buy rec. (warning: Low liquidity stock)
*
ZS
24
Our 2019 super star is ready for a 2nd stage entry point again.

MDB
24
Our missed opportunity at 1st-stage in 2018-Feb is ready for a 2nd entry now.

BL
24
In our watch list

TTD
24
earning breakout last week.  Little late now

LOVE
23
Pull back opportunity (warning: Earning upcoming)
*
CVRS
23
new buy rec. (pullback) (warning: Low liquidity stock)
S
BRKS
22
new buy rec.

CDLX
22
earning breakout weeks ago.  Little late now
*
WKHS
22
new buy rec. (warning: Low liquidity stock)

FANH
21
new buy rec. (warning: Low liquidity stock)
S
HAS
21
new buy rec.
S
GNRC
21
new buy rec.

KL
21
new buy rec.
*
CRSP
21
new buy rec.
S
AZPN
21
new buy rec.

BPMC
21
new buy rec.

INSP
21
new buy rec.
S
MNST
21
new buy rec.

ROKU
20
Our 2019 super star that we regret to have exited in April!  Too late now!

ARWR
20
missed opportunity (during correction).  Got to let it go!
*
KURA
19
new buy rec. (warning: Low liquidity stock)

TGTX
19
Low-risk entry before potential breakout (advanced early entry)
*
SFIX
19
new buy rec.
S
SAP
18
new buy rec.

BHVN
18
We missed the Jan-2019 great entry opportunity.   New buy rec for 2nd entry point
S
NDAQ
18
new buy rec.

SMAR
18
new buy rec.
S
TWTR
18
new buy rec.
S
EBAY
15
new buy rec.
S
PRSP
15
new buy rec.
S
ILMN
15
new buy rec.
S
MTN
15
new buy rec.
S
CIEN
15
new buy rec.
*
AVLR
13
new buy rec.
S
CRM
13
new buy rec.

ICLN
9
ETF (we have no position in this)
*
FFTY
 9
ETF (we have a position in this since start of recent correction)

* indicates we have a position (in BOLD) or plan to take position soon.
S indicates these may not be pure momentum stocks (falls into our 'Slow-n-Steady' category!)

Happy trading.