Trading, Investing, and Speculating
"If you don't speculate, you can't accumulate."
Disclaimer: Trading commentary are my opinions only and do not constitute trading advice. All investing or trading decisions should be cleared with your own investment adviser.
15 July 2011
AA: This trade should not be a part of Rainier's record.
ITUB: This trade should not be a part of Rainier's record.
NVDA: This trade should not be a part of Rainier's record.
14 July 2011
NVDA: This trade should not be a part of Rainier's record.
13 July 2011
GLW: This trade should not be a part of Rainier's record.
MU: This trade should not be a part of Rainier's record.
12 July 2011
C: This trade should not be a part of Rainier's record.
7 October 2010
CMCSA: This trade should not be a part of Rainier's record.
1 October 2010
FCX: This trade should not be a part of Rainier's record.
27 August 2010
INTC: This trade should not be a part of Rainier's record.
22 July 2010
SNDK: This trade should not be a part of Rainier's record.
3 May 2010
F: Today's trade in the Ford Motor Co. (F) should not be a part of Rainier's record. The order was to buy at 12.70 limit, and the low for the day was 13.18. Collective2 must have had a bad tick in their data stream. If a limit price is touched and not filled in a few seconds, it is Collective2's policy to change it to a market order. When I became aware of the problem, about an hour before the close, I alerted my subscribers and Collective2.
20 April 2010
HST: HST traded below the limit buy price for only a few seconds so limit orders were not filled. However the trade as reported by C2 is correct for autotraders. If the limit price is touched, but not filled in a few seconds, C2 simply submits a market order guaranteeing a fill. To minimize this problem, Rainier trades extremely liquid instruments with an average daily volume of over 10 million shares and an average daily moneyflow of over 100 million dollars. In this case the advantage went to the autotraders, but in general autotraders also experience more negative slippage than do manual traders using limit orders.
16 December 2009
Number
of Positions:
I
am now recommending that subscribers to Rainier increase the
maximum number of open positions to 16 instead of 15. I encountered a
problem about six months ago when I had 16 open positions.
Collective2 let me upload all my STC signals the evening
before,
but would
not let me upload the BTO signals. The site said I didn't have enough
buying power. I had to wait until the following morning to upload the
BTO signals after some of the open positions had been closed. This
problem is certain to occur again, and I plan to handle it in the same
way. I will also email all the BTO signals to subscribers the evening
before the open.
I originally thought that by limiting
the number of
open positions to 15 I could avoid this problem, but I now think that
solution would just cause other, more serious, problems.
10 December 2009
HL:
Yesterday's HL (Hecla Mining) trade was probably caused by
either
a bad tick in the real-time data stream or by a private transaction
below the market price. In
either case regular traders would not have been able to buy at that
price. The low on 12/9 was 6.23 so it would not have been possible to
buy at 5.62. This
problem affects all systems on C2 that use
limit
orders, and I consider it a serious problem. Even
though it was very profitable, I have asked the
C2 administrators to remove the trade from my record.
Edit:
Instead of removing the trade, C2 changed the entry price and
turned it into a losing trade.
02 December 2009
Bear Market Risk: So far Rainier has not been tested in a bear market. Stocks have been rallying ever since Collective2 began monitoring it in March. In September and October of 2008, I was trading a system similar to Rainier and lost money. I stopped trading for a few months and tried to figure out what was wrong. I made some changes and Rainier is the result. Based on my analysis and backtesting the system should now be profitable in bear markets, but keep in mind that I was wrong before. Time will tell.
04 November 2009
Online Brokers: An evaluation of many online brokers can be found at Barron's.
30 October 2009
Email: It appears the email problem at Collective2 has been resolved.
24 October 2009
Commentary: Normally I don't try to predict what the stock market is going to do, however I'm sure this rally is not going to last forever. When it ends, subscribers to Rainier should be prepared for much more activity. There will be more orders generated, and more buying and selling. There will be bigger drawdowns, and I think there will be more profits. However I can't guarantee that; time will tell. Be cautious and don't hesitate to reduce position sizes if you're nervous.
AMR: On Friday Rainier had a sell order for AMR, but the stock only traded above our profit target for 10 or 15 seconds. At least one broker was not able to sell the position in that time. If you still own AMR you have a couple of options. You can sell it at the market to synchronize with the positions on Collective2, or you can sell it at the limit price of 6.33. If AMR had not traded above Friday's profit target, Monday's profit target would have been 6.33. Note that there is also a buy order for AMR on Monday. Don't open two positions in one stock. Rainier trades very liquid stocks to minimize this problem, but it still occurs occasionally.
19 October 2009
Email Problems: There's a glitch in C2's email system when comes to sending orders. They are trying to fix it, but until then subscribers who trade manually should get their orders from the Rainier page on Collective2.
13 May 2009
HIG: The low of the day was 12.45 so this trade could not have occurred. I've asked Collective2 to remove it from my record, but I haven't had any success.