mathjak's daytrading adventures

[mathjak107]

Xle And GE gone . Both at small profits ...now both are down .. if Ge falls another 2% so from where I sold I will rebuy . Down about 1% now from where I sold earlier....these are all tradeded in my ira so no tax issues

[mathjak107]

buying back tlt today . pocketing a few thousand on the roll back and buying back what i had . still have gold

[mathjak107]

wow crazy day for TLT . from the time i bought it this morning until i just got a chance to look again now , it was up 2k . when i went in to the studio after buying it earlier i was down 100 bucks ...so it recovered right after ...

so i am back again with the pp in its entirety and a couple of thousand additional in the coffers from selling Tlt earlier while it was still up high about two weeks ago.

I was tempted to sell what I bought this morning but I will wait a bit

[mathjak107]

well missed selling out TLT on friday since i was in the studio and markets closed early , , otherwise with TLT looking like it will be hammered today i would have been buying back in .. so instead i will add to gld and tlt positions and wait for the next spike ....that will bring me to 414k in each position at this point ... i will allow up to 500k in each position since beyond that i have all i will allow to go to the pp which would be 2 mil .

i don't mind having to wait with the pp since it is still a fine portfolio , just not my first choice so i prefer to use the pp as my variable trading vehicle where i can . . otherwise the gravy in gld and tlt swings just goes unharvested as it goes up 2% and down 2% . but these swings on these dollars is thousands of dollars each time in extra profit where i can .

those swings become crazy at these levels on days like today's futures where gld and tlt get pounded . tlt looks down 1.72% and gld about .75% so far at 5:42 am

[mathjak107]

both gld and tlt sold this morning for another almost 7k profit ....keep you posted on the next dip

[Kbg]

How do you define "dip"? A percentage, your eyeball?

[mathjak107]

i usually want 1 to 2 % per trade. a dip of 1.50-2% will get me in again . so far there is always something that causes these surges and roll backs ... capturing a few thousand each time really adds up .... hit 31k on tlt this morning in trade profits ..

but it is a bit uncomfortable when i don't have them flying fighter cover while waiting for the dip . so doing this is not for everyone because while you know the dip is coming you don't know when .

it already rolled back a few thousand off this mornings highs ...i did not catch the high though when i sold but it is now below where i sold after going up a few thousand higher .

so based on the dollars i use if we slide back 1 to 2% we are talking 4400-8400 dollars difference ..

[Kbg]

Gotcha, thanks.

Uncovered bombers, never good. :-)

[Cortopassi]

Do you do this on stock ETFs as well? We're having a nice dip there as well currently.

And let me just be one to say, seeing the numbers you are racking up makes me.... jealous/envious/pissed/etc

But the numbers are not making me consider doing it!

[mathjak107]

i rarely do it with equities . they just don't tend to fall out of favor so predictably ... investors love to hate gold and long term bonds i have found .

we get days like today , and see the equal of a 700 point drop or gain in the dow from TLT . tomorrow investors want out.

gld has been stuck in a trading range so i haven't made as much with gld as tlt .. i show about 7k this year in gold as that money was in other stuff most of the time which had more of a trading range ,and 31k on TLT .

last year was different and i had over 30k in profit from gld .

if anyone wants i can post my trading statement .. you can see i have lots of small dollar gains because with the exception of gold and treasuries i keep very tight stop losses .. basically i look for a quick bounce . if i don't get it i am out fast .

but i never mind putting a lot of money in gld or tlt because it always gives me a quick entry and access point . the problem i find is if you wait to long to sell and it falls , well you can vbe at a loss for a long long time , like years .. so for tlt or gld i have a limit of up to 500k in each but very short 1 to 2% moves . but that money is only committed lately for at best a week and its out lately .


with equities i will wait until a bigger dip , and take a shot on a bounce in a day or 2 . right or wrong i am out .

[mathjak107]

looks like the premarket shows TLT and GLD starting to take a dip again ...

TLT and gld remind of a parent yelling at their kid . they explode in a knee jerk reaction and within no time they go back to calm like it never happened ....until the next outburst .

so we shall see later. a 1-2% fall and i will rebuy it . in the mean time i bought xle yesterday in the interim since oil got beaten up the other day .. i bought xle the other day and sold it and ge for a small profit 1 day later . i rebought xle yesterday after selling tlt and gld while they still had nice gains on the day ..they rolled back quite a bit by the close

[mathjak107]

Well getting ready to buy back in to Tlt and Gld today ....getting just what I had sold yesterday with 8k extra saved in pocket ....not bad for a days work and the pp is back intact again.

Done

Gld 138.76. Tlt 139.33. ... that was quite a drop on Tlt from yesterday’s high

[mathjak107]

Gold miners are stocks first and a play on gold second..2008 saw them plunge while gold went up .... it is subject to strikes , shortages , politics , management and earnings ..they are nothing like gold ...you can wait forever for an individual company to come back even with gold rising.. the gold miner graveyard is filled with failed companies.

I never average down in individual companies...if I am wrong I am out. But my serious investing is only funds

[mathjak107]

i likely may run with slv today but i will say this about silver , it is not the same as gold when it comes to holding it .

silver is an industrial metal first and foremost . it does not offer the same protection as gold does in my opinion . 2008 saw silver plunge while gold went up .

so yeah , i will treat slv like i do any other stock speculation since i don't want to hold it like i would gold. if i guessed wrong . that means not a big position and a quick sell on a point or 2 rise . with very little leeway allowed on a fall . only a point or two if i am wrong and i'm out of it

[dualstow]

You’re not exactly going out on a limb with that opinion. It’s the reason Harry dropped silver from his older permanent portfolio, and the common consensus here.

Let us know if you buy it!

[mathjak107]

i classify silver with mining shares .. very speculative and nothing i would bet the ranch on or hold long term . do you know i bought silver bars back in 1987 from republic bank when they sold them ... silver was 9.37 when i bought ... i sold around 10 and was glad as here we are decades later and it did not even double ...in the mean time a hypothetical 100k in the fidelity insight newsletter growth model i used for decades is worth 3.4 million today . the silver would not even have seen 200k

[dualstow]

I guess reading about the Hunt brothers cured me of betting on silver. I only buy coins to give away to nieces and nephews, and occasionally with Christmas tips.

[Cortopassi]

Along with the other assets of the PP, holding something reasonably volatile is useful, so yearly or at limits you have a chance to rebalance.

I hold silver for that reason (5%). Also for the fact it is "real" as a safeguard.

I think for the past 20 years, looking at a chart, there were likely multiple opportunities to sell and lock in profit on silver vs. buying all at point "a" and selling at point "b"

Sure, you can compare with your hypothetical holding, but would that holding have made it successfully through 2000/2001 and 2008 (not likely for me) and what is sure to come again?

[dualstow]

But is it real if you're just holding SLV?

That's probably how I would buy it if I wanted to buy a significant amount for short-term trades.

[mathjak107]

Along with the other assets of the PP, holding something reasonably volatile is useful, so yearly or at limits you have a chance to rebalance.

I hold silver for that reason (5%). Also for the fact it is "real" as a safeguard.

I think for the past 20 years, looking at a chart, there were likely multiple opportunities to sell and lock in profit on silver vs. buying all at point "a" and selling at point "b"

Sure, you can compare with your hypothetical holding, but would that holding have made it successfully through 2000/2001 and 2008 (not likely for me) and what is sure to come again?

there are always opportunities to lock in profits with volatile investments ... that is exactly why i turn TLT and gld in to trading vehicles ... 80% of the time they are locked in a range and go up and down . the more ups and downs you can harvest the greater the profits ... since the other day when i sold TLT AND it went up a bit after i sold to where it was this morning was about a 12 or 14k difference in my portfolio from high to low in just 3 days

[mathjak107]

I just entered limit orders on gbtc ,slv and Ge ....we will see if any hit my price

Edit ..looks like none will hit as we enter the last half hour

[mathjak107]

just bought 600 shares us natural gas fund UNG ... it got pounded today down almost 7% and down more than 50% for the year ...

so it seems like a pick that may have been over sold . paid 16.92

[mathjak107]

Sold ung 2-1/2 hours later , 200 dollars richer for a mouse click ...

Bought 1000 shares gbtc bitcoin at 8.78

[Cortopassi]

Ahh, UNG. Yet another ETF I lost money on years ago.

I know this is the variable portfolio section and specifically called daytrading, but man, it is so antithetical to the whole PP concept!

[mathjak107]

Well it definitely ain’t passive investing.

But except for the components of the pp like gold and treasuries the dollars traded are held to a very small percentage ....

I have no reservations keeping 500k in each of those components in the pp ....if I don’t get an exit point to take a quick 2 percent profit I don’t mind holding them . The pp is a fine portfolio these days .

But I tend to generate a lot more by doing these quick hits in gold and Tlt while the gain is there before it evaporates ...there always seems to be this pattern