Gyroscopic Investing

Never Ever Retire down $1,657.52 for the day.  Who would have thought it'd be dangerous to be double-short silver?  When I win this thing, I'll buy you all drinks.

Actually, no I won't, because I'm not going to have two nickels to rub together in 6 months.

Unlike a lot of you guys, my SP is actually built with funds that people think are legitimately good investments:

- Junk bonds are supposed to provide a nice yield
- Russian equities are supposed to provide growth
- Shorting trreasuries is supposed to be a no-brainer
- LinkedIn is going to be the next Google

From a SP perspective, my approach is actually quite risky.

restarted my SP this morning and ended up with a 9.35% drop today, i hope this is a sustainable rate of loss, so far i am feeling good about my ability to loose money..

l82start wrote: restarted my SP this morning and ended up with a 9.35% drop today, i hope this is a sustainable rate of loss, so far i am feeling good about my ability to loose money..

Whoah, what kind of crap did you buy?? I guess we'll find out soon enough if your SP has real losing power or is just a flash in the pan.

My SP's first day was horrible: a 3.3% gain. If I don't have the stomach for these kinds of sudden gains, my emotions might get the better of me and cause me to sell at a huge profit.

A good way to keep the competition lively might be to generate a single plot every couple of weeks comparing the cumulative performance of all eight of our SP's.

my big winner.. i mean loser was TXEGQ.PK, http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=TXEGQ.PK  with an amazing 35% drop, but you never know, the extreme home theater business could take off and leave me holding the profit, i have my fingers crossed the losing power is sustainable..
sorry to hear about your gains, but remember a one day gain means little.... stay the course...

Tortoise wrote: A good way to keep the competition lively might be to generate a single plot every couple of weeks comparing the cumulative performance of all eight of our SP's.

i like that idea

Hey guys. I made a stock game on investopedia called Suicide Portfolios. It could make tracking simpler.

No commissions and no margin rates. We don't want it to be too easy

Just search for Suicide Portfolios under the games section on investopedia (making an account is easy).

Best of luck. 

What does a guy have to do to be the last one on the bandwagon? My SP is up over 3500 smackeroonies, and I have been asked to make a guest appearance on Mad Money with Jim Cramer.

MediumTex wrote: Unlike a lot of you guys, my SP is actually built with funds that people think are legitimately good investments:

I actually noticed that.  I thought, "Hey, that kinda looks like things I've seen recommended as 'growth' portfolios."

Please don't take that to mean that I think your portfolio will grow.  I do not mean to insult you.  I have complete faith that these investments are terrible and that you're going to lose all your money.

Lone Wolf wrote:

MediumTex wrote: Unlike a lot of you guys, my SP is actually built with funds that people think are legitimately good investments:

I actually noticed that.  I thought, "Hey, that kinda looks like things I've seen recommended as 'growth' portfolios."

Please don't take that to mean that I think your portfolio will grow.  I do not mean to insult you.  I have complete faith that these investments are terrible and that you're going to lose all your money.

I won't let others' optimism hold me back in achieving my SP goals.

MT, or anyone with some writing skills for that matter,

Maybe we should write some books about the glories of taking on debt to finance consumption and taking on unstable quasi-diversified assets that are all-but-guaranteed to lose value over time.


My ideas for some titles:

"How I Found Enslavement in a Free World"

"Why the Worst-Laid Investment Plans Use Leverage"

"How You Can Bankrupt Yourself in the Coming Deleveraging"

"Why Government Bonds Don't Work"

"Epic Fail Investing"

"The Savings Racket"

...just to name a few possibilities completely off the top of my head.

I got my feel good on this morning.

Arsenic House down $1,088.54 already today.

i had a little scare first thing today, when early morning gains canceled out some of yesterdays losses, fortunately the sun has come up, and when investors saw what they were buying in the light of day, the gains reversed themselves,  

OMG.  The FAD Portfolio is slightly above water at $100,141.15 today after sinking nicely yesterday!

I'd jump off a ledge except my office/den is on the first floor.  It used to be on the second floor, but that's another story.  (I haven't had a chance to use that line in twenty years.) 

ENNF is down 627.35 today.  I thought stocks were never supposed to go down.

disaster has struck i am heading out on the window ledge!!! one of my stock picks  just blew up, and gained 233%
        symbol        price          Chg & % Chg                            Shares          mkt value          gain                  %gain
    LEXPQ.PK 0.0250   Up 0.0175 Up 233.33% 3,333,333.33 $83,333.33 Up $58,333.33 Up 233.33%

i new this was a potential out come with the high risk nature of the bankrupt bankroll portfolio, but i didn't think it would happen to me...   
i am now up a whopping $48,798.70 

l82start wrote: disaster has struck i am heading out on the window ledge!!! one of my stock picks  just blew up, and gained 233%
       symbol        price           Chg & % Chg                             Shares          mkt value           gain                  %gain
   LEXPQ.PK 0.0250  Up 0.0175 Up 233.33% 3,333,333.33 $83,333.33 Up $58,333.33 Up 233.33%

i new this was a potential out come with the high risk nature of the bankrupt bankroll portfolio, but i didn't think it would happen to me...    
i am now up a whopping $48,798.70  

Poor guy.  Err, I mean rich guy.

Where do you think you went wrong with your strategy?

MediumTex wrote: Poor guy.  Err, I mean rich guy.

Where do you think you went wrong with your strategy?

i am hopeful that i haven't gone completely wrong, and this just means i have misjudged the volatility by a mile, and that it can drop just as fast.....  

there are a couple possible ways i may have gone wrong, one is in the pick's, which were done with a bit of looking at the industry, and "best guessing" that they will never come back from bankruptcy, a bit of "monkey with darts",   and a bit of hearing people made money on this stock and betting it wouldn't strike twice with the same stock... more due diligence may have helped me on this one...

the second possible error is in picking four stocks, it meant having enough money in each stock that a rise in one could counteract the expected total losses in the other three. it might have been better to build an "index of pink sheet penny stocks from company's that have declared bankruptcy" and let it ruin me slowly, but i went with the high risk route "get poor fast" expecting all four to collapse.

i still think the fundamentals of investing in bankrupted companies is a sound way to loose money, i may just be one of the unlucky people that "bought his new shirt" playing in this market

Do you have to pick four?  If not, I'll go all-in with 100% General Motors.

Adam1226 wrote: Do you have to pick four?  If not, I'll go all-in with 100% General Motors.

GM is a very nice SP pick, but I am sleeping like a baby with LinkIn in my SP.

With LinkIn, I feel like I've been given a chance to go back in time and load up on shares of pets.com. Opportunities to lose money like that just don't come along very often.

I admit that LinkIn is not quite the -10 bagger that some of its dot.com predecessors were, but with a P/E over 1,000 in an industry with competitive advantages that can dry up overnight (MySpace anyone?), I like what I see from an SP perspective.

Adam1226 wrote: Do you have to pick four?  If not, I'll go all-in with 100% General Motors.

You certainly don't have to pick four. I'm 100% in Gulfport Energy Corp.

MediumTex wrote:
With LinkIn, I feel like I've been given a chance to go back in time and load up on shares of pets.com. Opportunities to lose money like that just don't come along very often.

I admit that LinkIn is not quite the -10 bagger that some of its dot.com predecessors were, but with a P/E over 1,000 in an industry with competitive advantages that can dry up overnight (MySpace anyone?), I like what I see from an SP perspective.

You make a solid argument, from a valuation standpoint, but I like GM because of it's solid history of shareholder neglect.  Pair that with a 20 plus year history of making an expensive product that no one really needs or wants, and you can cry all the way to the bank. 

 

Adam1226 wrote:

MediumTex wrote:
With LinkIn, I feel like I've been given a chance to go back in time and load up on shares of pets.com. Opportunities to lose money like that just don't come along very often.

I admit that LinkIn is not quite the -10 bagger that some of its dot.com predecessors were, but with a P/E over 1,000 in an industry with competitive advantages that can dry up overnight (MySpace anyone?), I like what I see from an SP perspective.

You make a solid argument, from a valuation standpoint, but I like GM because of it's solid history of shareholder neglect.  Pair that with a 20 plus year history of making an expensive product that no one really needs or wants, and you can cry all the way to the bank.    

GM's focus on large vehicles that get terrible mileage in a $100 a barrel oil world should also make GM very appealing to an SPer.

Don't forget the enormous legacy retiree costs, which are like icing on the SP cake.

Arsenic House in trouble today.

Up $1,510 this morning, and $874 overall.

Just got to stay the course.

the bankrupt bankroll is not for the faint of heart  or ulcer prone,
in the last two days it has gained over 10 thousand,  for a total gain of   $59,204.54  or Up 59.20%

l82start wrote: the bankrupt bankroll is not for the faint of heart  or ulcer prone,
in the last two days it has gained over 10 thousand,  for a total gain of   $59,204.54  or Up 59.20%

What a nightmare.