Portfolio Updates
This is a quick update on the status of both portfolio’s for their first month. From here on, I will only update quarterly, because a shorter time frame than that seems silly. Small Investor Portfolio Current Positions DUCK up 27.2% IFON down 13.2 % Closed Positions ORXE up 31.% including commissions. This is all well [...]
Avoiding Confirmation Bias
As I have mentioned previously, one of the points of the 80-20 Portfolio is to incorporate some of the research of Behavioral Finance into an Investing Strategy. One of the behavioral traps we go through is something called Confirmation Bias. In short, this is when you look at facts that agree with your investing thesis [...]
Investing Regret
I had a dose of Investing regret the other day. I have posted about my terrific gain on HAST for the 80-20 portfolio. Right after I sold it at $7.17/share, the price dipped. But then it soared. Then it had a spectacular rise to over $9.00/share. I was, of course, bummed that I had not [...]
HAST – Hasting Entertainment – 80-20 Portfolio – SOLD
Just a quick update on HAST. I sold all 110 shares at $7.19 this morning for a total, minus the $4.50 Zecco commission, of $786.40. While the 57% increase on this investment in less than three weeks is unexpected in its quickness, it is too early to say whether the 80-20 strategy is worthwhile. I [...]
HAST – Hasting Entertainment BUY 80-20 Portfolio
On April 7th I purchased 110 shares of Hasting Entertainment – HAST for $4.51/share including the $4.50 commission from Zecco the total comes to a total investment $500.60. This was for the 80-20 Portfolio. I know, I am late in posting about it. But I had to lay out what the criteria were before I [...]
Investing Strategies for the Small Investor and 80-20 Portfolios
When you begin to invest you need to develop an investing strategy. Having a strategy is like a google map. It will help direct you down the right freeway and hopefully help you avoid the pitfalls, er traffic, and get to the destination you want. If you are at this website you know my overall [...]
Zecco vs. ChoiceTrade – Which is better?
As I narrowed my choice for the Small Investor Portfolio‘s broker, I decided I would set up an account at both Zecco and Choice Trade. One would be for the Small Investor’s Portfolio and the other for the 80-20 portfolio. I have my impressions of setting up accounts at both companies. Choice Trade- The first [...]
80-20 Investing – the Portfolio
I have decided to set up another real money portfolio to test out my ideas of 80-20 Investing, which I have previously discussed. For 20% of the effort I believe it is possible to get 80% of the investing result. The idea is fairly simple. Set up some investing criteria, and when a stock passes [...]
Easy Concept, Potentially Profitable Investing Strategy
This is really another in the Value Investing Series, but also an 80/20 Investing idea. To reiterate 80/20 investing is my value investing concept that attempts to get 80% of a solid return with 20% of the work. Not sure if it is really viable, although I am thinking of starting a test portfolio. But it is also the result of finding the website I mentioned in yesterdays blog about Empirical Finance Research.
The Problem with Back Testing Investing Strategies for Practical Investors
In surveying some of my favorite blogs recently, I have come upon something that hadn’t previously occurred to me, but could potentially alter how I invest. That is the problem with back testing Investing Strategies. Greenbackd posted an interesting starter piece on this subject called Walking the Walk, that led me back to the original blog from Aswath Damodaran called Transaction Costs and beating the Market. I have often thought there were practical problems with back testing, but I had not tried to articulate them until I read these posts. Both are excellent and worth reading. Damodaran, who is a Finance professor at NYU, and an author of Investment Fables (which I own), writes about the many ways to beat the market in general terms and then goes on to say, “Most of these beat-the-market approaches, and especially the well researched ones, are backed up by evidence from back testing, where the approach is tried on historical data and found to deliver “excess returns”.
keep looking »