Monday, June 15, 2009

Overly Full Disclosure: June 2009

I'm finally out of my TBT. I got in too early, and my record says that I'm probably out too early - though I missed the high last Thursday before it got hammered for reasons I have not yet discovered. But 10% was still good enough for me. A lot of people say this is not a good ETF to hold more than a few days or weeks. I get the jist of the argument but I haven't quite gotten my head entirely around the details. The decay is one of the reasons I got out, plus there seems to be a general reversal of sentiment taking place.

I took a small position on USO a few weeks ago and exited that on Friday. There is a lot of speculation about speculation and front-running and tankers and yellow shoots, so I don't think it can go much higher. I made about 5% in two weeks.

I also had an even smaller position on UNG that I exited today. I made about 5% in 5 weeks. UNG has a better chance of going higher than USO, but weather, supply, and the change in sentiment point the other way.

Of course, I could kick myself for what I missed back in late November. Stocks I had on my candidates list as of 11/16, such as JWN and M and BHP, are up over 150% since then since then. Even CAT and TM and INTC are up nicely. But I paid too much attention to the doomers, and thought things could get a lot worse. Instead, I should have looked at what my spreadsheet was telling me - buy, Buy, BUY! Oh, well.

Update: My trade accounted for 0.0000074% of today's NYSE volume. Spiffy.

Disclaimer: you're an idiot if you invest based on anything I say.

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