It was a generous and exciting competition…
February 18, 2008
The best way to summarize the special free
daily competition that we arranged last Thursday, is by quoting chanon’s words from the comments listing: “YEEEEEEEEEEEEEHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”; indeed, many of you joined the game and probably felt the same way.
After the positive trend of the beginning of last week, most stocks declined strongly on Thursday, along with the NASDAQ 2% free fall. Thus, it was much harder for the competitors to gain the usual substantial gains that we are used to seeing in the daily games.
At the end, yhjia succeeded in overcoming all the other traders and earned a positive return of 1.88%, while chanon (1.64%) and agent (1.58%) were close behind. The most profitable pick by yhjia (out of yhjia’s 107 transactions) was the wireless communication business TerreStar Corporation (TSTR), which was traded two times, yielding most of yhjia’s return.
Chanon and agent on the other hand, gained substantial profits from TBS International Limited (TBSI).
For those of you who missed the competition, I must say that the tension and excitement during the competition was amazing; however, since the daily competitions are short term games, you still have a chance to share this excitement every day in the next
daily competitions.
How to beat a bearish market
In a declining stock market (also called a bearish market), such as the one we have been experiencing over the past several months, the first instinct of many investors is to abandon their stock holdings and hide in the treasury bonds or cash shelters in order to reduce their losses. This is a classic case of what financial professionals call "chasing performance", meaning trying to jump onto a ship that may already have sailed.
There’s a better way to succeed when the stock market is slow or volatile: a well-planned and properly-executed policy of asset allocation, built for the long run.
Asset allocation means building a long term portfolio composed of a mix of securities, including growth stocks, value stocks, bonds, T-bills (Treasury bill) and cash, along with the rebalancing of the portfolio from time to time. Asset allocation is actually the opposite of market timing.
Read more…
Yalicoo competitions summary
Agent (24.05%), TheTrader (21.61%) and BULLitPROFF (17.86%) continue to lead in the
quarterly
competition. Last weeks interesting stock gainers were the drybulk carriers operator DryShips Inc. (DRYS), who's 4th quarter profits surged more than fivefold as its expanded fleet benefited from significantly higher vessel rates; and ShengdaTech, Inc. (SDTH), a leading manufacturer of nano precipitated calcium carbonate and coal-based chemical products in China. The Chinese company is constantly growing and could be an interesting pick for future holdings in both the quarterly and monthly competitions.
The
monthly
competition scoreboard, is occupied by a number of our well known expert investors, such as iverson (12.28%), genibus (8.89%), yhjia (7.35%) and BanderaS (6.31%); however, at this point what (14.02%) is taking the lead. Interestingly, what had only performed 34 transactions throughout the competition. Amazingly, all his 11 sales yielded a positive return. Do we have another great trader here or is it pure luck? Let’s wait another week and see if he can keep his leading position.
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