Quantum's investment thread

quantumleap · Feb 7, 2010

I posted some of my investments last year in the sell-sell-sell thread. I did well to start but stopped posting because I didn't invest wisely in some cases and didn't want someone to follow. I posted exact amounts previously but I won't be doing that in this thread. This is just to keep track of how I may be doing generally rather than specifically.

I am an amateur at this. I make no claims of being a professional investor. Any posts I make are simply my viewpoint and should not be construed as any financial advice. Feel free to offer advice. However, please try to make it something we can all learn from rather than any berating. I am doing this to have a spot to keep track of how I do so that I may learn both from my mistakes and from my good investments.

I have been following the precious metals market mostly, gold specifically so gold will be my main interest at least at first.

quantumleap · Feb 7, 2010

I posted last week in jdog's gold thread and wanted to transfer some of those posts here. I didn't want to muddy up jdog's thread with my own picks and that is why partly I made up this thread.

Here are some posts from jdog's thread that worked out:

1-31
I bought DZZ (double gold bear) because of the seasonal gold chart showing that gold averages decreases in price from the 1st of February to the end of March.

2-4
I don't think I'll hold it (DZZ) for long because gold has somewhat been tracking the market and I think the market will bounce back soon. This should only be temporary so when it heads down again I'll buy DZZ and hopefully DZZ will go up as gold follows the market down.

2-5
The market reversed itself like I suspected so I bailed on DZZ, the double gold short. The market turned up around 2pm Eastern and gold started following up.

The funny thing is that the market went sideways shortly after the turn until about 3pm while gold continued to climb. I took this as a sign that the turn was truly in place instead of a minor correction so I bought some DGP the double gold bull at $25.00.

I figure the market will go up Monday and Tuesday and I will hold on to my DGP until the end of the day Tuesday at which time I will wait for signs for gold to fall. Still looking for a gold bear market for a little while anyway.

DeathEatsaCracker · Feb 8, 2010

Best of luck in all your trades.

quantumleap · Feb 8, 2010

Thanks DEAC.

The Dow was down 100 points today (Monday). Not what I expected. However, gold is currently even with Friday's close so hopefully my DGP will be all right.

Should be an interesting day tomorrow. If the market continues to slide I will look to bail on DGP and take a loss depending upon late market action.

kuwlness · Feb 8, 2010

I like DGP ... originally I thought DGL was the one to go with, but it appears DGP looks like the higher beta play, thx for sharing.

quantumleap · Feb 8, 2010

Nice chart kuwlness. Keep in mind DGL carries less risk but give less gain.

Michelangelo · Feb 9, 2010

Gl ql.

quantumleap · Feb 9, 2010

Michelangelo said:
Gl ql.

Thanks Michelangelo.

:toast:

The market went up like I mentioned on Friday and is now higher than Friday's close. I guess I was a day late since Monday it went lower. I think this minor rally (based partly upon the rumors of the Greeks getting bailed out) will last another part of a day.

DGP is now at 25.48 in after hours trading. I'll be watching this carefully on Wednesday just in case we don't continue with the market rally all day. I'll pull the plug if it goes down too much as I think we may be in for another drop in the market and the price of gold will go with it.

I'll be looking to invest in DZZ again as this is a general bear market for gold in the next couple months IMO.

quantumleap · Feb 10, 2010

Just an FYI, I can't post from work so I'll let you know that I put a stop for DGP at $25.25 if it gets that low.

erwinmark · Feb 10, 2010

Your stopped out 24.81 low, now starting run up.

quantumleap · Feb 10, 2010

erwinmark said:
Your stopped out 24.81 low, now starting run up.

Got tripped out at $25.25 so I'm counting this one at 1.00% gain. The first trade I had with DZZ didn't list a specific price so I wont count that one.

Trade#..Bought..Sold..%
--------------------------
1 25.00 25.25 +1.00%

quantumleap · Feb 10, 2010

Too much uncertainty in the market this week so I'll have to be careful. Some guy over at kitco said the the oil stock IMO goes up 10% every February so I may be watching that one for a month-long trade.

kuwlness · Feb 10, 2010

quantumleap said:
Got tripped out at $25.25 so I'm counting this one at 1.00% gain. The first trade I had with DZZ didn't list a specific price so I wont count that one.

Trade#..Bought..Sold..%
--------------------------
1 25.00 25.25 +1.00%

Base Hits add up to be Homeruns in the long run. I've learned the importance of knowing when the market has given me a gift. It's always important to take profits, it's just hard knowing when to take them.

At a time of uncertainty like this, it's best to take small gains and wait for better opportunities to re-buy. If you miss out on some up-side, it's better than losing money on the down-side.

I'm more than happy taking .05-.10 sometimes. Hell, if you can buy 2000-3000 shares, .05-.10 adds up quick when you do it five to ten times a day.

quantumleap · Feb 11, 2010

kuwlness said:
Base Hits add up to be Homeruns in the long run. I've learned the importance of knowing when the market has given me a gift. It's always important to take profits, it's just hard knowing when to take them.

At a time of uncertainty like this, it's best to take small gains and wait for better opportunities to re-buy. If you miss out on some up-side, it's better than losing money on the down-side.

I'm more than happy taking .05-.10 sometimes. Hell, if you can buy 2000-3000 shares, .05-.10 adds up quick when you do it five to ten times a day.

Good advice kuwlness. Thanks for posting that. I always think of the saying "you'll never go broke taking a profit".

Getting 10% return on your money per year is great. We're 1/10th of the way there. Of course we could have setbacks along the way as well.

Looks like the Euros are going to bail out Greece so the price of gold jumped a little bit. I may have a trade today or tomorrow. Perhaps half my available investment money on IMO.

erwinmark · Feb 11, 2010

You might look at STO for an oil play, you have two things going for it in my opinion.

1. Oil moving up with the economy
2. Sell oil in euro's which I think will come back strong after this Greek crap gets out of the way.

quantumleap · Feb 11, 2010

erwinmark said:
You might look at STO for an oil play, you have two things going for it in my opinion.

1. Oil moving up with the economy
2. Sell oil in euro's which I think will come back strong after this Greek crap gets out of the way.

Thanks for the tip erwinmark. A couple years ago I did trade in STO and other oil ETF's. I must say that there is a great deal of volatility in those stocks. I'm afraid I don't know that much about the oil market even after trading in it.

I'm trying to become more familiar with the gold trade. That's not to say I won't trade STO in the future.

:103631605

quantumleap · Feb 11, 2010

quantumleap said:
Good advice kuwlness. Thanks for posting that. I always think of the saying "you'll never go broke taking a profit".

Getting 10% return on your money per year is great. We're 1/10th of the way there. Of course we could have setbacks along the way as well.

Looks like the Euros are going to bail out Greece so the price of gold jumped a little bit. I may have a trade today or tomorrow. Perhaps half my available investment money on IMO.

DGP went up 4% just today! The purpose of this thread is not to jump in to hot rising stocks in the middle of the day though, especially since this site is blocked from me at work. I prefer to make trades that are a couple days or more.

Wonering if things will be as interesting on Friday.

erwinmark · Feb 11, 2010

quantumleap said:
Thanks for the tip erwinmark. A couple years ago I did trade in STO and other oil ETF's. I must say that there is a great deal of volatility in those stocks. I'm afraid I don't know that much about the oil market even after trading in it.

I'm trying to become more familiar with the gold trade. That's not to say I won't trade STO in the future.

I am trying to figure out a good entry point for the oils also. I have been in DGP for over a year, and everytime I get a little scared I get bailed out like today. I prefer the biotechs and the drug stocks, they seem to be a little easier to follow. Good Luck with thread, I will try to add to it when I have something of value.

quantumleap · Feb 12, 2010

erwinmark said:
I am trying to figure out a good entry point for the oils also. I have been in DGP for over a year, and everytime I get a little scared I get bailed out like today. I prefer the biotechs and the drug stocks, they seem to be a little easier to follow. Good Luck with thread, I will try to add to it when I have something of value.

DGP has been a good investment for you if you've been in it for over a year.

You have already added value to this thread. Thanks for your contributions.

quantumleap · Feb 12, 2010

On Thursday, stocks jumped up because of the Euro bailout of Greece. However, I believe perceived Euro weakness contributed to the jump in prices in the US and Canada since money was being invested here more than there.

I'm guessing Friday will show a continued climb in prices even though futures are down before the market open. Even with this opinion I'm hesitant to make a purchase such as IMO at this time. No use forcing the issue. I guess I'll see what happens today.