November 2004

November 2, 2004

Election day.  The market is moving up nicely, and most of the signals are on a buy.  Does the market believe that the election will be beneficial?  Does it believe that the results will be known tonight, or at least early tomorrow morning.

Anyway, I am fully invested, including some leveraged ProFunds.  But still some of the individual stocks tend to tank shortly after I buy.  BLUD is a good example.  Great chart, decent fundamentals, and then there is a scandal in Italy where maybe they paid somebody off to use their products.  So the stock is down big time, and yet this says nothing about the quality and safety of their products - unlike the Merck Vioxx case.

Well, the market changed direction upon news favorable to Kerry.  What a head fake!  I wonder how soon we will know the results.

November 3, 2004

At this point, unless Ohio does something dramatically improbable, it appears that

This Guy Won

George Bush

And These Guys Lost

Michael Moore - The Chief Fat Greasy Liar of the Left

Tom Daschle -

Who Said that We Went to War Because Bush was Not a Good Diplomat, and Who Always Managed to Play Politics with National Security

Dan Rather - Who Reported a Story Based on an Obvious Forgery

The Chirac Worm - A Profile in Cowardice

The Great Moral Authority, Representing a Country on the Take from the Oil For Food Project

and

A Country whose Sole Military Victory in the last 100 Years was Bombing an Unarmed Greenpeace Boat

I really do not think that Kerry is a terrible person, in spite of his lies when he came home from Vietnam.  But I do get a lot of satisfaction when the stupid lying left has a defeat handed to it.  If the Democratic party had any sense of moral values, it would have distanced itself from people like Moore and Daschle.  But the Democrats just had to take whatever advantage they could find, no matter what the cost to the country or to truth.  Then it is also nice to see a defeat for the cowardly French and the Hollywood Empty-Headed "Liberals".

Overwhelmingly, the Democrats took the Look What He Did to Us attitude, rather than the We Are All in This Together attitude.

I do not agree with Bush on such matters as stem cell research and gay rights, but I think he is a basically honest man who will protect this country.  No telling what Kerry would do.

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Well Merrill Lynch has made a mistake in my account, with the result that I have about $9,000 less than I thought.  When NUE was transferred over, I sold it immediately.  It had split, and now it appears that for some unknown reason having to do with the way Merrill Lynch does things, the split shares appeared at Merrill Lynch and at Ameritrade simultaneously.  So when I sold at Ameritrade, I sold out the entire position, but Merrill Lynch still appeared to have 222 shares in the account. So when I had the rep at Merrill sell the shares, and when finally the account was reconciled, that account was short 222 shares of NUE.  I never noticed, particularly since I was somewhat overwhelmed with trying to keep track of things and with other things that were happening.  If I had been recording my trades, as I usually do, I would have noticed.

In any case, this was not exactly my fault, and God knows Merrill Lynch has cost me enough money by taking so long with the transfer.  I fail to see why their system did not work better, but then that is none of my business.  It also seems that this should have been caught earlier, in which case the effect would have been nil.  Now, after almost 2 weeks, they suddenly discover that they have a short position in an IRA, which is not even legal.  In the meanwhile, the stock has gone up since they sold it, and hence they are showing a loss because it took so long for them to notice the problem.  I will resist paying for that - it is not my fault.

The whole thing makes me furious, particularly since the account at one point was up to about $1.2 million, but closed at more than $60,000 less than that.  I should have been able to cut that loss in half, at least, if I had been able to trade.  Meanwhile the rep called up and asked me for money.  Gave me a real sob story.  Well, he got his percentage of the wrap fee on the account for doing nothing, so I do not feel sorry for him.

Anyway, I went back and revised October's Journal.

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November 5, 2004

Excellent job numbers, and we are now into the third day of excellent gains.  I am fully invested, and I expect that the systems will sell some stocks on Monday, since the 20-day hold is up then.  So I developed a new system involving all of the CNBC and Zacks stocks.  I may begin trading that on Monday, if there are sufficient sales, or I may just re-start the small cap system for Monday.

November 9, 2004

Bought some stuff from the new system yesterday, as well as a few simply on the basis of technical analysis.  I also sold ANF when their numbers did not look very good. It was very chaotic at the opening, and I suppose I got as good a price as could be expected, but it is trading above that price now.  Oh Well.

I also bought some IAF - Australian mutual fund.  This is a closed-end fund, and I do not like the lack of liquidity, but I am hoping for a long-term hold.  This is probably a decent play on the natural resources demand in China and elsewhere, and also the falling dollar.  As I close out other positions, I may put more money into foreign closed-end funds, if the charts look good.  There is really no other way to get into the foreign markets.

November 12, 2004

Finally, my account is up to where it was about a month ago, when it was frozen by Merrill Lynch.  That helps.  Ameritrade gives excellent service so far, and their website is superior.

November 16, 2004

I am going to give a presentation on trading stocks at the FT Monitor meeting in Clearwater FL in February,  just before Valentine's day.  I checked with the dealer, and I should have a new Toyota Prius around the beginning of January.  It will be nice to drive it down.  I hope I will not have to report that I have made a mess of trading stocks.  That would be embarrassing.

November 19, 2004

I have done some "non-mechanical" things recently.  I sold FCX and bought more FRO.  FRO announced that there will be a dividend shortly of 2 shares of SFL for every 15 shares of FRO, plus $2.50.  All told, this adds up to about $5.75/share.  Doubtless FRO will go down upon the distributions, but if past experience is any guide, it will recover pretty quickly.  We will see.  Also, I sold URBN and BEBE.  Downgraded, and I just took profits.

November 22, 2004  

Hung around this morning to see if I should sell stuff if the market tanked.  At first it looked moderately bad, but then it recovered and went on to gain.  Sold ISRG and bought NTAP, as required by one of the systems.  I could have gotten a better price for ISRG if I had waited, but I did get a good  price on NTAP.  FRO went up big time today.

November 24, 2004

I started a new system yesterday, but could not buy all of the stocks.  Added one more today.

November 28, 2004

Trades for tomorrow - then time to close out for the month.  Again, a new system, but I cannot buy all of the stocks in it.

November 30, 2004

End of the month.  I have done OK, although I still have not beaten the Russell 2000.  Frustrating.  There is still over $4,000 coming in stock and dividends from FRO, and that will not show up until next month, although it is all X-dividend this month