chk999longonly's Blog

Five Year Anniversary Slipped Right Past Me

chk999longonly — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 10:32:08 GMT

It's been a little more than five years since I started this profile. I think the basic idea is very strong: Buy companies when they are making a string of new 52 week lows and then sell as they make a string of new 52 week highs.

But, the original idea had two flaws. Originally there was not enough research to differentiate between companies that deserve the 52 week low (and will go lower and stay there!) and...

The 52 Week Low List Is Heating Up

chk999longonly — Tue, 08 May 2012 16:55:23 GMT

After a long period with few stocks on it, the list I use had 162 on it today. One change I'm going to make for this cycle is to wait a bit longer after a company hits that before I add it to this portfolio. Experience with the last two cycles is that a company will often continue to make new 52 week lows for a while once it starts.

Hmm, Time To Start Making A List Of Bargains

chk999longonly — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 18:04:13 GMT

So this portfolio has been pretty dormant, as there haven't been many 52 week lows for a couple of years now. But a bunch just popped up. I'm going to change the selection criteria for this portfolio a bit and I will publish them here when I get them worked out.

I'm Still Managing This Portfolio

chk999longonly — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 12:15:09 GMT

Not many things hitting 52 week lows since March '09. I'm expecting business here to pick up the next time we have a big correction. I'm not predicting, but one will happen sooner or later.

Slim Pickings

chk999longonly — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 11:26:10 GMT

This portfolio is still active, but it has been a long while since I saw much hitting 52 week lows that was actually worth much. I will keep checking and there will be a major downturn sooner or later. (That's one of the certain to be true, but actually kinda useless prognostications isn't it?) When that happens I will load this portfolio up with new picks.

Dang, That Actually Worked!

chk999longonly — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:01:33 GMT

So when I started this profile a year and a half ago, one of the first orders of business was to write some software to track when one of my outperform calls hit a 52 week high. That took a lot longer than I thought (mostly due to other commitments) but I did get it running.

Well, I made the first pick close based on that software. It showed PMTI as being at a 52 week high, so I closed it. I now have to edit the list and remove that pick.

I've been working on this pretty diligently since the last blog entry in November.

The final name is "Pyxis" which is the name of the compass on the Argonaut. It seemed to fit and there aren't a trillion existing uses like with Northstar.

This weekend marked the final database disaster recovery tests. What I did was backup the database, drop all the tables and then drop the database, rebuild all the tables from the create scri...

Well That Took Longer Than I Thought

chk999longonly — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 11:21:42 GMT

When I started this profile I mentioned writing some software to help do some of the analysis tasks, mostly for noticing when a chosen stock was hitting a 52 week high and it was time to close the postion. Finding the time to work on this software turned out to be pretty difficult. The main time sink was the online accounting class I took from BYU. (The class rocked and I really learned a lot, but it took a lot of time. Got a 98% for the overall grade. Go Me!) But there have be...

This has got to mean something, but I'm not sure what

chk999longonly — Wed, 07 May 2008 08:37:46 GMT

I first started this profile during a serious market downturn and finding great companies making new 52 week lows was like shooting fish in a barrel after you've let out the water. But in the last couple of months, I haven't found very many companies to add to this profile. I keep looking, but not much that looks like value.

This has gotten me to wondering if the good companies bottom first or last. So far, it looks like the better companies have been botto...

Well, That's Going To Sting

chk999longonly — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:35:54 GMT

One of the 52 week low outperform picks I've made on this profile was BSC. It just got sold to JPM at $2 a share. So that's about 95 points gone in a flash.

Good thing I didn't have any real money in this one.

Chris - going limit fishing today with real money

Take Profits, Or Wait For The 52 Week High?

chk999longonly — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:33:09 GMT

I have an un-anticipated dilemma. When I started this profile I thought that the stocks picked at the 52 week low would take a long time to recover. But a few have jumped up a lot in a very short time and I am wondering if I should take the points and run. The reason for considering this in CAPS is that the score is not the change in stock price, but the change in stock price versus the change in the S&P 500. And this means that the price of the stock could go up from here,...

Dang, I'm The Seven Day Hottest Player!

chk999longonly — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:39:36 GMT

I just noticed the seven day hottest player icon in my lucky charms.

I also see the all-star charm too. I thought this was going to take much longer to climb up the ranks.

Chris - does not expect either charm to last

Fortuitous Good Start To This Strategy

chk999longonly — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:29:33 GMT

By complete accident I started the CAPS portfolio for this strategy during a bear market. While this will get my score killed in the short run, in the long run this could be a barn burner. The timing was entirely accidental. In two years most of these companies should have recovered nicely.

Chris - wishing he had more cash to play with in real money right now

Ah, The Smell Of Bargains Is In The Air

chk999longonly — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:09:52 GMT

Stuff is starting to look cheap enough for me to think about buying with real money. The two areas I am eyeing are the blue chips and the retailers. While the blue chips aren't as beaten down as many sectors, they are still at PE ratios not seen in years. The retailers have been hammered recently and I think the game there is to find the strongest ones and buy them. No specific targets yet, but looking hard.

I am still staying away from the financials (exce...

First Proposed Strategy Tweek

chk999longonly — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 09:07:05 GMT

I can already see one change that would make this strategy better and that is to wait until a stock stopped making new 52 week lows. Currently I scan the the 52 week low list at barchart.com by hand to look for candidates. I grab things that look good as soon as they show up. Since stocks usually make new lows for a while, I'm catching falling knives.

It will take some automation to find stuff that stopped ma...

So What Is The Market Not Valuing Now?

chk999longonly — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:34:47 GMT

As I scan the new 52 week low listings over on barchart.com, I am seeing themes in what the market does not value. The obvious ones are the banks. They are really getting hammered. I am staying away from them for now as I don't think I can value them correctly and there may be a lot more bad news waiting to arrive. Also getting the axe are the retailers, especially the clothing ones. I'm cherry picking them for ones that look lik...

The Strategy

chk999longonly — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:03:08 GMT

Ever since I started watching the market regularly I've noticed that most companies have a very large swing between the high and low price for the year. I've wondered what would happen if I bought good companies at the 52 week low and sold them when they stopped making new 52 week highs.

So this CAPS profile is an attempt to find out how this works. The mechanical part is watching for stocks that make new 52 week lows and new 52 weeks high and having them b...

What Is My Strategy

chk999longonly — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 12:39:41 GMT

Howdy, this is chk999, starting a new CAPS profile.

If you look at my regular CAPS profile, you'll see that I like to play the short side more than the long side. While this has worked very well for CAPS (I'm in the top 20 CAPS players) it is more difficult to implement this with real money. (Although I'm investigating a strategy for that too.)

Which brings us to this CAPS profile. I have been thinking about a long only strategy that co...