GrowYourFunds: March 2006 Archives

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Mar31	First Quarter 2006 Performance Larry Stay March 31, 2006 Know More: REITs 2.0, REITs The first quarter has ended, how did you do? Here are performance statistics on various styles according to my calculations: Russell 2000 (Small Cap) 13.9% EAFE (Intl developed) 10.3% Russell 3000V (Value) 6.7% Russell 1000 (Large Cap) 4.5% S&P 500 4.2% Russell 3000G (Growth) 4.1% Russell 200 (Macro Cap) 3.1% Here are my calculated returns for some industry classifications for the 1st Quarter: REITs 14.9% Transportation 11.4% Energy 9.0% Materials 7.6% Industrials 7.0% Info Tech 4.2% Financials 3.3% Consumer Discretionary 3.0% Consumer Staples 1.6% Health Care 1.3% Utilities -1.2% Posted at 4:11 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar30	Mortgage Refinancing - Like Ditech.com Larry Stay March 30, 2006 I would be interested in your comments about whether or not refinancing is worth it? Does using the old 2% rule still work? The decision to refinance is dependant on the cost of refinancing and the savings the... Continue Reading Posted at 9:20 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Short Selling - Using Google as an example Larry Stay March 30, 2006 Selling short means selling a security you do not own. Functionally, your broker borrows the security and sells it for your account. If the security goes up in price, you lose money. If it goes down in price you make... Continue Reading Posted at 4:14 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar29	How do Interest Rates Affect Investments Larry Stay March 29, 2006 Yesterday, March 28th, the Fed raised the Fed Fund target rate one quarter of one percent (25 basis points) to 4.75%. This morning when I checked Fed Fund Futures the market had priced a 90% probability that the Fed would... Continue Reading Posted at 4:32 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar28	Program Trading Larry Stay March 28, 2006 I came across a full page add in my local paper inviting the world to a FREE seminar on a fully automated trading system. The system is called CommandTrade. From the ad we read, "Now you can preset all your... Continue Reading Posted at 4:37 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar27	Inflation and Retirement Larry Stay March 27, 2006 They say that two things are certain, death and taxes. I would add another near certainty, inflation. It is nearly certain that your income during retirement will be affected by inflation.Inflation is simply an increase in your cost of living... Continue Reading Posted at 4:11 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar24	Investing in Gold and Other Coins Larry Stay March 24, 2006 I mentioned in another post about investing in currently minted gold coins. Many countries around the world mint these coins each year. The most well known ones are likely to be the most liquid if you ever need to cash... Continue Reading Posted at 4:28 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar23	Gold Larry Stay March 23, 2006 I felt like taking a break from technical trading and write about commodities. Today I will focus on gold.In the entire history of the world it is estimated that a total fo 152,660 metric tons of gold have been mined... Continue Reading Posted at 4:04 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar22	Bob's 5 Bar Look-Ahead system Part II Larry Stay March 22, 2006 Yesterday we gave a description of a Bob's 5 Bar Look-Ahead Technical Trading System or BBLA 5 for short. You can read that for a refresher.With a 5 bar (bar = day or other time period where you track the... Continue Reading Posted at 3:57 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar21	Bob's 5 Bar Look-Ahead Technical Trading System Larry Stay March 21, 2006 Yesterday we gave rules for developing a successful technical trading system. Today we will describe one possible system. Tomorrow we will look at how the system stacks up against the rules. This example is given for educational purposes only and... Continue Reading Posted at 9:33 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar20	Bob's rules for building a Technical Trading System Larry Stay March 20, 2006 I am ecstatic! My good friend Bob sent me a monograph on how to develop a viable technical trading system. It has been honed through decades of use and much iteration. I will list the rules and in future posts... Continue Reading Posted at 5:25 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar17	Technical Trading Basics IX - Volume & Open Interest Larry Stay March 17, 2006 Volume and open interest are important ways to confirm trends. Volume is simply the number of shares of a trade the changed hands during a day. On charts you see it as vertical lines under the closing price (a histogram). ... Continue Reading Posted at 12:42 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar16	Technical Trading Basics VIII - MACD Larry Stay March 16, 2006 Today I would like to explain an indicator that has stood the test of time, the Moving Average Convergence/Divergence or MACD indicator. It was developed by Gerald Appel. From the name, you can see that it is built on moving... Continue Reading Posted at 4:09 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar15	Technical Trading Basics - VII Stochastics Larry Stay March 15, 2006 Today I'll discuss another oscillator similar to the RSI discussed yesterday. It is called the Stochastic Oscillator. It was developed by Dr. George Lane. The Stochastic Oscillator tracks the momentum of a stock or other security. It is a percentage... Continue Reading Posted at 4:10 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar14	Technical Trading Basics - VI Larry Stay March 14, 2006 Today I want to write about another technical indicator developed by J Welles Wilder. It is the Relative Strength Index or RSI. The RSI is an oscillator that varies between zero and 100. The RSI is used to tell whether... Continue Reading Posted at 3:58 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar13	Age & Risk Tolerance Larry Stay March 13, 2006 Lynn observes that he is older and cannot afford to be in risky positions. This relates to time horizon or holding period for investments.In some of my early posts, I noted that the longer you have to hold a security,... Continue Reading Posted at 5:09 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Inflation Rates and Bond Prices Larry Stay March 13, 2006 Lynn observes that with inflation running at 3% that bond yields appear to be low.In March of 2006, headline or nominal inflation is running over 4.0% year over year. The 10 year US Treasury has a yield of about 4.80%. ... Continue Reading Posted at 4:59 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Emerging Markets Larry Stay March 13, 2006 Lynn comments that with Emerging Markets growing at double digit rates, the pie seems to be getting larger.Emerging markets have been pursuing policies that have allowed their economies to grow at healthy levels. The world as a whole is concurrently... Continue Reading Posted at 4:50 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Portfolio Concentration Larry Stay March 13, 2006 Lynn asks several questions that have at their foundation the question of portfolio concentration. Lynn is invested in just a few sectors and wonders if his portfolio is too concentrated.Portfolio concentration is a high risk, high return strategy. I know... Continue Reading Posted at 4:35 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Canadian Oil Royalty Trusts Larry Stay March 13, 2006 Lynn asks various questions. The first is about Canadian Oil Royalty Trusts. The Canadian government has granted special tax status to these companies to encourage oil and gas exploration in Canada. They are something like Real Estate Investment Trusts in... Continue Reading Posted at 4:20 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Penny Stocks Larry Stay March 13, 2006 I am going to interrupt my series on technical trading to answer a couple of questions. I received an anonymous question about whether I felt penny stocks were too risky.I personally feel penny stocks are too risky for the average... Continue Reading Posted at 4:02 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar10	Technical Trading - Basics V Larry Stay March 10, 2006 Careful readers will note that a lot of the indicators I've written about for technical trading have to do with trends. Today I will discuss another tool useful for analyzing a trend. Moving averages are broadly used in different form... Continue Reading Posted at 4:02 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar 9	Technical Trading - Basics IV Larry Stay March 9, 2006 I am so excited; my new fly line came today. It is a WF 5 weight and is supposed to be the highest floating line in the world. We will see. I have visions of rapturous days out on the... Continue Reading Posted at 4:55 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar 8	Technical Trading - Basics III Larry Stay March 8, 2006 Today I'll discuss "Support Levels" and "Resistance Levels". Technical traders use these as indicators of when to start looking at buying (support) or selling (resistance). A way to look at support and resistance levels is in terms of supply and... Continue Reading Posted at 3:56 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar 7	Efficient Markets Larry Stay March 7, 2006 Devin, thanks for your comment! Devin states that many academics feel that technical trading does not work nor does fundamental analysis for that matter. Another way of stating their point is to say that markets are efficient. Market efficiency is... Continue Reading Posted at 7:59 AM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar 6	Technical Trading - Basics II Larry Stay March 6, 2006 Last time I wrote about a simple chart and how to use it to see trends. Today I will discuss a good indicator to confirm a trend and to measure its strength. The indicator is the Average Directional Index (ADX)... Continue Reading Posted at 3:36 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar 3	Technical Trading - Basics I Larry Stay March 3, 2006 If you want to learn to do technical trading, you have to learn to chart. The most basic chart is a graph of the closing price of a stock or index for some period of time. The longer the series... Continue Reading Posted at 2:20 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar 2	Technical Trading Rules Larry Stay March 2, 2006 John Murphy is StockChart.com's chief technical analyst. He has written extensively about technical trading. He wrote ten laws for technical trading that I will quote here. The source is the following link: http://stockcharts.com/education/TradingStrategies/MurphysLaws.html 1. Map the Trends Study long-term charts.... Continue Reading Posted at 7:06 AM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar 1	Technical Trading - Introduction III Larry Stay March 1, 2006 What do people use technical trading to tell them? That depends if you are looking at markets or individual securities. For markets, technical indicators can illuminate whether a market is over, under or fairly valued. It can give signals as to good times... Continue Reading Posted at 4:13 PM \| Permalink \| Comments

« February 2006 | Main | April 2006 »

Mar31	First Quarter 2006 Performance Larry Stay March 31, 2006 Know More: REITs 2.0, REITs The first quarter has ended, how did you do? Here are performance statistics on various styles according to my calculations: Russell 2000 (Small Cap) 13.9% EAFE (Intl developed) 10.3% Russell 3000V (Value) 6.7% Russell 1000 (Large Cap) 4.5% S&P 500 4.2% Russell 3000G (Growth) 4.1% Russell 200 (Macro Cap) 3.1% Here are my calculated returns for some industry classifications for the 1st Quarter: REITs 14.9% Transportation 11.4% Energy 9.0% Materials 7.6% Industrials 7.0% Info Tech 4.2% Financials 3.3% Consumer Discretionary 3.0% Consumer Staples 1.6% Health Care 1.3% Utilities -1.2% Posted at 4:11 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar30	Mortgage Refinancing - Like Ditech.com Larry Stay March 30, 2006 I would be interested in your comments about whether or not refinancing is worth it? Does using the old 2% rule still work? The decision to refinance is dependant on the cost of refinancing and the savings the... Continue Reading Posted at 9:20 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Short Selling - Using Google as an example Larry Stay March 30, 2006 Selling short means selling a security you do not own. Functionally, your broker borrows the security and sells it for your account. If the security goes up in price, you lose money. If it goes down in price you make... Continue Reading Posted at 4:14 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar29	How do Interest Rates Affect Investments Larry Stay March 29, 2006 Yesterday, March 28th, the Fed raised the Fed Fund target rate one quarter of one percent (25 basis points) to 4.75%. This morning when I checked Fed Fund Futures the market had priced a 90% probability that the Fed would... Continue Reading Posted at 4:32 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar28	Program Trading Larry Stay March 28, 2006 I came across a full page add in my local paper inviting the world to a FREE seminar on a fully automated trading system. The system is called CommandTrade. From the ad we read, "Now you can preset all your... Continue Reading Posted at 4:37 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar27	Inflation and Retirement Larry Stay March 27, 2006 They say that two things are certain, death and taxes. I would add another near certainty, inflation. It is nearly certain that your income during retirement will be affected by inflation.Inflation is simply an increase in your cost of living... Continue Reading Posted at 4:11 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar24	Investing in Gold and Other Coins Larry Stay March 24, 2006 I mentioned in another post about investing in currently minted gold coins. Many countries around the world mint these coins each year. The most well known ones are likely to be the most liquid if you ever need to cash... Continue Reading Posted at 4:28 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar23	Gold Larry Stay March 23, 2006 I felt like taking a break from technical trading and write about commodities. Today I will focus on gold.In the entire history of the world it is estimated that a total fo 152,660 metric tons of gold have been mined... Continue Reading Posted at 4:04 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar22	Bob's 5 Bar Look-Ahead system Part II Larry Stay March 22, 2006 Yesterday we gave a description of a Bob's 5 Bar Look-Ahead Technical Trading System or BBLA 5 for short. You can read that for a refresher.With a 5 bar (bar = day or other time period where you track the... Continue Reading Posted at 3:57 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar21	Bob's 5 Bar Look-Ahead Technical Trading System Larry Stay March 21, 2006 Yesterday we gave rules for developing a successful technical trading system. Today we will describe one possible system. Tomorrow we will look at how the system stacks up against the rules. This example is given for educational purposes only and... Continue Reading Posted at 9:33 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar20	Bob's rules for building a Technical Trading System Larry Stay March 20, 2006 I am ecstatic! My good friend Bob sent me a monograph on how to develop a viable technical trading system. It has been honed through decades of use and much iteration. I will list the rules and in future posts... Continue Reading Posted at 5:25 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar17	Technical Trading Basics IX - Volume & Open Interest Larry Stay March 17, 2006 Volume and open interest are important ways to confirm trends. Volume is simply the number of shares of a trade the changed hands during a day. On charts you see it as vertical lines under the closing price (a histogram). ... Continue Reading Posted at 12:42 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar16	Technical Trading Basics VIII - MACD Larry Stay March 16, 2006 Today I would like to explain an indicator that has stood the test of time, the Moving Average Convergence/Divergence or MACD indicator. It was developed by Gerald Appel. From the name, you can see that it is built on moving... Continue Reading Posted at 4:09 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar15	Technical Trading Basics - VII Stochastics Larry Stay March 15, 2006 Today I'll discuss another oscillator similar to the RSI discussed yesterday. It is called the Stochastic Oscillator. It was developed by Dr. George Lane. The Stochastic Oscillator tracks the momentum of a stock or other security. It is a percentage... Continue Reading Posted at 4:10 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar14	Technical Trading Basics - VI Larry Stay March 14, 2006 Today I want to write about another technical indicator developed by J Welles Wilder. It is the Relative Strength Index or RSI. The RSI is an oscillator that varies between zero and 100. The RSI is used to tell whether... Continue Reading Posted at 3:58 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar13	Age & Risk Tolerance Larry Stay March 13, 2006 Lynn observes that he is older and cannot afford to be in risky positions. This relates to time horizon or holding period for investments.In some of my early posts, I noted that the longer you have to hold a security,... Continue Reading Posted at 5:09 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Inflation Rates and Bond Prices Larry Stay March 13, 2006 Lynn observes that with inflation running at 3% that bond yields appear to be low.In March of 2006, headline or nominal inflation is running over 4.0% year over year. The 10 year US Treasury has a yield of about 4.80%. ... Continue Reading Posted at 4:59 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Emerging Markets Larry Stay March 13, 2006 Lynn comments that with Emerging Markets growing at double digit rates, the pie seems to be getting larger.Emerging markets have been pursuing policies that have allowed their economies to grow at healthy levels. The world as a whole is concurrently... Continue Reading Posted at 4:50 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Portfolio Concentration Larry Stay March 13, 2006 Lynn asks several questions that have at their foundation the question of portfolio concentration. Lynn is invested in just a few sectors and wonders if his portfolio is too concentrated.Portfolio concentration is a high risk, high return strategy. I know... Continue Reading Posted at 4:35 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Canadian Oil Royalty Trusts Larry Stay March 13, 2006 Lynn asks various questions. The first is about Canadian Oil Royalty Trusts. The Canadian government has granted special tax status to these companies to encourage oil and gas exploration in Canada. They are something like Real Estate Investment Trusts in... Continue Reading Posted at 4:20 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Penny Stocks Larry Stay March 13, 2006 I am going to interrupt my series on technical trading to answer a couple of questions. I received an anonymous question about whether I felt penny stocks were too risky.I personally feel penny stocks are too risky for the average... Continue Reading Posted at 4:02 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar10	Technical Trading - Basics V Larry Stay March 10, 2006 Careful readers will note that a lot of the indicators I've written about for technical trading have to do with trends. Today I will discuss another tool useful for analyzing a trend. Moving averages are broadly used in different form... Continue Reading Posted at 4:02 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar 9	Technical Trading - Basics IV Larry Stay March 9, 2006 I am so excited; my new fly line came today. It is a WF 5 weight and is supposed to be the highest floating line in the world. We will see. I have visions of rapturous days out on the... Continue Reading Posted at 4:55 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar 8	Technical Trading - Basics III Larry Stay March 8, 2006 Today I'll discuss "Support Levels" and "Resistance Levels". Technical traders use these as indicators of when to start looking at buying (support) or selling (resistance). A way to look at support and resistance levels is in terms of supply and... Continue Reading Posted at 3:56 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar 7	Efficient Markets Larry Stay March 7, 2006 Devin, thanks for your comment! Devin states that many academics feel that technical trading does not work nor does fundamental analysis for that matter. Another way of stating their point is to say that markets are efficient. Market efficiency is... Continue Reading Posted at 7:59 AM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar 6	Technical Trading - Basics II Larry Stay March 6, 2006 Last time I wrote about a simple chart and how to use it to see trends. Today I will discuss a good indicator to confirm a trend and to measure its strength. The indicator is the Average Directional Index (ADX)... Continue Reading Posted at 3:36 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar 3	Technical Trading - Basics I Larry Stay March 3, 2006 If you want to learn to do technical trading, you have to learn to chart. The most basic chart is a graph of the closing price of a stock or index for some period of time. The longer the series... Continue Reading Posted at 2:20 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar 2	Technical Trading Rules Larry Stay March 2, 2006 John Murphy is StockChart.com's chief technical analyst. He has written extensively about technical trading. He wrote ten laws for technical trading that I will quote here. The source is the following link: http://stockcharts.com/education/TradingStrategies/MurphysLaws.html 1. Map the Trends Study long-term charts.... Continue Reading Posted at 7:06 AM \| Permalink \| Comments
Mar 1	Technical Trading - Introduction III Larry Stay March 1, 2006 What do people use technical trading to tell them? That depends if you are looking at markets or individual securities. For markets, technical indicators can illuminate whether a market is over, under or fairly valued. It can give signals as to good times... Continue Reading Posted at 4:13 PM \| Permalink \| Comments

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