Sell, sell, sell, this is the motto for the week ahead. I have identified 3 stocks that are currently in the portfolio that have two closed below the uptrend band this week, making it a sell. They are NAB (National Australia Bank), TSE (Transfield Services Ltd) and WBC (WestPac Banking). And the way it looks none of them will return us a profit. On a quick scan I have also identified a further two stocks with two closes below that are not part of the blog portfolio. They are CGF (Challenger Limited) and COH (Cochlear Ltd).
This combined the a Bearish Outside Vertical in the overseas markets, point to a further downward move in the week(s) ahead (if this week’s low will be taken out). I just hope this sideways movement in the Australian movement will come to an end soon and we will see the HSC perform better in a trending market.
I still have a couple of stocks that meet all the buy criteria according to the Home Study Course. They are: DOW, TEL, TLS and WOW. Fingers cross the keep their strength for the next weeks.
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Oh No! the blog portfolio’s profit of current positions is down to 10% again. When you first look at this it does not read very well. Whilst the Australian share index finished the week marginally lower, the portfolios profit is down from 14%. Nothing to worry about though as we were adding 3 more positions and you expect the profit to fall then, as it is unlikely their profit is up to 14% in the first week.
As mentioned last week DOW (Downer EDI Ltd), TEL (Telecom Corporation of New Zealand) and WOW (Woolworths Ltd) all three met the buy criteria according to the Home Study Course. Their buy price this week stayed under 33%. I am already looking forward for them to return some healthy profits to the portfolio.
Apart from the new additions I still have CPA, SKI (below 1.234), TLS and TSE meeting the buy criteria based on my interpretation of the HSC. I didn’t identify any new sells this week. There is a good chance I missed something, because I was redoing my workbook after attending David’s refresher webinar on the HSC. I liked his tips how to setup Market Analyst. But this means I lost some of my old trendbands on the charts and I need to go through them again in greater detail.
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The Australian share market finished the week slightly higher than the week before, whilst the blog portfolio moved marginally lower. This is to be expected when adding new stocks to the portfolio. Last week we added TLS (Telstra Corp Ltd), which finished the week 2% up compared to the opening price on Monday. Apart from this there wasn’t much movement in the portfolio.
Looking forward to Monday, I have a number of stocks fulfilling all the buy criteria according to the Home Study Course. They are DOW (Downer EDI Ltd) (under 3.92), TEL (Telecom Corporation of New Zealand) (under 1.74) and WOW (Woolworths Ltd) (under 27.33). This is interesting that all three are close to the 33% price extension and are only a buy if they open or move below the 33%. I also still have CPA, GPT, SKI, TLS and TSE meeting the rules. I didn’t identify any stocks meeting the sell rules. Read more…
It’s been a difficult year thus for to make profits following the Home Study Course (HSC). This goes hand in hand with the Australian share market as it is just not getting any real momentum and while the index is moving slowly higher it is more in a sideways movement. Most trades that we exited this year, were losers. For anyone just starting off with the HSC I would recommend to look for trades that carry less than 15% risk and possibly enter trades with less money than you would otherwise. Don’t get discouraged though. The market will pick up and you want to be ready for this.
It is important to cut the losers and on the other hand let the winners run. Take a look at ILU, which is up by almost 300% since we bought it. Whilst the Australian share market finished the week lower the profit of the open positions are up to over 14% again. This is mainly due to the fact that we got stopped out of two positions during the week with one of them (JHX) incurring the maximum 15% loss. This brings down the profit of our closed positions to 8.5%. Again this is not the true return on investment if you would reinvest your earnings, this figure would be much higher.
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Apologies for missing last week’s update, I decided to spent some quality time with family on our holidays after we came back from my first skiing experience in Chile. We had great weather and best of all fantastic snow. I’ll definitely be back for more in years to come. Well as I skied downhill the markets went downhill as well. At least that was what I heard when I turned on the news. I expected the portfolio to be in negative territory again and was surprised to still see it clinging to a 1 percent gain.
There was quite a bit of activity while I was offline with TLS (Telstra Corporation) triggering the stop and three more additions to the portfolio. Telstra actually plunged to a new all time low at 2.82. OST (OneSteel) was a buy two weeks ago and last week we have added PPT (Perpetual Limited) and CWN (Crown Limited).
The transactions in detail:
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The slide continues with all markets recording another week of losses. The Australian share market was down by almost 4% for the week, having had a string of days in the red. We are getting close to the low from 21st of May 2010 and I think there is a high probability that we will see a new low. The blog portfolio is down to minus 2.18%, with only Metcash going against the trend.
This kind of market conditions make it very challenging to enter according the Home Study Course (HSC) rules. I see many stocks that are in a consolidation phase often triggering the buy signal, just to have another decline before the next rise again. The biggest challenge you face is that on one hand you would like be in the next rise right from the very beginning, and on the other hand you want to minimize your losses. There is no easy answer to this and everyone needs to work out what is best in their own circumstances. I personal prefer the cautious approach and I use this time to paper trade until I am confident enough that the market is on the way up again.
Nevertheless we have added TLS (Telstra Corp Ltd) to our portfolio last week. TLS finished the week more than 5% down on the buy price.
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