The Home Trading Blog

Unlike the US market last week, the Australian market took a breather to finish the week lower compared to the high the week before. My bias however is that the market remains bullish and we should see a strong start in the Australian market on Monday. In the portfolio we had most shares retracing or finishing the week at the same level than the previous week. The exception was  ASX which finished the week with a healthy gain. We even got stopped out of SKI (Spark Infrastructure Group), meaning we have another space to fill in the portfolio.

The spot will be filled by WPL on Monday. According to my analysis WPL (Woodside Petroleum Ltd) is fulfilling all the buy rules according to the HSC. A warning to all Elliott Wave followers out there, looking at the Elliot Wave for WPL, there is a good chance it is currently on the final decline, which would mean it will lose more than half of its current value over the next year or two. I am not taking this into consideration though when it comes to the blog portfolio. Here are two charts to first show the buy signal and also the Elliot Wave. Read more…

We had another relatively quiet week in the markets. There were no movements in the portfolio and the overall value of our open positions increased by just over 1% to 3.9%. This is very much in line with what the Australian share index did as well. The market is still in a holding pattern not knowing if it should go further up or continue the recent decline.

Looking at the market according to the HSC rules it looks more likely we are going up at least in the short-term. For next week I have identified two stocks fulfilling the buy criteria according to my analysis. They are NCM (Newcrest Mining Ltd) and MTS (Metcash Limited).  MTS is only a buy if it stays under 4.15, which is right on the 33% price extension.

I have also several companies on the watch list for next week. TLS (Telstra), JBH (JB Hi-Fi) and CSR (CSR Ltd) all had one close above the downtrend band and if they continue in this direction they might be a buy next week.

Read more…

Another week of heavy losses with many stops being activated. The XJO has now retraced by about 45% of the recent rise, which started in March 2009. And it looks like the market will at least take a breather on Monday with the US markets pointing higher on Friday. As mentioned in an earlier entry, this is quite normal at the end of a bigger cycle where you expect the market to retrace between 38% and 62%.

What looked like a quiet week in regards of selling and buying for the portfolio ended up to be a hectic week with a total of 4 stops being activated. We have been stopped out of WPL (Woodside Petroleum Ltd), WAN (West Australia Newspaper), SGM (Sims Metal Management) and NAB (National Australia Bank). There was also NWS (News Corporation), where we sold the remaining half on Monday as the stock had two closes below the trend band. Sorry it slipped through when I did the update last week, but when I looked at the chart again on Sunday I realised  we had two closes below the trend band.

The transactions for last week were:

17th May: Sell 304 NWS @ 18.50 for a total profit of 11.84%
21th May: Sell 373 NAB @ 23.93 for a total loss of 10.64%
21th May: Sell 443 SGM @ 19.17 for a total loss of 14.98%
21th May: Sell 1282 WAN @ 6.77 for a total loss of 13.02%
21th May: Sell 213 WPL @ 41.09 for a total loss of 12.59%

This reduces the portfolio size to 7 stocks with one being in profit and the others currently in the red. It also impacted the return on the closed positions which came down to 16.94%, whilst the current open positions sit at -2.55%. Still not bad considering that the market should turn around in the near future. There will be plenty of opportunities to buy and make good profits.

There are no buys or sells for next week however I have a couple of stocks on the sell watch list as they had one close below the trend band this week. They are: AMC, CCL, CEY, ORI and WDC.

Read more…

Happy Easter everybody! Be ready for a big move in the market over the next couple of weeks. Last week was one trading day shorter than a normal trading week but I don’t think this alone explains that the XJO had a weekly trading range of only 53 points, which is just about over 1% of its value. This is by far the shortest range in a while and is usually followed by a bigger move in market.

Last week we were adding 3 more positions to our portfolio. My favourite PDN (Paladin Energy Ltd) ended up to be a nice littler earner already with a rise of just over 8%. The other buys were WAN (West Australian Newspaper), which moved up slightly and WPL (Woodside Petroleum Ltd), which ended the week marginally lower.

The transactions for last week were:

29th March: Buy 2577 PDN at 3.88
29th March: Buy 1282 WAN at 7.80
29th March: Buy 213 WPL at 47.01

Obviously the new positions lowered the return of the open positions to 11.26%. I have decided to create a separate page on the blog where I list all the closed positions including the profit/loss of each transaction. I wanted to this over the Easter long weekend but the whole family came down with a virus and I took some much needed timeout from the computer.

Looking ahead to next week, I could find one potential stock which meets the buying criteria. SGM (Sims Metal Management Ltd) needs to go above 22.83 for the monthly swing to turn up and all other rules are currently met. Looking at the recent buys, I still have NAB, PDN, STO, TTS, WAN and WPL meeting all the rules according to the HSC. As always, please compare this with your own analysis before you decide to buy or sell a stock.

The portfolio as of 1st April is:

The market is still edging up cautiously and we are only 44 points away from the January high. The percentage gain for the portfolio is slightly down compared to last week, mainly due to our new additions STO (Santos Limited) and TTS (Tatts Group). Both were up on their buy price (STO) 4%, but still below the average gain of our open positions.

On Monday I’ll be adding three more positions to the portfolio. WPL (Woodside Petroleum), WAN (Western Australia Newspaper) and PDN (Paladin Energy Ltd) are fulfilling the buy criteria according to the HSC. At this point I would like to urge anyone, not to buy or sell based on what I am doing with the portfolio. I simply apply a set of rules that I learned doing the Home Study Course (HSC) and write what I see the indicators are. I might interpret them differently then you would. Always do your own analysis on a stock. If your results differ from mine, please let me know.

Back to the transactions for last week:

22th March: Buy 4115 TTS at 2.43
22th March: Buy 705 STO at 14.19

That’s all from me for this week. It’s my wife’s birthday this weekend and time for me to spend time with my family.

The portfolio as of 26th March is: Read more…

Again there wasn’t much movement in the Australian market last week, with the XJO finishing slightly up again compared to the week before. Watch out for a bigger move to come over the next couple of weeks – the million-dollar question is: Which direction? My personal opinion is that we haven’t seen the end of the last downward move, but I would love to be wrong on this one.

Our portfolio starts growing again and we added two more positions to it. DJS (David Jones Ltd) was one of them, finished the week lower resulting in a loss so far. NAB (National Australia Bank) was the second one, finishing the week slightly up. NAB had a very low weekly range so again I expect a bigger move either next week or the following week.

The transactions for last week were:

15th March: Buy 1934 DJS at 5.17
15th March: Buy 373 NAB at 26.78

The buys keep coming for the week ahead with TTS (Tatts Group) and STO (Santos Limited) both fulfilling the HSC criteria. I also have WPL (Woodside Petroleum) and PDN (my favourite Paladin Energy Ltd) on the watch list for the following weeks.

The portfolio as of 19th March is: Read more…