Well… I don’t believe in TA. Either too subjective or if using hard-coded rules fails to perform adequately, IMO. Also, since this is our only source of income, I just can’t risk trying to make that stuff work anymore. As to how I decide when to enter a trade, that’s easy! Microsoft Excel does all the work for me.
That APA trade was based off my USA dividend paying stock watchlist. This particular watchlist is currently tracking 285 companies to compare its price against. (These are all companies that consistently grow their underlying business valuation – theoretically, if a business’ liquidation value keeps going up, then the stock price *should* also keep going up – this would also negate those previous TA support levels as well, right? Logically, it would stand to reason that only higher lows should be made most of the time for a consistently profitable company – old lows never to be relied upon again for a revisit).
First thing excel does is to determine if this company is undervalued in that watchlist at the moment. Yes, for APA, just barely… The median dividend yield on that watchlist is 2.53%, whereas APA’s yield right now is 2.96%. In a sane world, that *could* be a fundamental reason for the stock price to rise (competition for better dividend returns driving it up).
Then excel compares the % drop the price has sold-off by in X number of weeks/months (parameter setting to fiddle with). I personally look-back quite a few months, whereas Edward O. Thorp used to, successfully, only use a 2 week look-back period for his MUD system – to each their own. The shorter the look-back period = more risk, while a longer one = diminished returns. If the stock with the steepest sell-off on the undervalued half of my list was say -30%, then the buy price of APA would be set at a price that would equal that sell-off percent from its highest price in the look-back period. (The larger the sell-off, hopefully, translates to a bigger portion of that move that was only based off of fear. Which is good. Fear subsides).
Could the price continue dropping off even further? *sigh* Yes. In fact, sadly, most of the time it does after my initial purchase. I’m far more concerned though with trying to keep my portfolio as fully invested as I possibly can as opposed to sitting it out and trying to gauge bottoms. Your TA might get you in at better prices than me, but then again, you’ll probably miss out on a few more stocks than I do and spend more time waiting around in cash… Simply getting a decent discount on the price is good enough for me, as long as a partial recovery from there would be a substantial enough reward to wait it out, that is. For instance, Excel has determined that my initial profit target for APA would be set here:
Looks entirely plausible to me that this target could be achieved in well under a year. I mean, people seem to regularly bid this stock up to that level all the time, right? As of yesterday’s close, that would be more than a 17% gain in price. Annualized, that could be huge, depending on how long it takes to get there, of course…
Downside risk is mitigated by:
- Good underlying financials (its net worth keeps increasing, given enough time, the stock price will as well).
- Undervalued condition – by definition, the price *shouldn’t* be too high to worry about, as is.
- Diversified position sizing.
- No margin usage, so freedom to only sell at a loss when there is strength/rally in the market.
- Averaging down with “top-ups” if my cash pile becomes too big from other recently closed positions.
- Lowering the exit target as time passes.
Occasionally, a quarterly earnings report flop will throw a wrench in the works, but generally not often enough to worry about.
The tricky part for me has been trying to fine tune the look-back and price recovery % parameters for this system. It has just been trial and error for the most part as backtesting has not really been feasible due to the evolving nature of my comparison watchlists. (Companies get removed and added from those lists of mine all the time, come every quarter – with a turnover rate around 10% or so, I think).
I’m sure someone could probably make all kinds of improvements here, but really, my goal has just been to “beat the market”, relatively simply and stress-free, whilst I spend my time fishing 😉.