Since the introduction of the idea generator, we’ve observed the following win-rates:
- 4th Quarter, 62.94%
- December, 54.84%
- November, 62.94%
Since inception (8/17) the idea generator has win rate of 61.17%.
Performance
My personal watchlist that I share on the site has seen a winrate of 71.43%, while my trading account reflects an approximate return of 55.08%, and the IRA returned 36.11%. Both compare favorably relative to the S&P which is on track to close up 19.76% in 2017.
The single biggest contributing factor to the performance of my trading account is my position in OLED, which itself was up 196.754% in 2017.. While I only recently highlighted OLED on the watchlist in week 47, it has been a core position of mine for some time. As a reminder, the approach I take with Earnings-Reminder is to focus on the workflow, and producing signals that I can use (and share). The ability to trade successfully for me is about focusing on price-action, avoiding noise, and prioritizing profitable trades over “being right”.
Be right, or be profitable?
The desire to be “right” has often proven to be a headwind. Do you want to be right, or do you want to make money? Well, I’d like to be both but short of that, speculation is about being wrong, and moving on. One of the ways I work to avoid the need to be right are by following a few rules:
- Have a plan for every trade – which includes stops, and trade-to targets for everything.
- Leg into (and out of) positions – don’t try calling a top or bottom in anything, ever.
- Automate as much as you reasonably can, and measure everything you do.
The biggest specific mistake I’ve made is not trusting my workflow more. If you have a plan for every trade, there’s no need to fear the outcome. I could give you numerous examples, but the one the jumps to mind in BA. I’ve been finding reasons to not enter BA for 50 points – the biggest reason being that the setup was never perfect. BA kept printing new highs, week after week. Even my initial leg got stopped out, before I established a position.
Crypto
I haven’t talked about Crypto currencies on the site at all. I don’t trade fiat currencies, and generally don’t get involved in gold. I continue to get hung up on the utility aspect of the discussion. Which incidentally, is the aspect that many Engineers or folks coming from an Engineering-related discipline seem to get tripped-up on when it comes to trading. In any case, I’m not interested in debating the merits of crypto currencies, because I can’t seem to reconcile the promise with reality at this point. Which isn’t to say, it can’t be traded profitably.
Earnings-Reminder Update
As far as the site goes, Earnings-Reminder launched almost a exactly a year-ago. In the time that’s passed, the product has gone from a UI with earnings reminders to a solution that provides earnings and ex-dividend reminders, and provides a workflow to keep you on track in your analysis.
- Unlimited Earnings Reminders
- Unlimited Ex-Dividend Reminders
- 6 Different Reports to help you automate your workflow
- Added the idea generator tool which updates itself twice daily and currently has a 61% win-rate
- Implemented the deep search & research tool
- Historic screen database which updates itself daily with results from our favorite screens
- Added pre-watchlist tool
- Added watchlist tool
- Trade-To Target notification tool
While there are a few more things to do with the tool, and probably no shortage of nice-to-have features that can be added, I don’t anticipate dramatic changes to the tool in the immediate future, short of feature requests from subscribing members. Some other commitments will also be interrupting my normal trade updates at least the month of January, but I will do my best to minimize the impact to the site.
Best of luck to everyone in 2018.
