Saturday, January 30

News Update

Another week has passed on the shore of Lake Superior in my hometown. A storm blew through on Sunday, so I was quickly back in the shoveling routine. It was wet stuff, so I couldn't even use the snowblower, but as colder weather was promised, I knew I wanted to get it cleared away before it froze. The rest of the week has been sunny, clear and cold. Our new chairs arrived for the church on Monday morning, so it was nice to get those moved in and set up. They look and feel great!

Trav, Dean and I have continued to develop our technical strategies. The market has continued very bad, losing more value this week. I managed to make some good technical trades, putting me up 0.2% for the week, but I also fell victim to my worst problem as I got attached to a bad trade and refused to sell it even though the technical indicators said to do so! Thus, I am now stuck with a losing trade over the weekend, and I don't like that. I pray that God will improve my mental discipline to follow the strategy that we know works. I also pray that the markets will go up next week so I can sell!

Wendy has had a bad week with a troublesome wisdom tooth. She finally got in to see the dentist and he passed her along to an orthodontic surgeon who removed the tooth on Friday. She's experiencing some pain still from the surgery, but overall much relief.

Trav continues with his work. He's away with his hockey team this weekend to a tournament in southern Minnesota. I'm sure the players are very excited for the trip; I hope all goes well for them.

Erin has continued to be quite busy at work. Wendy has helped out by picking up mom's taxi routine to get Kristian several days this week. Kristian continues to progress well. He's forming sentences now, and continuing to develop spoken vocabulary. He was even reading along with Erin on one of his books from school.

And that's the kind of week it's been.

Saturday, January 23

News Update

Another week has passed on the shore of Lake Superior in my hometown. The weather has been very nice, so I've kept working at the ice-coated driveway and finally got it cleared. Then the sunshine has completed the job of drying it off. Probably just in time, as we have rain and snow in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow. Trav, Dean and I have been working each morning on investments. It's been another very bad week on the markets as the TSX has descended to close at a level not seen since early November. As a result, we're working on new strategies that we may be able to use when things turn around. So, I didn't make any money this week, but I only lost 0.1%, so, I'm left sitting at 5.7% profit.

Wendy is keeping very busy with meetings, classes and visiting with her friends. She continues to work on improvements in overall health through diet, exercise and additional training. This week she is turning a bedroom upstairs into Kristian's room. He really likes it as Erica painted the walls with a castle motif.

Kristian has kept progressing at school and in speech therapy. His sentences and conversation are gradually growing. He has been fitted for his next set of hearing aids, and those should be arriving in a couple of weeks. He seems to understand nearly everything we tell him, but we don't always understand what he's trying to tell us!

Erin continues to enjoy her work with Budget, and is gradually growing into additional roles with that work. She has postponed taking classes for now.

Trav stays busy with his work, our investments and private graphical arts projects. He has several of the latter due for completion this weekend, so he's been trying to keep everything together.

And that's about it for this week.

Saturday, January 16

Home Again

Another week has passed on the shore of Lake Superior in my hometown. There are a few issues to get caught up with, and we pursue them with some vigour. For me, it's getting back into full-time investing, and getting down to the pavement in the driveway. There is quite a build-up of snow and ice on the driveway due to the mild weather and the traffic. Fortunately, the weather continues to be above zero each day, so I gradually get it chipped loose and removed. The deck melts off, so we even enjoy a barbecue this afternoon. It is a no-good, very bad week on the TSX as the market loses over 2%. I only manage a sale on Monday, and then gradually try to pick up bargains later in the week. Now I need the values to go up, or they will prove to have not been bargains! At any rate, I do gain 0.2%, so I'm at 0.9% this year, or 5.8% including the final quarter of last year. Trav has started working with me on this each morning, and he's bringing some fresh ideas to the stock selection process. We'll see how that goes.

Wendy has been catching up with her medical work and has begun take classes on how to manage her diabetes. Early reports are that the classes are great. She's enjoying them. The house has enjoyed a complete cleaning this week also, and a pile of laundry has gone through the machines.

Erin & Kristian are back in the routines of school and work. Kristian's communication and other skills continue to develop in an encouraging way. He seemed to be coming down with a cold, but has bounced back by the weekend.

Travis continues with work, but has made a switch to doing more of it from home, so he has the mornings free to work with me on investments. We have added Dean to the group, so we have a workgroup here each morning to assess conditions and evaluate strategies.

And that's about it for this week.

Saturday, January 9

Travelling North

Another week has passed during which we have returned from Orlando to Lake Superior and my hometown. As we packed up Sunday morning, I checked the weather for Lexington SC... -8, -8! in South Carolina! It surely seemed an ominous sign! Were we making a big mistake? Was it too early to be heading north? Could it be that winter was not yet over? As you will see, the answers to all those questions was a resounding YES!

As we drove over to Daytona Beach and then northward up the coast we ground to a halt on the freeway–this has happened with disgusting regularity! A multi-vehicle accident had completely closed the northbound lanes. Surely this was another message to turn back! We carried on. A Jeep had tangled with three cars. The Jeep was the only one to sustain damage on both ends, so clearly it was a major player. By the time we got to the accident site (It was less than a mile ahead of us, but we were delayed over one hour while police and rescue vehicles attended the scene.), we noted that a multi-vehicle accident had developed among gawkers in the southbound lanes, totally blocking that side, and two or three more accidents had occurred among gawkers nearby these accident sites. As we continued northbound, we drove over ten miles before coming to the end of the stopped vehicles in the southbound lanes, and who knows how many more would be stopped before traffic started moving again. Freeways? I think not!

We finally got to Jack & Karen's, but we were over an hour later than we had planned. However, that did not diminish the pleasure of spending some time with these dear friends. We left Lexington on Tuesday morning, headed west. We got as far as St. Louis IL and spent the night there. On Wednesday, we continued westward toward Lawrence KS. As we approached Kansas City it began to snow. Once again we found ourselves in something less than a freeway as fender benders clogged the arteries. Once again we were about an hour late getting to our destination. Once again, we had the great pleasure of time spent with dear friends, Helen & Marti.

On Thursday, we awoke to the remnants of the snow storm. We planned to drive north, but I-35 was closed in Iowa. We waited. We changed plans. We enjoyed Invictus–thanks, Marti. We stayed another night! It was bitterly cold with a windchill that sounded frightening in either F or C. On Friday, we awoke to very cold weather, but the I-35 was moving, so we headed out and drove up to Minneapolis MN. The road was good, but the ditches and median were filled with stuck and wrecked vehicles, especially near Des Moines. We were glad not to have tried to head north earlier.

Finally, today, we completed the drive along the lake to home. It has been a month-long trip. We really enjoyed having everyone with us in Florida, but we're also really glad to be home.

I have managed one day of investments this week, but it was a good day, and I gained 0.7%—that's a full week plus some catch-up. Economic news was shaky toward the end of the week, but the TSX ended up in the green anyway.

Travis, Erin & Kristian have been holding the fort at home. We'll catch up with them now that we're home again.

And that's about it for this week.

Saturday, January 2

News Update

Happy New Year!

Another week has passed in sunny Florida, but our time here is done, and we're ready to begin the long trip north starting tomorrow. We plan to be back in Thunder Bay by next Saturday. We have enjoyed our holiday in Florida, seen all we wish to see at Disney World, and become more aware of other attractions in this part of the world. We will look forward to another visit some time.

This week was spent with Travis, Erin & Kristian. We were in a new location near downtown Orlando, and enjoyed good access to Disney World as well as several outlet malls! Unfortunately, we often found that the interstate through Orlando was a multi-lane parking lot. Today, we drove the crew down to Tampa as they attended the Penguins-Lightning hockey game this afternoon, and are preparing to fly north in the morning.

The final week of investing for the year was only three days, but things went well and I gained 0.4% to close the year at 4.9% for these final three months of the year.

And that's about it for this week.

Friday, January 1

Economics 102

Happy New Year everyone! The year 2009 has ended, and while that date is an artificial boundary, it gives a holiday (and a pause) to review, reconsider and plan. It was a momentous year for us financially as, with the completion of my latest assignment, we have decided that my work should be the management of our investments. So, while I do that, I am also blogging the details. In education (where every common thing has to have a special name!) we call this metacognition! Enjoy!

I am calling this Economics 102 because I took Economics 100 in my first year of university, and Economics 101 is a well-used metaphor already.

I started my investment training and practice on March 9th. My first buys were on March 10th. Those who follow the TSX closely recognize those dates. They marked the depths of the most recent market crash. Since then we have enjoyed one of the biggest market surges since the Great Depression. My instructors lamented over the experience of our group as being so far from reality that we might not really be learning as we should. It was hard not to make money during the part of the year from March 10th to December 31st as the TSX rose from 7,567 to 11,746. So, I have determined to assess my success in the light of the TSX surge.

The first decade of this century is being well-described as a lost decade economically. This is certainly true in the US (Thanks there, Dubya!), but not so much in Canada. In the US, the SP500 dropped 24.1% during the decade (Imagine the additional pain if not for Obama's 23.4% gain this year!) The TSX rose almost 40% during the decade, but 30.7% took place this year, and even with that, an annualized rate of about 4% ranks pretty poorly against the previous two decades. Both countries have now pulled out the Bush Recession, and both of our main market indices moved into official bull territory in June, however, there are plenty of worrisome and difficult economic clouds still roiling through. Our economic health is so tightly tied to the US, that their continuing economic malaise is a big concern. Thoughtful observers see the current recovery as artificially based on the Obama stimulus spending and worry over the future. While he has been able to turn the TARP funding into a profitable investment for the US taxpayers, I do not see any prospects of an early repayment of the stimulus investment.

With that in the background I turn to the micro-economic picture of my own finances. My first simulated trading experience ran until July 17th. During that time, I achieved a profit of 43.7% while the TSX gained about 37% (My professional advisers gained 12.6%). The second phase ran until September 24th where I gained 19.1%, and the TSX rose 8.8% (My professional advisers gained 1.4%). The final phase (where I was actually investing money) completed the year; I gained 4.9% while the TSX rose 4.1% (My professional advisers lost 1.3%).

So, there's the assessment, now to consider the evaluation! The investment plan we are learning certainly allowed us to make great gains and surpass the markets (and some professional advisers) widely during the early trials, but not so much during the final phase. It is a concern that the final phase was when I was actually using my own money! Do I get too emotionally attached to the business? The final phase translates into an annual gain of about 20% which is certainly enough to support us, but not in line with the 30% we've been trained to expect. Therefore, while the effort will continue, I will also be reviewing my strategies and techniques as I try to improve. Travis has revised his working conditions so as to be more available to consult and support the investment program. We hope (and plan) for good economic results in 2010.