Tech Trader's short bet on TASR finally playing out after a few months.  Overall Tech Trader's exposure still a very tight 60% long by 30% short.  Very boring month so far. 

Up today about half a percent while market churns sideways.

Out of XLF at 0.7%, month-out calls at 20%.
Out of XLV at 0.7%, month-out calls at 8%.

Tech Trader coming back to life again after a boring few weeks. XLF and XLV intraday bottom signals fired, like first responders to a scene.

Slow way to end the quarter.  Tech Trader remaining very tight at 52% long by 22% short and selling out of its intraday bottom ETF positions on today's bounce.  Overall Tech Trader is up about 20% for the year while SPY is down 5%.

Up today despite market being down a percent and Tech Trader being 60% long vs 25% short still.  Thanks to shorts like GLNG and ISIS.


Can't wait till we get another daily bottom.  So ready for it.

Looking forward to seeing this sell off pick up and hopefully getting yet another rare SPY RSI2 signal.

That was probably the easiest flip in a while.  After making a killing on the SPY short, the very next trading day has Tech Trader now making on the long side instead with the ETFs (XLK, XLB, DIA); also added IBB at pretty much the low of the day.  The market has been chopping between negative and positive all day, but Tech Trader's held a steady 50bps up all day regardless of the market movement.  Ironically the biggest winner today is its short on ISIS (the stock is down 8%).


What's most impressive is how quickly it flipped from neutral to net short to now net long in just the past week, each time getting the exact day the market turns, and it is now just grinding higher on each swing the market makes.  This is after being "asleep" for most of September with no signals.  SPY again shown in red for comparison.

Tech Trader covered its RSI2 SPY trade today, out at $195.27 after shorting at about $200 on Wednesday, the exact top of the week (by closing price).  Equity netted 2%.  Weekly 200x puts made 95.3% from $2.32 to $4.53.  Month-out 200x puts made 45.5% from $4.20 to $6.11.

The once-in-a-blue-moon RSI2 SPY signal's 100% hitrate since 2008 track record remains intact.  As usual, the signal occurred while we were traveling and right before a major catalyst event (the Fed), but also as usual, the outcome of the actual event didn't matter.


Tech Trader is also now rotating into smaller intraday bottom-scalping long ETF positions (currently DIA, XLK, and XLB).  Exposure flipped in one day from 55% short by 40% long to now 65% long by 23% short.  Portfolio-level P&L finally stopped flat-lining and is going to new highs.  SPY again shown for comparison.


The hybrid equity+options portfolio that replaces ETF-timing trades with month-out options is up 6.5% for September so far with .5% drawdown.  Will be interesting to see if it can augment returns of the base strategies without increasing risk significantly, but we'll see with time.  Again, this is all fully automated.

CVC up 16% on acquisition.  No matter what happens today with the Fed, Tech Trader is already up almost a percent and at new highs for the year.

Tech Trader continuing to churn higher - currently at new highs for the year now.  SPY (with divs) now included in the same chart for comparison.


What's more interesting are the abandoned strategies that I monitor in a separate book.  They're catching up to the official portfolio now.  The older strategies are actually net short now for the first time since July, which is pretty scary given that Fed is tomorrow.  It's also planning to add another 50 potential names or so on the short side off of SPY's little rally today due to being overbought near resistance, with heavy-weight ETF positions among them.

lol this will change once we start traveling next week. Market goes nuts as soon as our backs are turned.

Pretty hilariously awesome day.  SPY opens up a percent before selling off and ending up down a percent.  Tech Trader opens flat as usual but then actually gains half a percent as the market sells off, despite being net long at 30% long x 20% short.  As usual, the most exciting days happen when one of us is out traveling (me this time); had the foresight this time to blindly throw on a few SPY weekly 201 puts before boarding, which are already up 100%.  Getting pretty good at mastering this Fate and Irony stuff.  Can't wait to see what happens when all 3 of us are out traveling on Fed Day.


Meanwhile SPY... flopping like a dead fish as usual these past weeks.

Sorry for the lack of updates.. because there hasn't been anything to update.  Tech Trader has literally flatlined in performance since the end of August and just held at year highs...

... while SPY flops up and down near year lows.

Tech Trader yet again positive for the day and at year highs, while the market is down 3% today and at year lows.  Still 38% long vs 25% short, but the shorts are greatly outperforming what little the longs are down.


As usual, notice just how unaffected Tech Trader's performance is from SPY's whiplashing up and down. Shown in the SPY chart below is also the old Comprehensive SPY strategy's short signal from yesterday which pretty much nailed it.  It's not in the core portfolio for Tech Trader, but we're having fun just manually trading weeklies in small lots around it here in our PAs.  Interesting again that many of my older strategies (first Trendlines and now Comprehensive SPY strategy) are coming back to life.

Hm.. the first strategy I ever wrote now wants to short SPY after selling around 213 a couple months ago. Kind of disturbing. It's made plenty of mistakes in the past though and is more of a slow moving guy, can hold for years, so it's just fun to watch more than anything.  Again, just very interesting to see all my older, abandoned 2012-era strategies coming back alive now after several years of silence.

Tech Trader's overall equity-only portfolio (not including the SPY options trade, only the equity) is already back within 2% of the year highs.  Exposures are also crushed to an extremely neutral 34% long by 26% short.  SPY meanwhile is still down about 7% from the highs and under $200.

SPY at $197! Jinxed it by exiting the $191 weekly calls yesterday ($4.5 from $1.5, +200%)... Except I still have my $197 weeklies (now $1.7 from $.3, >+500% gain) and $191 month-out ($8.5 from $3.93, >+100% gain). Take that Fate! Tech Trader is one step ahead of you. Bahaha!

Again, Tech Trader's 100% hitrate on calling SPY tops/bottoms (aka the once-in-a-blue-moon SPY signal) remains intact.
(Note the orange sell means it's thinking about but hasn't sold yet... though I'll probably at least let go of the weeklies mid-day to avoid decay)

The blue moon SPY signal nailed the market bottom (from a close-to-close basis of which it operates anyway).  Currently up 2% in stock, 50% in 191x weeklies, and 25% in 191x month-out calls.  I totally forgot it also had a price target.  Currently its target is 197 and will adjust according to market conditions.  I went ahead and added some 197x weekly calls as well in case we do jump that high.

Here's a review of where things are at.  Tech Trader did end up taking a hit (largely Monday) and is down 5% off the highs of 20%.  Markets are off about 12% from the highs, however, and SPY is actually negative for the year now.   The playbook currently is in ETFs and market timing.  Positions in individual names remain very neutral as a portfolio thanks to the large exposure cutting that Tech Trader did in July.  Tech Trader is getting longer on each sell off day but only in increments where it thinks might be the bottom, leaving a lot of dry powder to average down.  As the market bounces, Tech Trader will scale some out, and if we go lower, it will average down again.  It will do this until we get back into an uptrend of sorts where market timing signals will then recede and individual names start coming back into play.

Currently it is 112% long by 24% short, with 30% of that long exposure just now being added from Tuesday's close.  If you look at exposures below, you'll see that long is slowly increasing but in the sector charts, all the exposure is coming from ETFs (n/a) which is dwarfing any contribution from individual names right now.  



As usual, a YTD chart of SPY for comparison always highlights how stable Tech Trader's performance is compared to the market despite being largely net long most the year (let's not kid ourselves, SPY looks like a nightmare).

At long last, my once-in-a-blue-moon buy signal on SPY is finally here. I've been waiting all year for this. 
Would wait until close, don't get hasty in case of the remote chance Tech Trader changes its mind.
(but seriously, what are the chances of filling a $10 gap in SPY by end of day?)
Update: Yet again cancelled near the close.  The volume and price action is there though, so it'll probably be soon.  I need to stop posting these in advance before they actually get traded.  The only thing we got is a couple ETFs (XLV and SLV) intraday again. <_<


This is what a proper sell off looks like.  Tech Trader wants to buy *everything*.  Days like this are a beautiful example of how Tech Trader is NOT quant or conventional algo trading and definitely not mean reverting. All the other quants I know of started scaling in last week and got hit big time, unlike Tech Trader aiming for precision with technical analysis to figure out the exact bottoms (or at least pretty darn close).