Updates

As a learning aid, an update is posted each month after the close of the buying day -- the first trading day before the 28th, except before the 16th in December.

Each update features a watch list and a portfolio. The portfolio is a real account, and all stock purchases are made from the watch list.

The portfolio is more like a trust fund than a retirement account. The retirement account rules are followed as closely as possible, but the rule for income averaging is not strictly followed because cash is not always available to make the periodic purchase.

The TREND in the watch list is 100 times the change in the natural logarithm of the daily close of the stock price with a minimum trend length of 30 (+35% or -26%), except that the minimum trend length was 10 (+10.5% or -9.5%) for the 2009 June, July, August, and September updates. TREND is calculated with the PFGOOGLE.BAS or PFYAHOO.BAS application in this Qbasic program.

I made a few mistakes in implementation. For example, I bought Net 1 Ueps Technologies (UEPS) and later decided it should never have been on the watch list, and I sold Freeport McMoran (FCX) on a false downtrend signal generated by an intraday low.

2009 -- Jun 26 | Jul 27 | Aug 27 | Sep 25 | Oct 27 | Nov 27 | Dec 15

2010 -- Jan 27 | Feb 26 | Mar 26 | Apr 27 | May 27 | Jun 25 | Jul 27 | Aug 27 | Sep 27 | Oct 27 | Nov 26 | Dec 15

2011 -- Jan 27 | Feb 25 |