Some Blog Site

Thus begins a recurring feature here at Some Blog Site – an analysis of Technical Analysis.

For those who don’t know, Technical Analysis is the study of stock charts and the process of choosing which stocks to buy based on what the price has done and is doing, not necessarily using any other information about the company.

I used the Stocks Scans page from stockcharts.com. It lists a table of the various exchanges versus the various indicators. I had seen these and wondered how well they worked. So I thought I would chart the results for a while, rather than experimenting with my money. This series of posts will update how well the various indicators are doing over time.

I limited the experiment to only the NASDAQ and NYSE. I’m sure there are some stocks or funds to be had at the other exchanges too, but I wanted to keep the experiment simple. Each day for a week, I would run the scans and collect which stocks were listed for that day. After the scans were run, I removed the stocks that were either below $1 in price or below 50,000 shares of daily volume. I used the closing price as the purchase price, and added the stock to the list of stocks in the imaginary portfolio. If an indicator were bullish or “Buy”, then the portfolio would pretend to buy the stock. If an indicator were bearish or “Sell”, then the portfolio would pretend to short sell the stock.

At the end of each day, I would also collect the closing prices of all stocks in the portfolio. These were compared to the purchase price to get the gain for the period. After the one week was done, I stopped adding stocks to the portfolio. But from here on out, those existing stocks will be tracked and the performance of the technical indicators will be observed.

This chart is not not exactly represenative for various reasons.
1. The stock scans are run at the end of each trading day. Therefore the purchase price that this chart uses is the closing price. But after the market closes, you can’t buy the stock at that price anymore.
2. The stocks are not weighted. So a $10 stock is going to have ten times the influence that a $1 stock does. This is not ideal, and does not represent how I would likely invest.
3. The indicators may need to be tracked for more than one week. Some indicators may oscillate, showing buy a stock one week and sell it the next. That means that the longer I continue this comparison, the less representative it will be.

NASDAQ

NYSE

This is not an offer to buy or sell any securities. Any information on this site is general in nature and is not intended to be financial advice for your specific situation. Trading stocks carries risks that should be discussed with a professional financial advisor. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Use at your own risk. This post was written in a facility that processes peanuts.

“Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest.”
– Matthew 25:27

Ah, football talk in July… Unfortunately, it has to do with Brett Favre’s unretiring. I had hoped this would not happen, and now it is time for another warning: don’t do it, Brett.

Stay retired, be a man of your word.  How do you want to be remembered?  You’re in a good spot now, having taken the Packers to the playoffs in your final year.  Leave it at that.

“But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment.”
– James 5:12

Yesterday I bought a reel to store my 100′ extension cord. Until yesterday, it had been sitting in a less-than-neat pile. But now it is organized.

While I was setting up the cord reel, I noticed a warning on the label. It said to unroll the cord before use.  I initially thought “why bother with that?” Isn’t the point of the reel to keep the cord in a nice coil? Why not let it stay coiled, like the garden hose does? It doesn’t complain at all. Then the lessons of how to make an electromagnet came to mind, and I thought there might be something to it.

There is some argument about whether it is induction causing the issue or just the normal heat associated with voltage drop for such a long wire. Normally the heat would be able to dissipate along the surface area of the cord. With the cord wound tightly however, there is much less surface area. Normal household loads for a moderate time should not cause any problems. But I would still be careful not to let any metal go into the core of the cord reel.

“He covers {His} hands with the lightning, And commands it to strike the mark.”
– Job 36:32

We made sugar cookies today.  On the beach.

Ingredients:

• 4 tsp. sunscreen
• 2 cups sand
• 1 child
• 1 swimsuit

Instructions:

1. Place child in swimsuit
2. Spread sunscreen on skin of child, taking care not to put sunscreen on the swimsuit
3. Sprinkle the sand onto the child, rotating to ensure even coverage
4. Optional step: place child on towel and bake in the sunshine for a few minutes

As you may have guessed, we did not eat these cookies, so I can’t say how they taste.  But I would expect they would be a bit gritty.

“Then you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it; two-tenths {of an ephah} shall be {in} each cake.”
– Leviticus 24:5

To avoid sunburns, we use sunscreen.  Recently my wife bought a large bottle of NO-AD sunblock lotion.  It was highly rated by someone or something, so she thought she would try it.  It’s called NO-AD because they don’t advertise.

So we were at a place that gives you wristbands for admittance, and they write something on the plastic wristband.  It was written in permanent marker, and my wristband had gotten wet with no problems.  But after I applied this NO-AD sunblock, I noticed I had some darker spots on my skin.  I looked around and noticed that the permanent marker was running or bleeding off my wristband.  I thought “That’s a poor permanent marker to just be able to wash off with water.”  But after checking other people’s wristbands, I saw that mine was the only one with a problem.  So the only other conclusion was that the sunblock acted as a solvent for permanent marker.

I forgot about that incident until the next morning.  I did not put the NO-AD sunblock on myself, but I did put it on my children.  So the only place on my that had the NO-AD was the palm of one hand.  An hour later, I happened to hold a ballpoint pen.  It was the standard pen with the name of the hotel printed on it.  I’ve had it for a while and it never caused any problems.  But when I opened my hand to put the pen down, I noticed that the hotel name was now printed on my hand.  The ink from the pen’s shell, the ink that was used to print the hotel name and logo, had been partially dissolved by the sunblock and was now smeared on my hand.

So some ingredient in the sunblock is acting as a solvent to break down inks.  They could break into another market and increase their sales.  Just pour some sunscreen into a different bottle and label it as “permanent marker smearer” or something.

“Our skin has become as hot as an oven, Because of the burning heat of famine.”
– Lamentations 5:10

It’s fun dealing with a young child who is still learning grammar.  Here are some recent accounts of conversations that we had with our young children.

Before the funeral – Me: “Okay, you need to be good during the funeral.”
After the funeral – Child: “Did I be good?”

How can you not smile at the child who says that?

A different situation, this time:

Me:  “You need to get dressed; it’s almost time to go.”
Child: “No, I willn’t”

Part of me was ready to discipline him because he said that with a defiant and angry attitude.  But more of me was ready to laugh at the grammar or using “willn’t” instead of “won’t”.  But I couldn’t let him see me laughing.  One reason was that I didn’t want him to think his attitude was okay, and the other one was that if he saw my laughing at him while he was angry, that would make him even more angry.  So that was one of those situations where I had to stifle my amusement until later and deal with the immediate problem.  So I went over to him and said, “It’s won’t, not willn’t.”

Here is an exchange that happened while we were driving somewhere.  As I was driving, not taking notes, I don’t have the exact words that were used, but these quotes portray the spirit of the event.

Me: “That’s not food.  Do not put anything in your mouth except food.”
Child: “And drink!”
Me: “Yes, and drink”
Child: “And silverware”
Me: “Yes, and silverware too”
Child: “And medicine”
Me: “Okay, and medicine”

I think it ended there, but that reinforced the concept that family rules should be more general than specific.

What constitutes a successful nation?

Is it how comfortable the people are? Is it how happy the people are? Is it how rich the people are? Is it how many people want to leave their countries for it? Is it how free the people are?

However you measure it, the USA is a successful nation and a great place to live. Not just exist, but live.

Although July 4th is two days late:

Happy Birthday

A M E R I C AA M E R I C AA M E R I C A!