Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Yet another commodity ETF:
NEW YORK, Jan. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Stock Exchange(R) (Amex(R)) announced today that it has launched trading in the GreenHaven Continuous Commodity Index Fund (Amex: GCC), managed by GreenHaven Commodity Services, LLC.
GCC aims to track the performance of the Continuous Commodity Total Return Index, an equal weighted basket of 17 commodities (corn, wheat, soybeans, live cattle, lean hogs, gold, platinum, silver, copper, cocoa, coffee, sugar, cotton, orange juice, crude oil, heating oil and natural gas). Reuters America, LLC owns and calculates the Index.
Hmm... Live hogs! Can the pork bellies be far behind? AIM to bring home the bacon, one way or another!
AIMster
Your grub occurred while I was at the office (no access).
For the record...
Thanks for the updates on prior grubs. Interesting you hit 10,000 on SI AND IH and 20,000 on IH as well. You must like those round numbers! Of course, I do too - 36-24-36, for instance! <grin>.
Best,
AIMster
From the NY Times this AM over where the market might be going next:
The second problem is that real estate and stocks remain fairly expensive. This shows just how big the bubbles were: despite the recent declines, stock prices and home values have still not returned to historical norms.
David Rosenberg, a Merrill Lynch economist, says that the stock market is overvalued by 10 percent relative to corporate earnings and interest rates. And remember that stocks usually fall more than they should during a bear market, much as they rise more than they should during a bull market.
Better check our powder levels, we might need a good bit in the coming days. Full story here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/business/23leonhardt.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
AIMster
Congratulations AIMster,
I thought I was reading a Burma Shave ad on the side of the highway!
Thank you. I know that some people in the past have complained about a generic rocket-launch type countdown, so I thought I'd try and be a bit more creative. And try, tongue planted firmly in cheek to keep it somewhere near some semblance of being "on topic"! You'll note that there was a reasonable delay in the first couple, at least. I did want others to have the chance to jump in on it. Oh well, the next chance will come around soon enough I'm sure!
Best,
AIMster
Connection, don't fail me now!!!!
GRUB!!!!
Yes!!!!!
Gotta go when it appears! Weird, it posted twice? Double like doublemint gum, eh? A sticky situatiom, that's for sure... As a lot of people using margin must have found out about now!!! When it works it's great, but it can kill you otherwise!
Gotta go when it appears!
What the heck, cut to the chase and all that... go for the brass ring on this particular turn.
If it was too easy it wouldn't be fun, right?
AIM, I mean. As good as it is for removing the emotions, it does kill some of the rush, y'know. I wonder if Mr. Lichello had Vulcan ears like Mr. Spock?
His process being so logical and all...
So like, it's a Hitchcock movie, really, the market, I mean - where's it gonna go, up or down? It's the suspense that kills ya, or so they say!
Patience is a virtue... .so how come I don't feel so patient?
Of course!!! If I wanted patients, I shoulda been a doctor!!!
The lil' guy is really whispering in the ear, and it's not about AIMing, per se, though it is an AIM of another kind.... kinda like Luke Skywalker going to drop the big one down the exhaust vent of the death star...
Or as Marvin the Martian would say, "where's the kaBOOM? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering KA-BOOM!!!"
Patience is a virtue... .so how come I don't feel so patient?
The lil' guy is really whispering in the ear, and it's not about AIMing, per se, though it is an AIM of another kind.... kinda like Luke Skywalker going to drop the big one down the exhaust vent of the death star...
Or as Marvin the Martian would say, "where's the kaBOOM? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering KA-BOOM!!!"
Never mind the other obvious temptation sitting here...
Shooooooot. The lil' guy is really whispering in the ear, and it's not about AIMing, per se, though it is an AIM of another kind.... kinda like Luke Skywalker going to drop the big one down the exhaust vent of the death star...
Cash Drawer is getting kinda empty after today.
Planting the seeds for future growth. I decided to stand on principle of maintaining the schedule, despite the obvious temptation of pulling into the downdraft today. Check-up date's due again next week, so we'll see where we are by then...
Never mind the other obvious temptation sitting here...
AIMster
It has come down significantly since last June/July. It's fallen all the way through the Bell Curve from above the 90th percentile to just above the 10th percentile. That's a huge move. It's already fallen from Way Over Priced last summer and is now nearing Way Over Sold.
Volatility. We love volatility... I'm back up right now 50% from the low of the AM - goooood recovery so far.
AIMster
OH-GLEE!! Looks like my program had me buying about a week too early. Now I have to wait. Dang!!
I'm on the other end of it - with a checkup due next week. So far the day seems to be bouncing back from the early morning low. So perhaps this is just so much market indigestion and will vanish like an ill-placed burp instead of being something more lingering.
With luck, the fact that you pulled the trigger apparently early, and me having to wait, in a year or so won't even matter, if indeed we'll even remember!
Hang in there - and as I tell people, it all depends upon which part of one's anatomy one is hanging from!
Best,
AIMster
Why
would anyone overseas who just lost their shirt in CDO's be inclined to buy anymore American debt?
That's the thing - it might not be just debt they're buying anymore - now they seem to be going after other assets - see this NY Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/business/20invest.html?em&ex=1201064400&en=c72bbc9ae76d7c9f&ei=5087%0A
AIMster
Where's the floor?
I find myself in the predicament of the person who wrote Lichello and asked about dealing with extremes in the market in between checkup dates. Given the overseas sell-off it will likely impact the US market tomorrow. Knowing this in advance, do I pull the trigger ahead to take advantage, or wait it out for another week and see where we are then?
Decisions...
Best,
AIMster
AIMing RMT:
Perhaps not the best over the last couple of years, but looking at the bigger picture:
Makes me think it has AIM potential.
Best,
AIMster
re: RMT
I've been investing in it off and on for some time. Currently "on". With a 13% distribution rate and still trading at a 10.73% discount to the NAV at least you're getting it on sale. The current price of $10.50 per share means you aren't investing too much to get 100 shares, if you want to start there. All-in-all it's been a good performer for me. The best I like about it is that it's a good way to play the very lowcap end of the market.
Also they're 87.6% in the US, 12.4% foreign - so you get some internationalized diversification too - at no additional cost!
Best,
AIMster
Lichello was a writer for the National Enquirer in the 50's!
Possibly. He's of the right age to have done so, having hit 30 in 1956:
Robert Lichello
September 12, 1926 - February 1, 2001
Can't say with 100% certainty, but we know he was a freelancer so doing articles for the NE might have been an extra source of income. The NE paper of the 1950's may not have been as "out there" as it is now - or maybe it was more so!
Best,
AIMster
From the "isn't this interesting department" as I was trolling across the net I came upon as .PDF of unconventional cancer cures published by the US Government in 1990! What has this to do with this board? Well, a possible sighting of our Author, Robert Lichello:
The vice president of the Gerson Institute, Norman
Fritz, republished a book by S.J. Haught (the
pen name for Robert Lichello, a writer for the
National Enquirer in the 1950s), which was originally
titled Has Dr. Max Gerson a True Cancer
Cure? (1962), renaming it Cancer? Think Curable!
Who knew?
The full link to the .PDF is here:
http://www.cancertreatmentwatch.org/reports/ota.pdf
As I believe it was Alice who said, "curiouser and curiouser..."
AIMster
That Wall St. Bull must be hurting!!!
Merrill Lynch who I think sponsored the beast and uses the bull as a corporate logo is feeling some big pain:
NY Times 17 Jan 2008:
Merrill Lynch, a firm one-third the size of Citigroup, posted an equally huge fourth-quarter loss of $9.8 billion on Thursday, fueled by write-downs totaling $16.7 billion, more than double the firm's 2006 profits.
The staggering losses came from packaging and holding onto complex securities that seemed safe but have recently unraveled. The result was the worst quarterly loss in Merrill Lynch's history, underscoring both the severity of the credit crunch and the brokerage firm's failure to adequately understand or manage the risks it was taking.
For the year, Merrill lost $7.78 billion, compared with profits of $7.5 billion in 2006.
Ouch...
Or is that the sound of a falling domino???
AIMster
Tom, NRI in case you haven't seen this:
I happen to own some NRI and what they're up to is wanting to dissolve NRI and move everybody to NRO, which, as you've noted is very similar. That's the main reason behind it. Why the redundancy, extra expense, and so on? The proposed merger would, they claim, actually result in a lower management fee, so I suppose one can't argue with that. On the other hand, my position isn't favorable, profit-wise, so I'm not sure yet how this supposedly non-tax-impact event would be costed, details, y'know. Film at 11, I'm sure.
Best,
AIMster
Lol, Indeed they did Muad'Dib!
And if one could only AIM on the futures value of Spice, well!
Future profits - or is that future prophets?
Best,
AIMster
t just seems to me that the daily swings "nowadays" are far more extreme than they used to be.
Does anyone have any actual data that reinforces (or contradicts) that belief of mine? [ to wit, that the daily swings have gotten more violent ... and thereby makes it difficult to control the trade decisions in a "target rich environment" ... aka what Tom calls "juggling knives and catching then by the tips"].
Hi, JA,
Well, if you could AIM the VIX - volatility index it looks like it would work out alright:
And maybe soon, coming to an ETF near you:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/33501-with-vix-volume-skyrocketing-a-vix-etf-launch-is-likely-only-a-matter-of-time
Stay tuned is about the best I can suggest!
AIM on!
Best,
AIMster
<OT>
Hi Aimster,
But the A-floppy disk games with bad graphics were so much more fun.
I hear you! Back in '84 I switched employers as the place I had been working for was relocating. At the new job we got one of the NEW IBM-AT computers with (gasp) EGA color! WOW! This was life in the fast lane at 6Mhz... And I think it also had a 20 Mb hard disk (one of the early ones that died, too) - that was some serious space that we backed on to 5.25" floppies using a program called fastback...
But you had to be there to appreciate where we are now. Kids today have no steenking idea! Not quite the same story our parents told us about walking 3 miles to school in the snow, but pretty close!
Best,
AIMster
I have PCA, Newport, and AI all three.
Impressive! Do you update your AIM work in all three or use one for an IRA, one for taxable holdings, etc? As Newport's been unavailable for some time, I went with AI - slightly cheaper for the license than PCA and I couldn't seeing running multiple softwares to perform the same function.
Do you find any particular benefit to any particular program or do they work essentially the same? Is there any user benefit to choosing, for instance AI over PCA or the other way around?
Curious...
Best,
AIMster
s many here have mentioned, the use of Mutual Funds creates inconveniences regarding order execution. An order is placed on a value today but will trip at tomorrow's close. Sometimes the buy price is higher. And sometimes it's lower. Roth triggered a buy on yesterday's value which will be executed after today's close. It evens out I guess.
Lichello seemed to think it would even out. One of the Q&A sessions has someone asking him about the efficacy of AIM when the payments had to be mailed in to the mutual fund companies and might spend several days in transit! Long before the day of "instant and online"! So I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Best,
AIMster
Doesn't Automatic Investor allow you to test different PC feedback levels in its back testing mode?
Indeed it does - which is where I found the 45% "sweet spot" for AVIC. The conundrum, is knowing what to set the value to in advance so as to obtain the optimum return before you put on the 20/20 hindsight glasses. Hmm, I wonder if there's a company that makes crystal balls we should invest in, of course, they have to work first, small detail there...
Best,
AIMster
n back tests running the PCIR higher seemed to work well with indexes and funds long term, increasing overall performance. But with individual stocks the greater volatility might create frequent cash-busts?
Hmm! Obviously we've found some new ground for more testing! Thanks for your work on this - we'll keep going with it I'm sure.
Best,
AIMster
Those kind of games were great to try all of our goofy
ideas.
Such "games" have gone online. If you want to have a place to bat around a few ideas MarketWatch has one here:
http://vse.marketwatch.com/Game
Free registration, and you can either start a new game or join existing competition with other users.
Have fun!
AIMster
AIM is supposed to be a once a month "phenomenon".
But now, every time I get ready to carry out a buy order, the price jerks up enough to take it to the hold region.
Been waiting two weeks to make a trade.
It gives new dimension to "day trading".
Hi, JA,
As a fellow FOLIOfn user the way I play it is to place the trade the night before and let whatever happens in the 11 AM window happen. Will the price move against me? Sometimes. Will the price be more favorable? Also true, sometimes. I figure in the long run the two may well balance each other out so I don't sweat it if it misses the target on an individual trade somewhat. AIM will correct itself in the long run.
I'm moving to a twice-a-month update schedule rather than just once-a-month or more often. Lichello eventually went back to once a month, but I think with my weekly savings, the twice a month should work well.
Hope this helps!
Best,
AIMster
At a stock price of $10 you buy 500 shares. Now the stock price falls to $5, you have a loss of $2500, so you buy 500 more shares, you now have 1000 shares, the (buy PC) stays at $5,000, but the (sell PC) goes up to $7500, the same amount you have invested. The next month you check and the price is still $5, so the stock value equals the (buy PC) so there is no additional buy. The next month when you check you find that the stock price has gone back up to $10, you now have $10,000 worth of stock, but (sell PC) is at $7500, so you sell 250 shares, leaving you with 750 shares. Being that you have sold $2,500 you increase (buy PC) by this amount to $7500. At this point both PC's are again the same, $7500.
One thing I see here is that you'd have to realize the sales in LIFO order, otherwise the 250 you'd be selling would be from the initial 500 bought... also at $10, so no gain or loss, but what's the point in that case?
More pondering later...
Best,
AIMster
Of all the "doctrines" that seem to be popular, and of all the 'tweaks' to AIM we've largely implemented, keeping the portfolio control incrementation rate at the Lichello standard of 50% of the transaction size seems almost inviolate. Yes, people have spoken of increasing the portfolio control amount as an inflationary consideration, but I don't think the basic rate of incrementation has been changed, or at least, not so much.
I haven't done exhaustive research on it yet, but it seems there are advantages in treating the PCIR (Portfolio Control Incrementation Rate) as a tunable parameter. Case in point is AVCI which makes the top of the list in the Value Stock Selector as having a potential return of over 1,300% based on calculations derived from the fundamentals. As you can see from the chart, it looks like a good candidate for AIM:
Using the current range of the chart (early '05-'08) I ran a test on it and AI indicated a return of 104% using Lichello's original 50/50 formula and the "standard" PCIR of 50%. Leaving everything else the same, and dropping the PCIR to 45% gives a return of 107% or 3% better. On this particular time range, 45% seems to be the heart of the "sweet spot" for PCIR, with results diminishing outside of that range.
Through the magic of 20/20 hindsight via historical testing one can find such sweet spots which may well change over time. So other than theoretical knowledge, does this have any practical application? Truth be told I don't know. Did Lichello make a reasonable guess with the 50%? Probably. Is it ideal? Maybe. Or not. Still, an additional 3% or so, over a long term could add up to quite a few extra dollars, euros, pounds or whatever in one's account, so it may have some value. The problem is we don't know what that optimum value is in advance.
Musings...
AIMster
Would like to download. it again. In the mean time I've been using Stock Market Simulator from Tsoft for all my ideas. Plays slower than SpecTrader but still effective. Can anyone find a link to SpecTrader that works?
Hi, Ken,
This is weird. I've found a few links but they end up pointing to a default page with a cute blonde on it and not much else! What makes it even MORE interesting is that the same page layout (though different links) and same girl also show up if you go to www.incwave.com, a former site that offered trading software that used an incremental system like AIM or similar. Maybe she's a pod-person and is slowly taking over the Internet. Woo Woo! Good luck... (that's in finding the software, not the girl, of course maybe the girl comes with softwear and might be just as fun too!)
Best,
AIMster
If it were me, I'd prefer a more lofty title like:
Millennium AIM Fellow Emeritus (Canadian Lodge)
Close!
But you forgot one important detail!
Millennium AIM Fellow Emeritus (Canadian Lodge, eh!)<---- <grin>
Best,
AIMster
File not found: 'THREED.VBX' It was about a year ago since I last posted on here. I guess I m in the running for the AIM Hermit Award.
Hi, Jack,
Welcome back and sorry to hear your re-entry seems to be a rough one!
With the VBRUN300.DLL error and now this one, what it's telling you are that parts of the Microsoft Visual Basic environment (or other support system) are either missing or you've got an errant version from what the program is expecting to see.
Microsoft's got more details on this one here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/169992
Here's a place that purports to offer a replacement if you can't find it on your system or original disk.
http://www.simracingworld.com/files/4/?File=408&Download=1
NOTE If you download their recommended file - save it to disk first and then spyware/virus check the heck out of it before actually using it. I normally only download from places like download.com run by c|net, but they don't have a replacement for this file as it's probably not used much anymore except by older software. Even a more archival site like simtel.net comes up blank. So, downloader emptor, this may work, if all else fails.
Keep us posted.
Best,
AIMster
Might have been Jersey Al (or not) but I recall someone mentioning Tiffany's lately - here might be your sign:
From the market watch update on Yahoo:
Shares of Tiffany & Co (TIF 35.62, -4.70) are getting pummeled after concerns related to a pullback in U.S. consumer spending prompted the company's management to reduce its fiscal 2007 outlook.
AIMster