Hi Adam, given the short ranges that seem to be happening what I have been trying with one small position is selling more than AIM suggests and buying less, both roughly 10%. My logic is that I want out of this position long term but I want to make a buck or two along the way. I've only had one buy and one sell so it is hard to tell if it is working.
My thinking is that Lichello visualized relatively large swings (pages 64-71, 3rd ed.), $10 down to $4, a 60% loss and then from $4 to $10, a 250% gain. In the real market these days the only times swings like that happen is a major crash and then a long bull market, like 2007-8 at S&P 500 ~-52.5% from previous peak and the subsequent recovery until now of ~+295%. Given this and the tendency to either accumulate large amounts of stocks or large amounts of cash we might want to rethink some of the parameters we use.
One thing I've done is readjust the spreadsheet so that rather than a fixed percentage for buy and sell I'm making it a percentage of the stock on hand. This means changing B14 to a percentage figure and then changing Minimum Trade - Active ## Shares (Column Q) to multiply that percentage by the number of shares in column C in that line. I haven't quite figured out how to reliably integrate a change in the % into column P so that it changes the calculation in column Q so one can push the number up or down.
This change still leaves the minimum $ trade amount so you don't wind up with trivial buys/sales.
As a result of this change the figures are closer to the online calculator.
Best,
Allen
