Steve, the proper way to calculate returns is by compounding them, eg. if you have two trades with 20% gain on each, then the cumulative gain is not 40% but instead 1.2 x 1.2 = 1.44 or 44%. That's what your account would show if you had two such trades. So, your cumulative gain for 2003 is (i am using trades 5-13 in this calculation):
1.0551 x 1.0255 x 1.0476 x 0.9761 x 1.0015 x 1.0181 x 1.0072 x 1.0599 x 1.0040 = 1.2091 or 20.91% gain for 2003
for comparison, uopix (2x ndx fund) is up 17.05% in 2003 and ndx is up 9.74% so a fully margined ndx account would be up about 19.5% in 2003...in other words, your 2003 return is about equal to the 2x ndx gain in 2003...
this 20.91% gain over a bit over 2.5 months is equivalent to approx 7.8% a month (compounded) or approx 2.5 times or 150% on an annual basis...
cumulative gain for trades 1-4 is:
1.0211 x 1.0532 x 1.1031 x 0.9775 = 1.1596 or 15.96% gain for Nov-Dec 2002
overall cumulative gain is:
1.1596 x 1.2091 = 1.4021 or 40.21% over the past 4.5 months, also translating into approx 7.8% a month gain...
the principal reason for these nice returns seems to be avoidance of losses (just 2 small losing trades out of 13 trades)
the above is correct provided that all positions use 100% of the account cash
george
