Replies to post #36424 on A.I.M. Users Bulletin Board (AIMUSERS)

[Toofuzzy]

Hi Daisy

>>>then shifting to 0% sell SAFE with all SAFE on the buy side (when there were signs the secular bull market was coming to an end during 1999/2000), <<<

This in particular will get you in to the realm of market timing and trying to predict the market, The whole point of AIM for me is to take the emotion out of the market and to stop trying to predict which way it will go.

Any change you make to AIM will have unintended consequences.

Once you pick AIM settings you should probably leave them alone otherwise you are introducing emotion in to the equation and you might as well just trade a security.

I can see reducing SAFE for less volatile securities but so what, either you will have fewer bigger trades or what is your rational for owning them? I own the whole market (large, small, foreign, REIT, BOND) and I ALWAYS want to own them. While I do own a few individual stocks I plan on moving away from them as that is where the risk to my portfolio is (they can go to zero)

Something else to check into is using AIM with a moving average crossover (13 and 30 day ? ). The idea is not to do any AIM trades till the price reverses and you have a moving average crossover. That has you do ONE sell at the top of the market just as a security pulls back and ONE buy at the bottom of the marker just as a security rises. Probably not best for securities that have sharp peaks as you would give up a lot waiting for the crossover. I have not used this but thought interesting. The combination keeps you from getting whip sawed if you just used technical analysis.

Toofuzzy

[OldAIMGuy]

Hi D42, Re: SAFE settings................

Your historical review of Split SAFE is correct. I came up with the idea in the late '80s or early '90s and initially staged all the SAFE on the Sell side. That worked fine for a very long time, but that was just dumb luck.

When the New Millennium came along I did change all the SAFEs to the buy side. (I also shifted the Portfolio Control slightly to keep the "next buy and sell" prices the same as they were before moving the SAFE) Testing had shown me that anything less than 10% SAFE on the buy side tended to push AIM's buying along too aggressively. So if total SAFE was 10%, then it was all staged on the buy side.

When I started using 'vealies' I generally left sell SAFE at zero and staged all the SAFE on the buy side. I don't think I'll ever change again.

Best regards,