Skilled investment

“During its 31.5 year history, Quantum provided its shareholders with an annual return in excess of 30%. An investment of $100,000 in the fund at its inception would be worth approximately $420 million today”

George Soros

April 28, 2000

“The social objective of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelop our future.”

John Maynard Keynes

Having a clear mind

“I was absolutely unemotional about numbers. Losses did not have an effect on me because I viewed them as purely probability-driven, which meant sometimes you came up with a loss. Bad days, bad weeks, bad months never impacted the way I approached the markets the next day.”

Jim Leitner

“Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.”

George Soros

Fast moves

audiI am starting a new sequel of posts that will look at stocks that gained/lost more than 20% in a week. Was there something common among them, just before they started their move.

As of today’s close there are 61 stocks that gained more than 20% during the last 5 trading day. 37 of them were up more than 100% before they started their 20%+ move. It is true that we are experiencing an abnormal year, during which SPY is up 61% from its March’s lows, but the relative strength is a phenomenon that for the most part has always worked (stocks that outperformed during the last 6 months/1 year tend to outperform during the next 6 month/1year).

As of today’s close there are 3530 stocks that are priced above $1 and trade more than 100k share per day. 537 of them (or 15.2%) more than doubled during the last 6 months. As I mentioned already, out of the 61 stocks up 20%+ during the last week, 37 ( or 60.6%) have been already doubled before their last week’s move. One day is not statistically representative to declare that I have found a way to improve the odds of finding a fast moving stock. I have been following “the 20%+ in a week list” for a while and I can tell you that the stocks that had a 6 months gain of more than 100%+ before the fast  move, were consistently north of 50% of the list.

In other posts I will point out other common characteristics among the fast movers.

Some trading ideas from my momentum screen for the next several days:

RVI NTWK JAZZ ROIAK GTN IGOI CBI AHCI PCX