Tumultuous June

The markets have been in steady decline since the first week of June.  The fact that I was mostly in oil & gas stocks saved my skin to a certain degree, however I did take a little hit as the O & G stocks didn’t go higher as crude oil hit record highs.  It’s usually a good rule of thumb to unload or lighten up on commodity stocks when they fail to reach new highs with the underlying commodity.  That’s precisely why I unloaded my entire portfolio and went short.

Going forward, I don’t see too many clear skies in the future for the stock market in general.  The ongoing credit crisis still has far to go before all the problems are resolved, high crude oil prices continue to drag the economy down, and consumer confidence is very low.  Stagflation anyone?

Again, I don’t try to make any predictions, but rather I just try to go with the flow.  And every indication tells me that we’re headed DOWN.  If I am correct, then my short positions in the TSX (via Horizons BetaPro ETFs) should perform nicely in the coming month(s).

 

Sell in May and go away?

Luckily, I did no such thing and my investments (particularly in the Oil & Gas sector) did well.  I do think we are close to reaching a point of exhaustion in the energy sector, though.  Nevertheless, I’ll sell when the market tells me to, and not a moment sooner.  Like Nicolas Darvas (author of How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market) said, “I have no reason to sell an advancing stock.”

9 years until retirement

Hello!  This blog was created to chronicle my attempt at an extremely early retirement.  I am a single person in his mid-thirties who holds down a public sector job with a pretty decent pension plan (one of the perks of having a government job).  On April 15, 2008, my RRSP hit the $100,000 mark.  This wasn’t the first time, as it was as high as $130,000 before dipping below the $100K mark as the subprime lending crisis took its toll on the stock markets.

My goal is to achieve a 20% return per year return on my RRSP for the next 9 years at which time I’ll be 45.  Should I accomplish this, my RRSP will be valued at $515,978.  I don’t anticipate making any more RRSP contributions because: a) I’ll be using the new TFSA instead and b) the commuted value of my corporate pension is already greater than $50,000.

20% per year is an ambitious goal for anyone, but I intend to do it with my stock trading techniques I’ve developed over the years.  I’m primarily a breakout trader/trend follower.  I’ve nothing against fundamental analysis (look at the value CCI – Canaccord Capital has) but I find that technical analysis works better for me.  Buying breakouts has gotten me into stocks that I’ve never heard of before, however it has been richly rewarding.

I will post a screenshot of my RRSP portfolio every month so you can see the progress (or lack thereof) that I’m making.

The Sentinel