The boards fund! You're all potential traders/analysts....

Adrock-aka

The boards fund!

Right, time to see whether the collective trading knowledge of the Investments & Markets crew is up to snuff (or at least better than some relative index).

Anyone can, and hopefully will, contribute. Would love to see interaction from some of the experienced traders and moderators. The idea of this little experiment is to facilitate group learning for beginner/intermediate members of boards while also having some fun. I’ve set up a demo portolio for the boards fund!

Starting capital: $1,000,000
Type of portfolio: FX, Stocks, ETFs, Certain Indices, & Certain commodities
Exchanges & currencies: USA/London/Australian/Canadian
Position sizing: 5% to 10% of total capital max
Fund goal: absolute return using any strategy




Honorary fund directors
Hitchhiker’s guide to...
Ixus
Xebec
Dudara
Jor el

Honorary portfolio managers (first 5 to reply get to allocate a 5% trade!)
Raskolnikov
Poodles
Neil.p.b
Idu
Xertpo
Smcgie
Cooperguy
Thargor
Turbobaby
Hmmm
pocketdooz

Guys, please let me know if you want your names removed. I was just including you because your advice and guidance would be hugely beneficial to the fund and you should all be at the helm of this innovative social initiative!

Analysts – THE FIRST 10 PEOPLE TO ‘THANKS’ THIS OP will become analysts and can contribute stock picks that can subsequently be voted into the portfolio (will add more once the system is better structured)

There will be a democratic vote on what picks get added to the portfolio. Here’s how it works...

1 - Someone posts in the boardfund thread with a stock suggestion (include symbol and yahoo finance link)
2 – Outline reason/justification for pick (include target price and estimated time horizon for trade)
3 – People vote on stock suggestion using the thanks button. 3 'thanks' votes and the stock gets added with a 5% allocation. A director or portfolio manager vote on a stock suggestion counts for two analyst votes. A stock that gets 5+ 'thanks' votes will get a 10% capital allocation. Each director and 5 portfolio managers can have a 5% position that doesnt need to be voted on – to kick the fund off.

I’ve set up a portfolio to track our performance. Initially, I will execute the trades but any of the directors/portfolio managers who wish to have access to the portfolio can obviously have it.

I’ve set up the portfolio on www.zignals.com for a few reasons.

1 – I’m affiliated with the company but it’s completely free (we don’t sell anything nor are we soliciting anything here).
2 – The free portfolio manager has multi-currency and multi-exchange support with realtime prices etc and it’s the best one I could find for free that can cater for our portfolio objectives.
3 - We can share the funds progress with weekly picture updates like the below. This will keep everyone up to date and in the loop.



Questions/comments? There’s a lot to iron out, but let’s give it a shot to see what happens.

Let’s generate some alpha!



CURRENT HOLDINGS (SNAPSHOT TO FOLLOW AFTER SOME TRADING)

RRL.L (Range Resources) Shares (155,605) Cost per share (GBp 19.5p) Total cost base (USD 50,020)

AEM.TO (Agnico-Eagle Mines) Shares (760) Cost per share (CAD 62.61) Total cost base (USD 49,846)

SLE.L (San Leon) Shares (83,777) Cost per share (GBp 36p) Total cost base (USD 49,784)

Remaining capital - $850,251

mono627

As much as I think this is a good thread for people to learn from, I'd imagine the people who succesfully invest/trade the markets would probably be too busy trading/investing to contribute.

Adrock-aka

That's a good point Mono627. That's why i've tried to include 'portfolio managers' that already actively participate in this subforum. The extent of their involvement can be limited to simply clicking a thumbs up button below a stock suggestion. Also, if people were that busy trading etc... then they wouldn't be on boards.ie!

For beginners/intermediate users - this process provides a chance to hone stock picking skills. The pros and cons of their suggestions can be discussed and thus, they may learn something. Suggestions don't have to be picked apart to bits, this is a pretty laissez faire portfolio compared to the real process.

As long as a few people get involved, this should work! You never clicked the thumbs up Mono! Get involved! :P

ixus is along for the ride - a great start!

freeze4real

As i am watching the man u watch some of my comments may not make sense.

But whoever came up with this idea is a f u k i n g brilliant.
With this those who haven't traded can know whats itslike.

Is this real money ?

who are the portfolio managers ? i haven.t seen them post on boards before.

Adrock-aka

Hey freeze4real, glad you're on board as an analyst! At the moment, the portfolio is just a virtual portfolio ($1,000,000 fake dollars) but it will simulate a realworld portfolo almost perfectly. So you're right, it should give new investors a real sense of what its like to trade and manage a portfolio. The ups, the downs, the risks, and everything else in between!

I picked 5 people who i've seen posting recently in this subforum. If you (or anyone else) think that i've left some obvious people out - just let me know and i'll stick them in as portfolio managers!

If we do really well with this we may as well start a boards.ie hedge fund! :pac:

beagle001

You should have poodles in that list and Neil.P they know their stuff.

Adrock-aka

beagle001 wrote: »

You should have poodles in that list and Neil.P they know their stuff.

Thanks - added. And so do you from the looks of a few of your posts. Why not click thanks above and recommend Range Resources? It's still around 19p.

beagle001

Funny you mention range bought 50 k shares this afternoon at a little over .19,let's hope it follows a positive path.

ixus

Find it difficult to search for commodities, currencies, ETFs and Indices.

Being a bit thick at the moment.

beagle001

I think your thread is a great idea,would love to get involved sometime next mth but am too occupied with examinations right now to give it real focus.

Adrock-aka

beagle001 wrote: »

Funny you mention range bought 50 k shares this afternoon at a little over .19,let's hope it follows a positive path.

Given the fact that you've traded it and there's been a really good thread on it on here. We'll take this as the first trade!

BOOM! the fund is off.

Edit - completely understandable. Good luck in the exams.

beagle001

Cheers the joys of education as a mature student.

Adrock-aka

ixus wrote: »

Find it difficult to search for commodities, currencies, ETFs and Indices.

Being a bit thick at the moment.

Adjusted the search settings! We should have access now.

turbobaby

Superb idea!

I'd be delighted if you could stick an order in for 50k worth of Agnico Eagle Mines. AEM. Either in USD but preferably CAD if you can get AEM.TO

Mining stocks seriously manipulated by the hedge funds shorting them, and they're gonna blow soon! AEM are onenof the best miners around.

Adrock-aka

turbobaby wrote: »

Superb idea!

I'd be delighted if you could stick an order in for 50k worth of Agnico Eagle Mines. AEM. Either in USD but preferably CAD if you can get AEM.TO

Mining stocks seriously manipulated by the hedge funds shorting them, and they're gonna blow soon! AEM are onenof the best miners around.

Gets my vote! http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=AEM.TO

How long do you think it'l take for the stock to jump? Is the current price (CAD 62.86) where you would like to get in? Oh, because you're a PFM (portfolio manager) and you're one of the first five to get involved - your trade has gone through at CAD 62.61!

turbobaby

Adrock-aka wrote: »

Gets my vote! http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=AEM.TO

How long do you think it'l take for the stock to jump? Is the current price (CAD 62.86) where you would like to get in? Oh, because you're a PFM (portfolio manager) and you're one of the first five to get involved - your trade has gone through at CAD 62.61!

Yes CAD, 62.61 was today's closing price so that'll do nicely!

The miners have been taking a beating lately and it cannot continue as long as precious metals continue their rise.

When it will jump nobody knows, except the Plunge Protection Team perhaps! Some suggest when earnings are released it will be a catalyst for the hedgies to cover their shorts. It will be worth the wait, no doubt about it!

Adrock-aka

turbobaby wrote: »

Yes CAD, 62.61 was today's closing price so that'll do nicely!

The miners have been taking a beating lately and it cannot continue as long as precious metals continue their rise.

When it will jump nobody knows, except the Plunge Protection Team perhaps! Some suggest when earnings are released it will be a catalyst for the hedgies to cover their shorts. It will be worth the wait, no doubt about it!

Sounds great.

What do you, and everyone else, think about the stop loss application for the fund? We have to be prudent if we want to limit losses and we don't want to catch falling knives etc etc

We'll have to apply it to every trade if we want some uniformity and measurability - Right? I was thinking that somewhere between 5-8% price losses could trigger a sell.

For a stock like AEM - there may be some more short selling in the short term (driving down the price) but great price gains in the medium term - so maybe towards 8% would be better? Thoughts?

freeze4real

I'm into investments and stock trading but I've traded fx due to the leverage's. I'm still a newbie at it.


I have this stock in mind, San Leon energy SLE.l. It's an oil and gas company. It has various sites in Poland Cameron and other parts of the world.

It share price is under .50pence but it could move up to a 1 pound.

W will have to decide what kind of trading pattern either for longterm or short term like swing traders.

Kersh

This is gonna make great reading

It should be stickied

neil.p.b

Great idea Adrock-aka. I'm not sure how much time i can put into it but i do take a quick look at the forum most days so i'll definitely contribute.

Stop loss figure is a hard one to call. With major markets like the ftse, nyse you can be a bit more stringent and set it low, but when dealing with an AIM such as RRL stop losses are almost a sure fire way to lose money.

I'm going to go for a very high risk/reward stock; for my first pick is US oil and gas, currently 50p, USOP.pz, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=USOP:PZ

It's on the plus exchange, can we trade that on this platform? - Plus exchange trades should DEFINITELY not include a stop loss unless we're going to +30%, but even that, the nature of it can have bid/ask spreads of 10-15% alone.

USOP have only 37m shares in issue (for anyone not familiar with small cap oilies that is nothing, RRL have 1.6 billion) with circa 70% held by the BOD - leaving only 10m on the daily float. They're targeting net proved and probable reserves of 46.05 million barrels, up to a probable maximum of 113 million barrels of recoverable oil. Drilling is expected to commence in the next month.

Target of £1.00+ within the next month (on spudding), £2.50+ on discovery of oil (2 months). Depending on the amount of oil and flow rates it could go to £10+ after this. But at the same time failure in their currently funded drills would virtually wipe the company out.

Due to the high risk of the investment i only advise putting 5% of the portfolio equity into it. IF the SP gets to over £1.00 i recommend top slicing 50%.

mono627

Thread's got some decent feedback so fair play Adrock-aka. Alright something I was looking at this morning, the FTSE is nearing year high resistence levels (6091.3 - Feb). It bounced from a low of 6046.57 and has already rallied to 6063. I would be looking at the yearly high as an exit point. Must note that the rally is on pretty low volume, so back it while it lasts...wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't. Just throwing it out there.

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=%5EFTSE#symbol=^ftse;range=1y;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=;

mcbert

Hmmm... interesting. I'll keep an eye on this!

turbobaby

Adrock-aka wrote: »

For a stock like AEM - there may be some more short selling in the short term (driving down the price) but great price gains in the medium term - so maybe towards 8% would be better? Thoughts?

8% stop loss is fine with me!

Adrock-aka

freeze4real wrote: »

I'm into investments and stock trading but I've traded fx due to the leverage's. I'm still a newbie at it.


I have this stock in mind, San Leon energy SLE.l. It's an oil and gas company. It has various sites in Poland Cameron and other parts of the world.

It share price is under .50pence but it could move up to a 1 pound.

W will have to decide what kind of trading pattern either for longterm or short term like swing traders.

Liking the look of this chart! I'd say at minimum we can play this support and resistance channel. We'll sell just before there might be resistance (about 39.70) and if there's a breakout, we'll top up to 10% from 5%!

Guys - as we're looking for absolute return here - if we get resistance around 40 will we sell and short sell? :P

mono627

mono627 wrote: »

Thread's got some decent feedback so fair play Adrock-aka. Alright something I was looking at this morning, the FTSE is nearing year high resistence levels (6091.3 - Feb). It bounced from a low of 6046.57 and has already rallied to 6063. I would be looking at the yearly high as an exit point. Must note that the rally is on pretty low volume, so back it while it lasts...wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't. Just throwing it out there.

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=%5EFTSE#symbol=^ftse;range=1y;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=;

I don't know if this trade went through or not, but I'd probably look to take a little profit if it did. Personally, I prefer taking a little portion of the trade off the table when the market gives it to you.

Adrock-aka

mono627 wrote: »

Thread's got some decent feedback so fair play Adrock-aka. Alright something I was looking at this morning, the FTSE is nearing year high resistence levels (6091.3 - Feb). It bounced from a low of 6046.57 and has already rallied to 6063. I would be looking at the yearly high as an exit point. Must note that the rally is on pretty low volume, so back it while it lasts...wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't. Just throwing it out there.

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=%5EFTSE#symbol=^ftse;range=1y;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=;

Great stuff! Turbobaby, thanks for kicking off the voting. As time goes on, we'll get more stringent with the 'voting in' criteria, but for now, whoever is interested and participating will get preference.

Because the fund doesn't currently have any leverage options (the zignals portfolio doesn't include margin facilities just yet) - i've requested the FTSE 100 ETF be added to the site so we can use it!http://www.etf.hsbc.com/etf/uk/institutional/ftse.html

Once the ETF is set up - I will push a delayed buy of this ETF as of appx 10o'clock 27th April and order a sell for when/if the actual FTSE gets to near 6,090. So your $50,000 alloction has been set aside for this.

Well spotted by the way. I hope you traded this!

Adrock-aka

neil.p.b wrote: »

Great idea Adrock-aka. I'm not sure how much time i can put into it but i do take a quick look at the forum most days so i'll definitely contribute.

Stop loss figure is a hard one to call. With major markets like the ftse, nyse you can be a bit more stringent and set it low, but when dealing with an AIM such as RRL stop losses are almost a sure fire way to lose money.

I'm going to go for a very high risk/reward stock; for my first pick is US oil and gas, currently 50p, USOP.pz, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=USOP:PZ

It's on the plus exchange, can we trade that on this platform? - Plus exchange trades should DEFINITELY not include a stop loss unless we're going to +30%, but even that, the nature of it can have bid/ask spreads of 10-15% alone.

USOP have only 37m shares in issue (for anyone not familiar with small cap oilies that is nothing, RRL have 1.6 billion) with circa 70% held by the BOD - leaving only 10m on the daily float. They're targeting net proved and probable reserves of 46.05 million barrels, up to a probable maximum of 113 million barrels of recoverable oil. Drilling is expected to commence in the next month.

Target of £1.00+ within the next month (on spudding), £2.50+ on discovery of oil (2 months). Depending on the amount of oil and flow rates it could go to £10+ after this. But at the same time failure in their currently funded drills would virtually wipe the company out.

Due to the high risk of the investment i only advise putting 5% of the portfolio equity into it. IF the SP gets to over £1.00 i recommend top slicing 50%.

Cheers Neil! It's looking good so far. The odd stock pick, infrequent critique/recommendation, or thumbs up vote here and there is more than enough to keep this going. Appreciate your involvement.

Unfortunately the only coverage we have of the English exchanges is for the LSE and AIM markets. I'll stick a request into the development schedule to get the AIM markets covered. May take some time but it would be a great addition.

Your recommendation looks extremely solid, thanks for the detail. This is the sort of stuff that people can learn a lot from. If we could trade this, it would be in there in a flash! Is there any other stocks you like? Keep in mind that we can add OTC/PNK/CDNX/AIM stocks if they aren't already on the site.

Adrock-aka

Mono627's FTSE trade is a pending trade. Will put in asap.

Anyone have any more stock picks? Don't forget to 'thumbs up/thanks' the OP so we know who's involved.

freeze4real

Adrock-aka wrote: »

Not to be pushy but I picked San leon not AEM.

xertpo

This is a great idea. I've been off the airwaves for a few days, so I'm only just seeing this now.

xertpo

neil.p.b wrote: »

Great idea Adrock-aka. I'm not sure how much time i can put into it but i do take a quick look at the forum most days so i'll definitely contribute.

Stop loss figure is a hard one to call. With major markets like the ftse, nyse you can be a bit more stringent and set it low, but when dealing with an AIM such as RRL stop losses are almost a sure fire way to lose money.

I'm going to go for a very high risk/reward stock; for my first pick is US oil and gas, currently 50p, USOP.pz, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=USOP:PZ

It's on the plus exchange, can we trade that on this platform? - Plus exchange trades should DEFINITELY not include a stop loss unless we're going to +30%, but even that, the nature of it can have bid/ask spreads of 10-15% alone.

USOP have only 37m shares in issue (for anyone not familiar with small cap oilies that is nothing, RRL have 1.6 billion) with circa 70% held by the BOD - leaving only 10m on the daily float. They're targeting net proved and probable reserves of 46.05 million barrels, up to a probable maximum of 113 million barrels of recoverable oil. Drilling is expected to commence in the next month.

Target of £1.00+ within the next month (on spudding), £2.50+ on discovery of oil (2 months). Depending on the amount of oil and flow rates it could go to £10+ after this. But at the same time failure in their currently funded drills would virtually wipe the company out.

Due to the high risk of the investment i only advise putting 5% of the portfolio equity into it. IF the SP gets to over £1.00 i recommend top slicing 50%.

Neil,

I'm always on the lookout for new stocks and I'd never heard of USOP before your post. I've done a quick bit of googling and there ain't a great deal of info out there that would have led to USOP catching my eye prior to you mentioning them.
Do you mind if I ask how you came across them? I only ask as I always seem to discover stocks from somebody else, and I'm keen to improve my own methods. cheers.