Following are my profits from different trading strategies. I have made an effort to ensure that these numbers are correct but I do not guarantee their veracity. These returns are not audited. These numbers were last updated 1/12/2011 unless otherwise noted. Please note that the returns for 2008 include no trades prior to 5/13/09, when I started keeping detailed records. The title of each trade type is linked to categories of posts I have made on such trades.

Tim Sykes – Type Trades

2011 (Weighted Average Profit: 2.67%)

  • TimAlerts:  $703.41
    • Weighted Average Profit:  5.93%
  • My Trades:  $301.47
    • Weighted Average Profit:  1.17%

2010 (Weighted Average Profit: 0.54%) – (Note, starting with this year I broke out my shorts on pure pumps to a separate strategy)

  • TimAlerts:  $20,628.82
    • Weighted Average Profit:  3.00%
  • My Trades:  ($1,108.42)
    • Weighted Average Profit:  (0.04%)

2009 (Weighted Average Profit: 1.23%)

  • TimAlerts:  $26,777.57
    • Weighted Average Profit:  1.74%
  • My Trades:  $26,689.68
    • Weighted Average Profit:  0.91%

2008 (Weighted Average Profit: 2.87%)

  • TimAlerts:  $17,233.49
    • Average Profit*:  0.19%
  • My Trades:  $30,991.11
    • Average Profit*:  3.48%

It even surprised me how much more money I make on my own compared to how much I make following TimAlerts. Most of my Sykes-type trading profits in 2009 came from one great trade on ALAN. My Sykes-type trades in 2008 include about $10k in profits from SIL, which was also a TimAlert, but I played it differently (and better) than did Tim.

*Average profit does not take into account different position sizes for different trades. For all but the above sub-categories I use weighted average profit, which takes total profit and divides by total position size.

Watchlist Longs (a subset of Tim Sykes-Type Trades*)

  • 2011: not used
  • 2010: $83.36
    • Weighted Average Profit: 0.12%
  • 2009:  $1,796.66
    • Weighted Average Profit: 0.58%
  • 2008:  not used

All these trades involve me buying stocks on significant breakouts or huge spikes (supernovae-type stocks). They are all my own trades and I have previewed them on my watchlist on this blog usually as potential longs but occasionally as potential shorts. I use about $5,000 per trade.

*I count these trades in my total TimProfit figure but they are not counted in the main Sykes-type trades category above.

Pump Shorts

  • 2011: $2,069.32 || weighted average profit: 8.76%
  • 2010: $54,346.34 || weighted average profit: 3.50%

This is when I short pure pump & dumps; it excludes shorting hyped up Nasdaq stocks.

My Super-Secret Trading Strategy

  • 2011: $8,141.00
    Weighted Average Profit: 7.34%
  • 2010: ($5,203.94)
    • Weighted Average Profit: (1.01%)
  • 2009:  ($577.79)
    • Weighted Average Profit:  (0.01%)
  • 2008:  $80,691.26
    • Weighted Average Profit: 5.76%

I will not detail these trades on this blog or explain anything about this strategy for the time being, nor will I upload them to profit.ly. Prior to when I started keeping detailed records on 5/13/2008 I had additional profits from this strategy that are not reflected in the above numbers.

ASPP

I give no details of these trades here or on my blog and they generally won’t be uploaded to profit.ly.

  • 2011: $1,982.70 (weighted average profit: 5.81%)
  • 2010: $8,171.01 (weighted average profit: 5.04%)
  • 2009: Not used

IU Type Trades

  • 2011: Not used
  • 2010: $0.00
    • Weighted Average Profit: 0.00%
  • 2009:  $5,582.26
    • Weighted Average Profit: 1.09%
  • 2008:  $4,274.93
    • Weighted Average Profit: 0.78%

Pump Longs

2011: $5,088.61

  • Weighted Average Profit: 51.98%

2010:  $17,428.57

  • Weighted Average Profit: 2.03%

2009:  $291.35

  • Weighted Average Profit: 1.38%

2008:  not used

Pre-Leader Longs

2011: Not used

2010:  ($157.60)

  • Weighted Average Profit: (0.66%)

2009:  $1,023.85

  • Weighted Average Profit: 0.75%

2008:  not used

Stocks that are up in pre-market trading often make big moves from the open and can make for good buying opportunities. I no longer use this strategy.

Fat-Fingered Shorts

  • 2011: Not used
  • 2010: $0.00
    • Weighted Average Profit: 0.00%
  • 2009:  $2576.81
    • Weighted Average Profit: 0.86%
  • 2008:  not used

These trades involve a stock quickly spiking 20% to 300% in under a couple minutes. These probably result from so-called fat-fingered trades when a trader trying to buy a large block of shares puts in a market instead of limit order or puts a limit price too high or makes the order for more shares than intended. A CNBC mention may also lead to such a spike. I short these after checking to make sure there is no news and usually waiting for the spike to fade. The lower trading volume a stock has the less risky it is to short in this circumstance (this increases the odds of the spike occurring because of a fat-fingered trade and not news).

Random Trades

  • 2011: Not used
  • 2010: ($79.98)
    • Weighted Average Profit: (0.23%)
  • 2009:  $3,579.34
    • Weighted Average Profit: 7.12%
  • 2008:  $18,514.36
    • Weighted Average Profit: 1.78%

Just what it says: these are random trades that do not fit in any other category. Profitable trades in 2008 include buying and shorting CEG when it fell around September 2008 on rumors of bankruptcy.

Pseudo Arb

  • 2011: Not used
  • 2010: $0.00
    • Weighted Average Profit: 0.00%
  • 2009:  $8,816.74
    • Weighted Average Profit: 0.33%
  • 2008:  $7,375.16
    • Weighted Average Profit: 0.22%

My pseudo-arbitrage is primarily share-class arbitrage, primarily of BRK-A and BRK-B. This gives me better-than T-bill returns with low risk and without tying up my capital for long (a month at most). My returns on this strategy are greatly helped by the current low interest rates, which make margin debt very cheap at Interactive Brokers. This strategy worked great in 2008 and early 2009 because all the hedge funds that normally do this were suffering huge losses. This no longer offers good potential returns.

LESS IMPORTANT TRADING STRATEGIES

Cheap Longs

  • 2011:  not used
  • 2010:  not used
  • 2009:   not used
  • 2008:  $5,649.97
    • Weighted Average Profit: 2.91%

My profits from 2008 in this strategy were primarily the result of buying certain exchange-traded bonds (particularly Comcast’s CCW). During the autumn 2008 market meltdown these traded at insane yields (up to 15% for CCW!) and closely followed the movements of stocks, offering nice profit to those who bought when everyone else was selling.

Long-Term Shorts

  • 2011: $0
  • 2010: $5,394.21 (Weighted Average Profit: 2.01%)
  • 2009:  $2,609.06
    • Weighted Average Profit: 4.23%
  • 2008:  ($2,287.84)
    • Weighted Average Profit: (3.18%)

My profits in 2008 do not include profits prior to 10/7/2008. My profits prior to that date were very large despite a $100k+ loss on one particular trade. This was my first trading strategy and garnered me huge profits in 2007 and early 2008; I no longer use it much because it is now much harder to get long-term borrows of shares to short.

TMF Pumps

2009:  no longer in use

2008:  ($113.40)

Options Expiry Runners

2009:  ($223.96)

2008:  not used

Q Bounce Plays

2009:  ($339.00)

2008:  not used

Gap Fillers

2009:  ($253.00)

2008:  not used

Bounce plays

2011: $91.00

2010:  ($24.15)

Scalping

2011: ($17.40)

Other

2010: ($24.00)


Note: Blogging profits are no longer shown. They will not be shown in the future.