January 4, 2010

Updown Performance = +22% for 2009, +2.8% for Dec.

Practice invest


My Updown account is currently up about 22% for the year. I'm up 2.8% in Dec. The S&P 500 is also up 2.8% this month but for 2009 total the S&P is up 26% total. So the S&P 500 beat me by 4% in 2009 overall.

Overall I'm up a total of 4.7% since I started in March 2008 and the S&P 500 is down 15.3% in that time. So I'm beating the S&P 500 by over 10% for the past 21 months.

Here is a chart showing the monthly performance of my portfolio versus the S&P 500 :


I beat the S&P in about half the time in the past 7 months. I'm about 3.3% ahead of the S&P 500 since June. Not bad for little over half a year.

In December I made a few minor trades. I sold off AET, BEE, UL & HPT. I sold AET, BEE & UL to dump them and cut my losses. I sold HPT to cash in some profits.

I dumped AET & UL since they weren't performing and never really did. I honestly don't remember my exact logic or rational when I bought them. I probably used a filter on PE, PEG, earnings, or something similar. This brings me to a point I've learned: You should document the reason you buy a stock when you buy it. That way in the future you can look back and know exactly why you bought something when you did. I won't learn from my mistakes and failures if I don't remember why I did what I did in the first place.

Updown is a fun game. I play it for entertainment purposes mostly but it is also an OK learning tool. I can use Updown to try out stock trading without risking my real money.

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