Thursday, March 18, 2010

A Stock Tool that is Magic-Formula friendly?

So, I learned to read books, and then I read a little blue book about beating the market. Being a devout skeptic, yet secretly a wanna-be greedy capitalist... (hey, it's my hard earned money dammit, if I choose to invest it instead of blowing it on vacation homes, bon-bons, or strippers shouldn't that be my right too?) Anyways, where was I?

Oh yeah, learned to read, then read, yadda, yadda, gave nowist-consumerism the finger in favor of future returns... and now eight to ten months later I find myself in a handful of stock positions that, per the magic formula suggestions I should liquidate somewhere near the one year mark; As a short, just before they go long, in the case of a losing position so I can maximize the write-down on a loss. And for the winners (assuming there are any), selling them after they go long so I can take the gain at the lower capital gains rate.

Sounds like a plan, so, what's the problem?

Well, I'm finding it difficult to keep track of which positions are coming up to this period of evaluating whether or not to sell. I find myself spending hours to walk through the crappy fidelity tools brute-force style trying to locate candidates for liquidation... and the "take" is not high enough to warrant that kind of time suck. (I'd make far more money simply working an hour as my billable rate is substantially better than the returns I'm seeing so far.)

Maybe I'm just a magnet for bad luck. Maybe my bad attitute is just evoking a toiletary response from the universe. Or perhaps, I'm just doing this wrong.

I would love some input from someone who's figured out how to make this work--and actually made this work. While I'd love to "get rich" (after all someone has to help cover my kids tuition since California is bankrupt) my expectation is simply to beat inflation... actually the hell with that, I'd just like to see a positive return first then I'll get all crazy and stuff.

Any advise that doesn't involve roof-testing my noggin?

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