Take the Index Piker Challenge

[Jesus]

Quote from Index piker:

As I've stated elsewhere I don't blindly accept all the concepts generally attributed to index investing.
such as:
1)now is always the best time to buy
2) Leverage has no place in a passive portfolio


Why come back in 10-20 yrs for a comparison, we can do it now on an ongoing basis multi-year if you wish.

Oh wait that means you would actually have to post your results, sorry silly me.

You are a trader like it or not. Why come back in 10-20 yrs for a comparison? Because that is the time frame that you need to have to be an index investor. A one year or less time frame on a portfolio of leveraged securities that you time with the market? Thats trading buddy. Pretty much the definition of. Its not day trading or swing trading, but its trading.

The reason I wanted to come back in a decade for a comparison is because I am not a typical trader, I have a longer term mentality, because I understand that only great traders/investors can make money over the LONG TERM.

As for me posting my results, contact me in 10 years. We'll see who did better. I do not care about a one year fluke year. Yes you made more money than me this year, a lot more. but I made money last year as well, while almost every index investor out there lost a ton of money. You didn't because you weren't even in the game yet. Your time will come though.

 

[Jesus]

Quote from talontrading:

Well, you've proven yourself to be clueless. Those leveraged ETFs have no place in a long term portfolio. Do the math... I thought everyone in the world already knew this.

Done with this thread... I'm sorry to see you have closed yourself off and decided to not learn. I suspect you had some bad experiences trading, but you are still trading. All you're doing is trading ETFs infrequently. Don't kid yourself. You haven't found a good method. (on the other hand, I do think 95% of ET posters are pretenders so you're better than them... but that's not the standard to be judged by.)

And... whenever it happens... 6 months or 2years from now you take a big rip and realize your method isn't what you thought it was... remember you had a chance to learn here and passed it up.

Please do the math and try to understand the leveraged products you're using. In the long run, they are mathematically guaranteed to underperform so you are guaranteeing you will lose. You're bringing volatility and risk into your portfolio with being compensated in the form of return.

You've been really lucky but the past year has been about the best environment imaginable for what you have been doing. Kudos, but those of us who have been in the business for quite a bit longer than you realize the importance of having a ship that can weather all seas. You're not there yet so get off your pedestal and keep learning.

-Talon

PS BTW, the simple index add / drops method I posted far outperformed your returns over the same time period. Just so you know... and no i won't share my account statements with you. I realize the point of this thread is at least a little bit you were hoping to proven wrong... desperately looking for proof that someone can trade better than you did... I don't feel obligated to disclose details of my accounts to fulfill that purpose.

Good luck.

INDEX PIKER,

Read this post like a book. Read, reread, read one more time and then repeat that process many more times.

Open up your mind so you can actually learn and better yourself. I have not seen you attempt to do this once. Instead, you have just challenged everyone here to whip it out and see who has the biggest schlong (figuritively of course). I hope it satisfies you to post on an anonymous site and tell everyone how great you are and how much smarter you are. Maybe its time to actually learn from someone. Like was said before, you may do fine for another 6 months, 2 years, maybe even longer. BUT, you will eventually lose a lot of money and be seriously humbled if you do not change your mindset.

Also, leveraged etf's have NO, absolutely NO place in an index portfolio. I thought you were at least smart enough to know that.:eek: . When you said you were using leverage I figured you were refering to margin. Maybe your day of reckoning will come quicker than I thought.

ps. Please do not ask me to show you my p/l statement again in response to this post. As I've said before, you've done better than me THIS year and I have no reason to get in a pissing contest with you.

 

[asiaprop]

you mentioned you run your risk on a similar level than a broad market index and now you say you use leveraged funds. You are simply contradicting your statements. You would have been forced to liquidate your positions at the worst possible loss would you have held the same during the sell-off in 2008. But I dont think you even get that point.

QUOTE]Quote from Index piker:

Yes, I use leveraged funds.
I won't be disclosing any more of my decision criteria than this (it's purely discretionary mostly determined by price).

I will disclose when I move in/out of investments or cash but I will not be disclosing the specific fund or etf.
Again I expect sales to be relatively rare, except for less risky investments viewed as a cash substitute.
Sorry about that but if you are a legit trader ( as your posts indicate ) you will understand why. [/QUOTE]

 

[Index piker]

Quote from Jesus:

You are a trader like it or not. Why come back in 10-20 yrs for a comparison? Because that is the time frame that you need to have to be an index investor. A one year or less time frame on a portfolio of leveraged securities that you time with the market? Thats trading buddy. Pretty much the definition of. Its not day trading or swing trading, but its trading.

The reason I wanted to come back in a decade for a comparison is because I am not a typical trader, I have a longer term mentality, because I understand that only great traders/investors can make money over the LONG TERM.

As for me posting my results, contact me in 10 years. We'll see who did better. I do not care about a one year fluke year. Yes you made more money than me this year, a lot more. but I made money last year as well, while almost every index investor out there lost a ton of money. You didn't because you weren't even in the game yet. Your time will come though.

Come back in 10 years?

Why not just start documenting the next 10 years in january.

or better yet


Why don't you just come back when I have a draw down ,sound fair?

 

[Index piker]

Quote from asiaprop:

you mentioned you run your risk on a similar level than a broad market index and now you say you use leveraged funds. You are simply contradicting your statements.

BS. I never made such a statement.

I specifically disclosed in this post to flatron 5th post of the thread. Please get your facts straight.

Index piker


Registered: Jan 2009
Posts: 121


11-07-09 12:34 PM


While I have an unusually aggressive portfolio for a passive indexer it probably assumes more risk like traders regularly utilize. Therefore I see my portfolio as a suitable benchmark or example of what is available with a relatively passive portfolio. (I've made no sales since inception)

 

[stock piker]

Quote from Index piker:

CAN YOU BEAT MY PORTFOLIO?

Are you one of the rare individuals on ET who really net more than you lose. If so ,can you beat a passive portfolio on a long term basis?





Hello, I’m Index Piker and this journal/ challenge stems from a thread I posted a couple weeks ago “the sad truth about trading” asserting the following:

This fact appeared to cause considerable consternation among some ET members generating some rather vociferous disparagement and calls for proof concerning my personal portfolio.
So here is my CHALLENGE.
1) How many of you traders can match or beat my portfolio* returns this calendar year and going forward?
2) If you can beat my portfolio this year ,how long can you keep that up?
3) Is your margin of outperformance worth all that time and effort?
*Here’s the deal with my portfolio. I have a relatively passive portfolio of an aggressive nature, which consists of 2 accounts that I treat as one. One is a regular tax deferred IRA which consequently allows small cash contributions and the other is a self directed 401k profit sharing plan. I will disclose purchase, sale, deposit, gain , loss amounts and occasional performance information .

Good Luck

I hope to show that decent returns are indeed available(in excess of 15% annualized) with the following concepts in mind:
1) keep costs low, minimal activity
2) diversification to eliminate idiosyncratic security risk
3) correctly identifying your own risk level
4) control your emotions so as to enable you to stick with your plan(which should be written).

As a general note, evidently performance graphs are 1 day behind the close (Fridays performance graph is not available until Saturday.)

Profit sharing     contribution
11/27/2007		$200
3/25/2009		$37,257
4/21/2009		$10,000
5/13/2009		$10,000
6/29/2009		$12,000
            Sum $69,457
11/6/09         108,610.54 closing balance
 Net gain       $39,153 or 56.3%

IRA
11/14/08deposit           $343,220.81(transfer contribution)                        
Opening balance 1/1/09      $366,819
Closing balance 11/06/09      $737,198  
Net gain since 1/1/09           $370,379 or  100.97%

Combined net gain 409,532             combined opening value 436,276      gain of 93.87%

As you can see my net appreciation thus far this year is in excess of 90%.
I certainly don't expect this rate of gain to continue , nor do I expect all time periods to be positive. However I do expect to outperform 98%+ of ET posters without claims of (magical) skills.

I am a professional Omaha and NLHE player and recently introduced to trading (last 3 years or so). I'll wager your non-IRA account balance ($100K), or an amount up to that number, that I can beat your return from 1/1/2010 to 6/30/2010 by at least a factor of 2. You hit 30% and I would need to hit 60% or better to win. Minimum account value of $10k for the contest, up to whatever you deem appropriate.

We can let the site administrator, or some mutually agreed person to verify the results at the end of term.

We agree to use no more than 4:1 leverage. Any tradeable, any asset-class, as long as leverage does not exceed 4x. That's it. Contact me via PM.

 

[Jesus]

Quote from Index piker:

Come back in 10 years?

Why not just start documenting the next 10 years in january.

Boy you just don't get it do you. By documenting your p/l you are in effect measuring your performance weekly, daily, maybe even hourly. To be an index investor you need to think multiple years. Anything less you are a trader. You should only be monitoring your account once a quarter at the most, yet you are bragging about weekly results. Not long term in my opinion.

You call yourself a passive index investor yet you ignore the biggest and most important part of that, Focusing on the long term (many years) and ignoring the short term (less than a year).
Theres nothing passive about gloating about a week of gains.

Why would you document your p/l every day or weekly as a passive investor? I will continue to focus on the long term and lets look at each others p/l 10 years from now. I could care less how you are doing 4 months from now.

 

[Jesus]

Quote from stock piker:

I am a professional Omaha and NLHE player and recently introduced to trading (last 3 years or so). I'll wager your non-IRA account balance ($100K), or an amount up to that number, that I can beat your return from 1/1/2010 to 6/30/2010 by at least a factor of 2. You hit 30% and I would need to hit 60% or better to win. Minimum account value of $10k for the contest, up to whatever you deem appropriate.

We can let the site administrator, or some mutually agreed person to verify the results at the end of term.

We agree to use no more than 4:1 leverage. Any tradeable, any asset-class, as long as leverage does not exceed 4x. That's it. Contact me via PM.

Put your money where your mouth is Index boy. In fact, I'll bet in 5 years you will actually be down, do to your use of leveraged etfs.

 

[Index piker]

Quote from Jesus:

INDEX PIKER,

(1)I hope it satisfies you to post on an anonymous site and tell everyone how great you are and how much smarter you are.

Actually I'm telling you the opposite of that, I'm not claiming to be smarter than everyone else or to have magical trading skills.

I'm here to tell you that passive indexing outperforms trading in the long term.


Most traders however, correctly report that they are targeting outsized returns which does present a problem for replicating returns from traditional markets or indicies. (most would do better by just reducing their goals and risk)

I'm presenting my account as what is possible with a relatively passive portfolio that utilizes active trader like risk assumption.

 

[Jesus]

Quote from Index piker:

Actually I'm telling you the opposite of that, I'm not claiming to be smarter than everyone else or to have magical trading skills.

I'm here to tell you that passive indexing outperforms trading in the long term.


Most traders however, correctly report that they are targeting outsized returns which does present a problem for replicating returns from traditional markets or indicies. (most would do better by just reducing their goals and risk)

I'm presenting my account as what is possible with a relatively passive portfolio that utilizes active trader like risk assumption.

I agree, a passive index portfolio beats 95% of traders. But, you do not have a passive index portfolio. You have a short term minded, excessively leveraged trading account.

Also, your not just here to say passive indexing outperforms. You came on here BRAGGING about your 90% return this year. Your post about a 10.4% gain in one week is very telling. You have an ego, you are not very humble. You (maybe subconsiously) want to show all these traders how your methods are superior and how you are so much better. If you were a true indexer I probably would have never posted in this thread in the first place. But your not. You are a trader, and one with an ego bigger than kanye West's.

Maybe a part of you wants to educate others about passive indexing, but most of you just wants to show everyone how you nailed a 90% return and can piss farther than all the other boys.

Your leveraged, dangerous portfolio, GOT LUCKY, due to 8 months of bull market. I CAN"T WAIT TO SEE HOW THOSE LEVERAGED ETFS DO OVER TIME, AND HOW THEY FARE IN THE NEXT BEAR MARKET, WHENEVER THAT IS.

Good luck, your gonna need it