- From: bhessel@intelledgement.com
- Subject: Brick's Picks 31 Mar 06 update
- Date: April 1, 2006 11:54:55 PM EST
We've posted our quarterly update of the spreadsheet compendium of stock picks in the "Files" section of this site earlier today which you can download if you wish. The spreadsheet lists all positions in The Kennel's Marketocracy Wolfpack Macro Opportunity mutual fund (TKW) and in the Wolfpack Reverse Opportunity fund (TKWS) which is a short sales fund. Also listed in the spreadsheet are all the recs posted by extremebrickandmortor on the Yahoo! RRI stock message board before the Marketocracy funds were started in late 2003 as well as picks posted on this message board that Marketocracy won't allow us to trade (e.g., TNOG.OB) to provide a complete accounting.
All the picks are dated. The Yahoo! RRI board picks are marked with the number of the message (you could look it up!) and a timestamp (which is used to determine the precise price as explained below). The TKW and TKWS picks are each marked "TKW" or "TKWS", respectively; each of these picks is associated with a "KENNEL ALERT" message posted on our message board (which is how we let you know we are buying or selling). The non-Marketocracy-supported picks are marked "TKMB".
For pricing, we used the closing price of the stock the day the stock was recommended unless the rec was posted after the close of the market (or on a day the market was not open), in which case we used the opening price on the next trading day. This rule applies both to buy and sell recs. For purposes of tracking Brick's Picks performance we always use the closing price (or next day's opening price when appropriate), even if the actual price we obtained in our Marketocracy transaction was different (which, in fact, it generally is).
Where the same stock was recommended more than once on the RRI board without an intervening sell rec - which with Brick's enthusiasm, occurred not uncommonly LOL - we ignored all such subsequent posts. We show returns both in terms of absolute return on investment (ROI) and compounded annual growth rate (CAGR).
1Q06 was a strong quarter for The Kennel, which was boosted by the continuing macro trends of surging energy demand and tight supplies spiced by flickering geopolitical tensions. Our short fund underperformed, aside from a nice plus from Dynegy, as the US economy again dodged all the bullets and the major indices (all of which we are short) advanced. We are now in the red on our short positions for the first time. However, a solid run by our long positions more than made up for it. For the quarter, the Brick's Picks fund overall surged 20%.
If you faithfully executed every buy and sell rec Brick made (ignoring the duplicates) to the tune of $1,000 each, you would taken a total of 191 long and short positions since October 2002, 41 of which are still open. (Open positions are indicated with yellow shading in the spreadsheet.) The maximum amount of capital you would have needed peaked in Jan-Feb 2004 at $42,000; since then profits would have reduced your capital requirements below zero (as profits to date total 154%). Overall, the average Brick investment lasted 220 days and returned a 34% profit, which amounts to a CAGR of 62%.
For comparison's sake, since 23 October 2002, the S&P (as of 31 Mar 2006) was up 45% in 1255 days, a CAGR of 11%, which is right around historical norms.