Trading System Signals on 12/29/2023

The 250K Portfolio, 53 strategy portfolio, was down about -$2,100 in live trading today. The price action was sloppier than I anticipated today as the strong sell off in the morning was retraced by almost 50% and died in obscurity in a very narrow afternoon tape.

It was a profitable week of about +$6.7K. We were down about -$2.3k or -1% on the month but up about $5.7K on the quarter or a little over 2% this quarter with our day trade portfolio setups.

We were profitable in all 4 quarters this year in our managed accounts and were up about 20.5%. Our target is higher and in the 30-40% ranges. We had to make more adjustments this year and had quite a few technical issues this summer that were finally resolved.

The hypothetical signals for the Stock Index Portfolio 27 Emini was -$2,575.

The hypothetical signals for the Stock Index Portfolio 27 Micro was -$291.25

Since November 1, the market seemed to trade in a way to reward long term investors while "running down" and attacking short term traders. We were able to tread water and be profitable this quarter.

I'm looking forward to 2024 and working toward higher returns as we continue to improve our trading each year to get closer to our 30-40% target and are constantly learning new ways to trade as the market changes.

We will have a more complete report next week when we get the final brokerage statements.

Distorted price action has an expiration date and market modes can change with the calendar. I thought Q4 had some of the most distorted and stealth bull market price action that I have ever seen. We saw a record number of days in the Nasdaq futures of higher lows (11 in a row). We saw simple strategies that have straight up equity curves starting in mid 2022 or January 2023.

In mid 2022, the market insisted that the Fed would pivot. It took about 18 months for them to pause raising interest rates. The jubilant and exuberant price action and mindset in the midst of recessionary fundamentals (20 months in a row of leading economic indicators down - first time without a recession - yet) is interesting. We don't fight the tape and join the long trades. The market moves in Q4 were more tricky to capture for the reasons stated above.

The Nasdaq made a strong pivot in 2023 at the beginning of the year. Will a pivot to the downside happen in 2024? We maintain long and short strategies in our day trade portfolio. 

In general the broader market has gone sideways the last two years, down in 2022, back up in 2023.