I’ve always felt that one of the deficiencies of message board posting and many blogs is that there is no record available to measure success.  Without a measure how do you really know if the information you are getting is from someone with a proven track record, or some newbie who doesn’t know a thing about the market?  There are so many brash and arrogant posters out there, but do they really know what they are talking about?  Or are they real life (money) losers that can talk a good game but that’s about it.

But while I have always felt that it necessary for credibility’s sake to provide a track record of success, I’ve also struggled with how to present that.  Its not easy to set up an online portfolio that updates realistically without having your own hosting service and a lot of time to figure out how to code it in.  On the other hand, publishing my real life portfolio always seemed a little too public and something I was not comfortable doing.  So I was really excited when I saw that RBC was providing the ability to create practice accounts.

The RBC practice accounts start with a denomination of $100,000, and you can buy and sell from the account using the real market liquidity that is available.  They even deduct commissions at $9.95 per trade.  Its perfect.

I’ll be updating the account status on a regular basis.  Start of portfolio is July 2nd, 2011.

The account will follow the trades of my most active account.  The only exception is that you cannot short in the RBC practice account.  So the account displayed here will be “long only”.  I’m generally at least partially hedged with shorts, and sometimes fully hedged with shorts.  So the account cannot fully reflect all my positions.  Be that as it may, it will still provide some insight into my trades and my results.

My 2011 performance update can be viewed here.

Performance to Date:

Week 43

Week 41

Week 39

Week 37

Week 36

Week 35

Week 34

Week 33

Week 32

Week 31

Week 30

Week 29

Week 28

Week 27

Week 26

Week 25

Week 24

Week 23

Week 22

Week 21

Week 20

Week 19

Week 18

Week 17

Hardly any trades this week.  The only position change was that I added a half position in Midway Energy.

Week 16

This week I added new positions in Newmont and Barrick.  I reduced my position in Arcan back to the core level after seeing the stock increase 25% in the last couple of weeks.

Week 15

I added a small position in Aurizon Mines this week, removed my position in OceanaGold and sold 20% of my positions in Jaguar Mining and Lydian International.

Week 14

I have removed Oneida Financial from my stock list and added small positions in two gold stocks, Atna Resources and Brigus Gold.

Week 12

I reduced my position in Oneida Financial and increased my position in OceanaGold this week.

Week 11

I didn’t add or remove any stocks from my portfolio this week.  The only change that I made was to raise more cash by reducing my positions in Equal Energy and Coastal Energy.

Week 10

In Week 10 I made only one trade, starting a new position in Colossus Minerals (CSI.to).

Week 9

In the last week I reduced positions in Arcan, Coastal and Lydian.  I explain my reasons here.  I am $300 from being back to even.  Considering that the portfolio was created at the beginning of July, and that since that time the market has been somewhat horrendous, I do not think this is too bad of a result.

Week 8

I sold out Leader Energy Services, Xenith Bancshares, and Cline Mining.  I am down to owning gold stocks, and a few very core non-gold positions.

Week 7

My experiment with the S&P double short (HSD.to) ended.  I bought a little more Argonaut Gold, and started a small position in Cline Mining.

Week 6

I sold out my positions in Prophecy Coal, Home Federal Bank of Louisiana, Second Wave Petroleum, and Mercer International. I started a new position in Argonaut Gold.

Week 5

I added positions in S&P double short (HSD.to) and to another regional bank, XBKS.  I added to positions of CEN.to and LYD.to.  I sold out of GIX.to, reduced my position in MERC, and in EQU.to. 

Week 4

This week I sold out completely of OceanaGold, Klondex Mines Newcastle Financial and Novus Energy.   I added to Coastal Energy, Oneida Financial and Second Wave Petroleum.

Week 3

Week 2

Here is the portfolio status at the end of week 2.  Apart from the trades that I have already detailed in posts this week, I also added to my positions in Coastal Energy and Mercer International.

Week 1

Here is the portfolio status at the end of week 1.

Week 0