Why I post my Portfolio

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.  The start of the portfolio coincides with the start of this blog on 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.

Performance to Date

My 2011 performance update can be viewed here.

My 2012 performance update can be viewed here.

Open Positions (Week 95)

Open Positions (Week 91)

Open Positions (Week 88)

Open Positions (Week 85)

Closed Positions

Q1 2013

Q4 2012

 

Q3 2012

Q2 2012

Q1 2012

Q4 2011

Q3 2011