The buying continues

Behaving as expected

I have not mentioned it before but I subscribe to an American service called VectorVest. I have been a subscriber for about eighteen months and it has paid for itself many times over. In the early days of my subscription the market was running along nicely. An ideal time to use its remarkable data bases and tools and I made loads of money. The more tricky conditions of the past year has meant I have held back and not used it so much. It offers a number of tools to help the investor:

• a market timing system, with which I have yet to come to terms
• individual stock analyses which need some getting used to but are fine if you accept an element of black box technology. I do but I would prefer a more transparency so I could do a more of my own analysis
• almost three hundred systems for picking stocks that match the criteria that you think will find future winners in the market
• a back testing facility for those stock picking systems that is truely amazing and which is what has made me all that money

They also provide a user education system which is delivered by easy to follow videos - one a week and they are available for ever so you can always look back.

I use the back testing to look at periods in the past which are similar to the one I expect for the market in the near future. I then identify stock picking systems that match the circumstances. For example in the past few months I have looked for systems that work well in recovery markets. They have generated fantastic percent gains in short bursts.

I am now looking for systems that do well month in and month out. Again I am looking for good returns inside a month. I have found several which over the past 15 months have generated 4.5 to 6 percent each month. Think about it, that's 60% in an indifferent year. They don't make money each month, and you have to refresh your portfolio once a month but for 60% in a year it's worth it.

I'm working on the principle that there is a bit more of this bull run to go even if we get a bit of a pull back in the short term because the market is overbought. So I'll buy the shares and hope for the best. Worst case scenario is that I will be stopped out.

I have an automatic system for picking the best search systems in the US. It cost a lot but it is worth it. So I have bought the top 5 shares that are becoming more attractive to investors and are in sectors of the market that are rising. The shares I picked are SPPR OPXT ALVR SILU (Not recommendations remember, just shares you might like to watch).

I have to do the backtesting for the UK manually so it will take me a while but I will report on my progress.

In the mean time my shares from a week or two ago struggle on (shares that have touched the bottom of a range). I offer Weir as today's chart to show that sometimes these shares behave as expected. I have plenty of cash so I can wait. But this plan has not been a red hot winner.