Thursday, February 28, 2008

Some Ethical Ramblings

Recently I have been thinking a lot about the shares I own, how they relate to my own personal ethics in investing and trading, and it has led me to ask some serious questions about myself and about the importance of different aspects that I weigh up.

Obviously, my methods of investing at least, are dominated by the factors that I deem important in the real world. Social issues, environmental concerns and cultural sensitivities are just of a few of the things that come into my mind when I make a decision about what shares to trade, or what to invest in.

The problem is that you can’t always have the best of everything. You have to at some point accept that some things, if you take this approach, will become more important in your mind than others. Of course from there, you inevitably question why those things are more important than others, and how you came to those conclusions. Sometimes I feel as if the conclusions are in part the result of carelessness or absent mindedness at the time. So it is critical in my mind to be able to continually evaluate these factors, and how they relate to what you are doing, and the stocks which you own at the time.

It also raises a few other questions. For instance, is it ethical to trade purely for money, shares that you would not dare to own as an investment? I trade Dow futures, and S&P futures, both of which contain underlying shares of companies I would not touch with a barge pole. But the fact that I don’t hold overnight, only trade these intraday, closing all my positions within the day, means I don’t add any value to markets and stocks I would not otherwise want to do, and makes my decision easy. I have no problems with doing this.

With shares, it is a little bit different. For starters, you have to weigh up what I talked about above, i.e. ascribing certain importance to the different factors. And evaluating them in the first place is difficult in itself. What we all do when we make decisions, especially with shares, and any other time when we have multiple choices, is make a decision based on the framework known as decision theory. Or so it goes. Which will be the topic of another discussion. I don’t trade shares intra-day which would solve these problems.

So what are the factors that I deem most important? Well, corporate governance, social and cultural acknowledgement and assistance, along with worker satisfaction/ safety are what I deem to be most important. Not necessarily for those specific reasons alone, as I will also discuss later. Company environmental impacts, and inherent specific industry related environmental impacts are the next most important for me. Obviously, if you have a company that is in a notoriously damaging industry, but is doing all it can to reduce its environmental impacts, it should be given a better approval than one that isn’t. However, there are some areas I will not touch regardless. Sand mining, uranium mining and coal (except under exceptional circumstances) are the three big areas.

So where does this leave me?

Given the different aspects I weigh up, I have several trading/ investing categories that I place each share into, given their ranking in my mind. They are:

  1. Trade long only, and be more than comfortable with receiving dividends.
  2. Trade long and short, and be prepared to accept dividends, without targeting them.
  3. Trade long and short, and avoid receiving dividends.
  4. Trade short only.

I guess from this you can deduce that I generally don’t have a problem with trading long and short, purely for money, in companies I don’t necessarily ethically agree with, so long as I avoid earning money from the “unethical” business practices themselves. It also means that the shares I rank highly aren’t being reduced in value, from my minuscule actions by trading short, and vice-versa. In doing this, and having each category, although I probably forego my maximum profit potential, it makes me feel more comfortable, consistent with my personal beliefs and ensures that I don’t bastardise my values. So long as I can justify my decisions, and act on them within this framework, I am satisfied.

Getting this all down on paper so to speak, has helped immensely.

Thankyou.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Comic Relief For The Sub Prime Fiasco

If anything, this sub-prime fiasco demonstrates the clear need for ethical behaviour by all market participants. Some of the stories are obviously fairly shocking. Unemployed people given million dollar loans and the like. There is no need to continue to go on about that.

But what is needed, is an awareness by people, in that if there is clearly unethical behaviour being perpetrated, then a thought process about who stands to gain most from this? Most likely the person who is carrying out that behaviour has the most to gain, and if you are on the other end of it, you must ask yourself, "why are you there, in that position, at all?"

But it is often said that common sense is not all that common.

Anyway, these are two videos that I found which gave me a bit of a laugh. The first is very educational and clear for those who don't know much about how all this came about. The second is Britney Spears with lyrics that seem to align the disaster.

John Fortune & John Bird:



Such a good representative of the intelligence of the lending practices themselves:



Enjoy! I hope it gives you at least a smile. I know it did for me.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

View Resources

Many are aware that I have followed VRE for quite a long period of time. Being a big supporter of the stock before being a long time dissenter as well. It looks as if View will now be put into receivership and shareholders face the prospect of getting nothing.

There are a few things I want to say about it, most I have said elsewhere. But first, the help of a chart:

The first thing that raised suspicions for me, and aside from the technicals, what prompted me to sell was the incident in the first white circle. News got out that a cap raising was in order, and the shares plunged close to 10%, before a trading halt was finally called. To me, that was the first sign that management were not doing the "righty". Aside from that, what did prompt me to eventually sell, was the break of support indicated by the horizontal line.

What I don't understand, is why people continued to buy all the way down? Even though nothing even resembled a reversal of trend. Especially on that last day, with volume through the roof. Didn't any of the buyers notice that, and think maybe something was up? Truly bizarre.

At one stage I even said the break down target was below 0 cents. I never truly believed it would get there:


But there was one lasting slap in the face to come, for shareholders:


I took the board's explanation apart after reading through some recent announcements.

This was posted by me on Aussie Stock Forums on the 16th of February:

(In response to Hangseng)

Originally Posted by hangseng View Post
I smell serious insider trading and potential for major class action against the directors. Watch this space.

This is quite disgraceful at any level of thinking, all it would take is tracking of trades.
I love reading things like this:

The questions relating to the so-called January production all seem to presuppose that the Company has forecast to the market that production in January 2008 would be 10,000 ounces. The Company HAS NOT MADE ANY SUCH FORECAST. Consequently, the Company does not believe it is able to respond directly to the questions raised on this issue.
But from the announcement made on the 7th January, only a month before, in the announcement entitled, "BRONZEWING’S DECEMBER QUARTERLY GOLD PRODUCTION INCREASES 45% TO 25,400 OUNCES" this:

172,631 tonnes of ore at 1.96g/t were treated through the plant in December with an average recovery of over 93% as the processing facility moves towards its full rated capacity of 2.2 million tonnes per annum. With ore now being sourced consistently from four sources (two underground mines, the Calista and Discovery, and two open pit mines, the Central and Success) the optimum mix of fresh and oxide ore into the plant has generated this increasingly higher throughput rate. Coupled with the high gold recovery View is confident that these key production statistics can be MAINTAINED going forward to consistently achieve THE FORECAST +10,000 ounces of gold PER MONTH.

And my remaining spiel:

Whoops!! Doesn't look as though the board even knows or even reads its own announcements!!!

So for starters, we know, and hopefully the ASX knows, if not they need to read this, that the board are lying.

So anyone on that board has now signed a document that is for all intents and purposes, a blatant attempted deception. I believe if you do that in front of a judge, there are some serious charges? Perj?

I suggest Tim Gooch and the fellas learn how to read... and remember!

I'm also bemused at how they can say that knowing the figures after the 22nd January, they can't make a guess at total January figures, yet two weeks later they can safely make an assumption about the quarterly production. That's just rubbish.

In my mind they don't even attempt to answer question 6 in relation to point (V) (asx dates are wrong here), awareness of outsiders or insiders of administrators being called. I suppose record volume the day before that trading halt just doesn't say anything does it? Could be that they know they are stuffed when it comes to that.
...
And today's post on ASF:

Instead of writing on a forum about it, what you guys need to be doing is getting to the creditors meeting, or at least sending a representative in an endeavour to halt the liquidation sale.

It is quite obvious that the view board misled the market, and didn't disclose necessary information, therefore you need to be thinking of the SGW result. i.e. shareholders will be granted the same status as creditors as they were misled.

Given the likelihood that some, if not all of the board members may, or at least should be facing criminal charges over this, you could well be given the same status as SGW holders have now.

The reason Investec have called in receivers immediately is undoubtedly because of this - to get rid of any assets and clear their own books before the criminal procedures can be carried out. I'm sure they are well aware of this, and will be looking to get the money back asap, as it will much be much harder to get that money off them later, if you do indeed end up in a similar situation to SGW holders.

I guess the moral of the story becomes, that if you don't trust management, if there is something not quite right about the way they do things, then it's best to be out. Following this principle I have been lucky enough to avoid the VRE disaster, and also the AED wreck.

I sincerely wish View holders the best of luck, and to make sure you follow every path to its end. The sooner this board is assigned oblivion, the better off our society will be.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Where Did Pollyanna Go?

So what happened to all that enthusiasm exhibited on wall street last night? Why didn't people want to buy here? Are Australians smarter? Have all the hot copperites lost their money from the last dip? Nah, they're too busy buying AED, CNP, MFS, VRE and the like.

A lot of it is to do with the financial sector. It has underperformed the market quite substantially since the recent downturn, and it doesn't look like halting anytime soon. A lot of people don't seem to realise that the financial sector dominates our local bourse. I guess the assumption is that because we are in the middle of a mining boom, the index must be dominated by the resource companies.

The following is a chart of the XFJ, the main financial index. As you can see, it has broken down severely and may do so again. The next level of support is around the 4400 mark, greater than 20% away! There is some scratchy support around these levels, as well as a fib level. But, if it doesn't bounce, it could get even worse.


It was CBA that stopped the market before it even began today. Right from the open it was under pressure, and never recovered, breaking down again towards the end of the day. And it's easy to see why, the fantastic analysis done by The Fundamental Analyst portrays more bad news for the sector. It's certainly not one I want to be buying into for quite a while yet.


So what was the effect on the market? After initially popping higher, the SPI and the all ords failed to get out of the chair this morning. And causing head winds for almost everything in the market.

It will be interesting to see what lasting effects the Buffett related news has on the markets over the next few days. Even if they begin to see it as negative. Time to line up some shorts here I feel.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Changing Tack

It’s been quite a while since I wrote in here. Partly this is due to the aggressive futures trading I have been doing over the past few months. And it’s to this I turn.

I traded mainly index futures throughout December and January, with trading opens as early as November. To my surprise, I did not wipe myself out, which happens to people entering futures very regularly, I actually performed surprisingly well. Ending up a modest amount, but a result I was more than happy with. Considering many more experienced traders than I blew up horribly over this period, and I had quite a significant drawdown within that period, it has given me a lot of confidence in my approaches for the future (pardon the pun).

But during my recent holiday, hardly paying attention to the markets, I was able to relax, and sleep properly for the first time in quite a while. Even though I was not holding futures positions overnight when I was trading them, it was winding me up to a point where sleep was not fulfilling. Making me snappy and lowering my mood. This for anyone who has had a history like me is not a good thing. There is a definite price to pay for good mental health. And no money is worth that.

So, where to now? Well, I’m definitely not going to give up futures. They are just too damn lucrative when you trade them correctly. So, I am going to only trade opens on them, unless there is a trade I can’t refuse. Even though they don’t provide me the best expectancy, they provide me the best success rate, which will reduce my stress. And mean I’m not glued to the computer for lengthy periods, which can only be a good thing.

Another option (pardon the pun) that I was considering, and starting to study anyway, was option writing strategies. Passive income and protection for stocks I don’t necessarily want to sell, really appeals to me at the moment. Again this means less time at the computer, at least intraday. That is the goal over the next few months, to begin option writing strategies.

The other two reasons I want to be spending less time at the computer this year, are my study and work. My study load will be a lot higher this year. Continuing to study more in the field of energy will be a lot of fun. I am also going to be looking for work in the public service. Either in the department of environment, or department of energy and resources (state and federal equivalents of these). So much for my studies not having anything to do with things in the market! Getting into environmental auditing is potentially very rewarding. And that’s where a long term lure potentially dangles. Moving into that area is what I had planned all along, but I did not feel I had the appropriate knowledge base until recently.

All this means a reduction in my current work, moving more to weeknights, where a lot already is, and or hiring someone to take over my clinic work. The second option isn’t my favoured one. I do really enjoy my current work though, it provides a lot of fulfilment in my life, and keeps me very balanced.

And to my study. I’m looking at doing an ISC (Independent Study Contract) or research paper critiquing random walk theory in the markets, and involving probability study. I intend to write a lot of the problems I see with it here. If I don’t, you know I’m loafing. But it should be a lot of fun if I do write everything out here. I’m also looking to post-grad topics, especially carbon market study. So much for my study not having anything to do with trading/ investing!

See you soon!

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