Comments on: Why The Transparent Investment Management (TIM) Portfolio Has Failed

By: Thank You - January Traffic and Blog Report | My Adventures into The Street

Thank You - January Traffic and Blog Report | My Adventures into The Street — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 13:30:40 +0000

[...] Why the Transparent Investment Management (TIM) Portfolio Has Failed [...]

By: Timothy Sykes

Timothy Sykes — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 22:56:58 +0000

The key is that this rule was not in place last time I had under $25k. I never would’ve been able to go from $12k to $123k in one year–as I did in 1999–with these crap restrictions.

Take tomorrow for example, there’s going to be TONS of opportunities during a panic, a.) I wish I wasn’t traveling and b) I wish I could trade freely to capitalize on them all

As for BSRC, I never recommended it, I never recommend any stock I don’t play, all I said is respect the pump. Kevin Kelly, like many of you, is a value investor–just as I never will have the patience nor the trust to put my money in the hands of somebody else for that long, nor will any of you ever be able to understand that aside from hardcore company values, BS runs Wall Street. When a company has no hardcore values, you must rely on that BS to judge a company. BSRC has a lot of BS behind it. Respect it.

By: Jorge

Jorge — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 04:36:02 +0000

Dan,

I think the problem is a lack of consistent language between different sources. The source I listed says 4 day trades in a 5 day period. Interactive Brokers has a neat little PDT FAQ with examples but doesn’t define what a day trade is. I checked E-Trade as well as a couple of other independent sites and those appear to repeat what you’re saying. If that’s the case, then I stand corrected and to be quite honest, have been completely wrong about the PDT concept. Zecco was never much of help when I first started and that would explain why TOS hasn’t flagged my account yet, although I have 2 SPY day trades on the books in the past couple of days.

Thanks for clearing that up. All in favor for more consistent language say I?

By: Dan

Dan — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 04:21:44 +0000

Yes, you’re right about 4 day trades in a 5 day period but what you are failing to understand is that if you day trade MSFT 4 times within a 5 day period, then yes, you will be flagged. Because you’re trading the SAME stock over and over and over. That’s a pattern day trader.

But if you trade a new stock each day of the week, you won’t get flagged.

By: Jorge

Jorge — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:55:02 +0000

Dan,

If you go 5 days without holding positions overnight, what do you suggest happened during the day? All positions opened during the day must have been closed that same day since there are no positions being held overnight. Therefore, he must be opening and closing more than 4 positions over a period of 5 days which makes him a day trader.

I see what you’re saying about the SEC wording and it can be confusing. Here’s the link to the actual amendment to the margin rules from the NYSE’s site:

http://www.nyse.com/pdfs/im01-9Microsoft%20Word%20-%20Document%20in%2001-9.pdf

4 day trades in a 5 trading day period is classified as a pattern day trader. That’s straight from the NYSE’s mouth. My guess is TOS is letting it slide but the spirit of the portfolio’s been broken in my opinion unless you have everyone switch to TOS (which I’d recommend because they really are that good even though I know Tim’s had issues trying to short hard to find stock).