July 2009 Trade Posts: July 21

Average trade prices and percentage gains are bolded. For an explanation of the other figures, click here.

Prior to today (Since May 4, 2009):

Cumulative W/L = 61 - 17

Cumulative Non-Compounded Gain = 109.10%

CIT Group

   Actual Trade
 Prices Grouped          Weighted by         Weighted by
      By Broker                     %                             $                                                                  
Buy Pr     Sell Pr     V1Buy    V1Sell     V2Buy    V2Sell  Tot Gain  W  L  Cum W  Cum L  Cum Gain

0.5000     0.3900     52.52%      0.06%    0.2626    0.0002                       
0.4200     0.4700       1.50%      0.60%    0.0063    0.0028                       
0.3850     0.4700       0.95%      4.89%    0.0037    0.0230                       
0.3820     0.4700       1.21%      0.38%    0.0046    0.0018                       
0.3830     0.4800       5.20%    11.45%    0.0199    0.0550                       
0.3810     0.4700     14.02%    50.54%    0.0534    0.2375                       
0.3810     0.4990       1.01%    14.39%    0.0038    0.0718                       
0.4200     0.4800       3.05%    17.70%    0.0128    0.0849                       
0.3390                    20.54%                   0.0696                           
                            100.00%  100.00%    0.4368    0.4770      9.21%    1            62          17      118.31%

But my trades alone were actually:         0.3668    0.4686    27.75%       

I add another 18.54% to adjust the 9.21% to become the correct 27.75% gain (explained below).

                                                                                       18.54%                                         136.85%


As a result of a broker error, the 9.21% gain reported by my broker is incorrect. Due to the broker's time delays in processing orders, it resulted in me mistakenly selling more shares than I actually owned.  I wasn't immediately aware of the broker error.

When I became aware of the broker error, I contacted them and they said they would immediately close out my position by repurchasing in the market at the market price.

The result was that I unwittingly oversold CIT at about .47 (in essence a short position), and they covered it for me at .50, at a loss.  I would've never made that trade. As a result, my actual percentage gain should be higher than 9.21% in order to correct for this artificial loss.

But there is another reason my actual percentage gain should be higher than 9.21%.  The artificial trades made, even if they netted out to a 0% gain, resulted in my CIT trade percentage gains appearing artificially lower.  Why? Well, if someone make 20% gains on 100 shares, and then broker errors result in 0% gains on another 100 shares, then the average is 10% gains on 200 shares.  10% is not the real figure, since it was lowered from 20% to 10% not due to strategy, but due to broker errors increasing the number of shares traded.

I was able to exclude the broker error trades from the sample listed above.  My actual trades average a buy price of $0.3668, a sell price of $0.4686, and gains of 27.75%. I've adjusted the figures above to reflect the correct figures.

By the way, broker time delay errors have occurred at other times, and have watered down some of my previous trading results between May and July 2009.  However, I don't recall which trades involved the error, so I can't correct my gains and revise them higher.