Marketocracy Portfolio Updated

Its been more than 3 years since I started my Marketocracy portfolio, so far pretty good considering the 40.98% return since inception. Thus my initial capital of US$1,000,000 has grown to US$1.41m. If you are trying to establish a long term portfolio track record, its not an easy task, there will be periods where your returns will be down because the sectors you have chosen may not be the flavour of the month. Hence the best measure of a long term portfolio is to benchmark against the S&P 500. Since 3 years ago, the fund has beaten the S&P 500 by 12.09%.

	Value: $1,409,774.00 Cash: -$1,114.35 Stock Value: $1,410,888.35 Total Shares: 100,000 NAV: $14.10
	Fund Performance for salvadordali's Mutual Fund   January 04, 2013

		Symbol Label Price Shares Value Portion of Fund Gains Today Inception Return Current Return NSR click me $43.08 2,500 $107,700.00 7.64% $40,145.57 -0.23% 59.43% 59.43% Details  TOP STSI click me $2.82 25,000 $70,500.00 5.00% $75,512.71 -2.08% 47.51% 47.51% Details  PVSW click me $9.03 13,550 $122,356.50 8.68% $47,164.86 0.56% 46.54% 46.54% Details  HES click me $55.02 2,500 $137,550.00 9.76% $28,436.60 1.51% 26.06% 26.06% Details  V click me $156.77 1,500 $235,155.00 16.68% $21,479.21 0.81% 7.36% 23.17% Details  MIDDLE LVS click me $51.19 1,500 $76,785.45 5.45% $11,670.81 2.87% 17.92% 17.92% Details  AIG click me $36.30 2,200 $79,860.00 5.66% -$12,021.53 0.33% -8.23% 11.10% Details  F click me $13.57 8,000 $108,560.00 7.70% $115,525.20 0.82% 42.92% 9.21% Details  C click me $42.43 3,000 $127,289.40 9.03% $83,825.86 2.51% 18.22% 8.76% Details  BOTTOM WDC click me $42.88 1,900 $81,472.00 5.78% $5,342.25 -0.33% 7.02% 7.02% Details  FB click me $28.76 7,000 $201,320.00 14.28% -$13,309.51 3.56% -6.20% -6.20% Details  POT click me $41.56 1,500 $62,340.00 4.42% $12,771.18 1.51% 6.73% -23.50% Details

recent returns
		RETURNS Last Week 6.66% Last Month 8.22% Last 3 Months 12.28% Last 6 Months 11.35% Last 12 Months 27.18% Last 2 Years -8.09% Last 3 Years 8.61% Last 5 Years N/A Since Inception 40.98% (Annualized) 8.02% S&P500 RETURNS Last Week 4.59% Last Month 4.25% Last 3 Months 0.97% Last 6 Months 9.49% Last 12 Months 17.09% Last 2 Years 19.99% Last 3 Years 37.52% Last 5 Years N/A Since Inception 28.89% (Annualized) 5.87% RETURNS VS S&P500 Last Week 2.07% Last Month 3.97% Last 3 Months 11.31% Last 6 Months 1.85% Last 12 Months 10.09% Last 2 Years -28.08% Last 3 Years -28.92% Last 5 Years N/A Since Inception 12.09% (Annualized) 2.15%

alpha/beta vs. S&P500
		Alpha 2.12% Beta 1.26 R-Squared 0.76

turnover
		Last Month 0.00% Last 3 Months 0.00% Last 6 Months 30.59% Last 12 Months 53.90%

Recent Transactions

Close Date	Type	Symbol	Shares	Net Avg. Price	Net
Aug 9, 2012	Buy	AIG	2,200	$32.6719	$71,878.27	Details
Aug 9, 2012	Sell	WU	3,500	$17.5397	$61,388.86	Details
Aug 1, 2012	Sell	PVSW	1,450	$6.7504	$9,788.12	Details
Jul 31, 2012	Buy	WDC	1,900	$40.0683	$76,129.75	Details
Jul 31, 2012	Sell	C	1,000	$27.0494	$27,049.44	Details
Jul 27, 2012	Sell	SNBC	16,579	$2.7035	$44,821.19	Details
Jul 16, 2012	Buy	HES	2,500	$43.6454	$109,113.40	Details
Jul 16, 2012	Buy	V	1,500	$127.276	$190,913.96	Details
Jul 13, 2012	Sell	PVSW	2,219	$7.3708	$16,355.90	Details
Jul 13, 2012	Sell	STSI	15,000	$4.5614	$68,420.58	Details
Jul 13, 2012	Sell	C	2,500	$25.538	$63,845.03	Details
Jul 2, 2012	Sell	SNBC	8,421	$2.5564	$21,527.27	Details
Jul 2, 2012	Sell	STSI	20,000	$4.7767	$95,533.63	Details

Great Presents To Receive

Its almost a wonder over Christmas, when you hardly ever get the kind of presents that you really like. Too often we needed to buy for too many people, so not much thought goes into it. Came across a few that would certainly sparkle my day if I got them as presents ... anytime.




WHISKEY STONES - No, not the stones you get in your kidneys from over drinking. You can even get them now in Malaysia. Don't try to be a cheapskate and just wash some pebbles from your backyard. These are special stones from a special material. Brilliant to keep whiskey cold without diluting it. On that note, we always wonder if you should drink single malts neat or with water/soda. Neat is pretty good if you can take the strength, but its perfectly OK to have some water, I mean just a little, like the size of a shot of whiskey, not too much. Putting in a little water actually allows the aromas to come out a lot more than drinking it pure neat. Too much water (like at wedding dinners or too much soda), then drink some inferior stuff la, don't waste a good drink.


Maple Wood Wireless IPhone Speakers - The Original Koostik is the result of a year of product evolutionary design and refinement. It is the first passive solid wood acoustic amplifier for iPhone, and this now iconic design is in daily use in over 30 countries! By combining two hemispherical sound amplification chambers with carefully designed sound channels, it achieves natural energy free amplification of between 10 and 20 decibels. This means an increase of 2 to 4 times the volume! Please note that due to it's unique design, the Original does not allow for the connection of your charger while in use with your iPhone. It is a totally "unplugged" amplifier! 





Chillball Wine Ice Cubes - Chillballs are the intelligent ice that will keep your wine chilled at the perfect temperature without watering it down or compromising the taste of your expensive bottle of wine. Its different from whiskey stones because for wine drinker you don't want cubes sloshing around. This one will sit at the bottom of the glass.

The set comes with 6 Chillballs in a compact tray with lid to sit very nicely in your freezer, thank you very much. It includes 8 patented clips (4 long, 4 short) to hold your Chillball in place so it won’t float up and interfere with your sav sipping. Suitable for most commercial wine glass shapes, Chillball Wine Ice Cubes can also be used to cool your cocktails, preserve your punch or any other drop you like.




Stemless Wine Glass -  I love stemless wine glasses. They’re elegant, they look great, and it’s been my experience that they’re much less likely to break while washing them. I like that they’re a lot less formal than stemmed glasses, and even less precarious on the edges of tables and counters. This has been around. In Malaysia we frequent so many non-Western places for food, and we also like to drink our wines, but you get shitty glasses or porcelain ones or shudder plastic ones - its just not the same. Buy a pack of 6 or 12 and you can put them nicely in a carrying case, so informal and can bring anywhere. Since when we have to use the stem????? 


Well I am kidding, there is a place for stemmed glasses, esp if you are drinking really fine wines. They keep your hand away from the wine. Red wine is best served at room temperature, or, at what was once room temperature—approximately 55° Fahrenheit. As you know in Malaysia and other hotter climes, we never get anywhere near that, so after chilling the wine, the last thing you want is to further warm the wine more with your hands.

The stemware allows you to analyze the color of your wine. Wine is a sensual thing; it’s all about the experience … and part of that experience is the color. Color and clarity can tell you much about your wine. However, a tumbler-style glass means that it’s difficult to hold your wine up into the light and view it unobstructed.

Finally, stemmed wine glasses make swirling wine before tasting much easier. Swirling gently aerates wine, allowing the flavors to more fully develop and the bowl of the glass to fill with the wine’s aromas. A stemmed glass can be set on a flat surface and gently swirled by hand, with little danger of spilling.  A stemless glass is harder to swirl because it’s more difficult to swirl a glass while holding it by the bowl.

The Future of You

A good friend sent this to me ... ha-ha ... reading it made him think of me ... lol. I can safely say, much of my positive results in business, social contacts, influence, jobs/projects, discovering great friends and invaluable assistance, even improving my love life ... have been largely due to my blog over the last 6 years. Very nice to see (parts of it) being viewed from a scholarly perspective. ... And the funny thing is I don't even like to network or socialise much ... I would have been much richer monetary wise if I was a great ass-kisser, but what the heck!

HBR Blog Network

The Future of You

by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic  |   9:00 AM January 1, 2013

• Comments (30)
•        

Economic and technological changes are reshaping the nature of work. Having a great job does not guarantee your career success; your competence no longer depends on what you know; and being an affluent consumer matters less than becoming a sought-after product. Welcome to a new era of work, where your future depends on being a signal in the noisy universe of human capital. In order to achieve this, you will need to master three things: self-branding, entrepreneurship, and hyperconnectivity.

Self-branding is about being a signal in the noise of human capital. The stronger your brand, the stronger that signal. In today's world, self-branding matters more than any other form of talent, not least because the mass market is unable (or unwilling) to distinguish between branding and talent.

We are all individuals, but unless we are also a brand, our individuality will be invisible. Being a brand means showcasing that which makes you special, in a way that is distinctive (recognizable), predictable (consistent), and meaningful (it allows others to understand what you do and why). This is why David Beckham and Lady Gaga are much more successful than their more talented competitors — they understood that being a marketing phenomenon is more important than displaying outstanding soccer skills or musical talent, and focused more on self-branding than their counterparts did.

Successful brands are polarizing (they generate strong reactions) and simple. Strong self-branding means removing all non-essentials from your public reputation or, as Antoine Saint-Exupery put it, "perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

Entrepreneurship is about adding value to society by disrupting it and improving the order of things: it is turning the present into the past by creating a better future.

We are all busy, but the only activity that really matters is enterprising activity or entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is the difference between being busy and being a business, and the reason why some are able to stay in business.

Everything that isn't already optimized or automatized depends on people, and every transaction between people is a business transaction. The most important commodity in human capital today is people who can grow a business, that is, work on the business rather than in a business.

Today's war for talent is the war for identifying, developing, and retaining true change-agents. Change-agents are hard to find, hard to manage, and hard to retain. Entrepreneurship is about being a change-agent; change-agents are signals, everyone else is noise. If you are not bringing growth, you are replaceable and recyclable.

Whether you are self-employed or employed by others, whether you work in a big business or own a small business, your career success depends on your ability to offer something new: new solutions for existing problems; new services and products; new ideas; etc. Everything that isn't new is old, and if you are doing old you are stuck in the past. In the age entrepreneurship, the future of you is new, and your value depends on your ability to do things differently. As the great Alan Kay pointed out, "a change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points."

Hyperconnectivity is about being a signal in the sea of data and making and shaping the waves of social knowledge.

We are all online, but what matters is being a relevant connector. Hyperconnectivity is not about being online 24/7; it's about optimizing the online experience for others.

Unless you are a hyperconnector, only Netflix cares about what movies you watch, and only your friends care about where you went for brunch. But when you are a hyperconnector, thousands of people will watch the movies you like and your brunch recommendations will shape reviewers' comments on TripAdvisor. In the era of information overload, being a trustworthy source of information is a rare commodity — it is the digital equivalent of being an intellectual and the latest state in the evolution of marketing.

The world's knowledge is too large to be stored anywhere; Wikipedia and Google aren't enough; the Library of Congress isn't enough. Hyperconnectors point us in the right direction. Anybody can upload a video on YouTube or tweet, but only a few can direct us to the videos or tweets we want to see.

The most important form of knowledge today is knowing where to find stuff. In fact, the ability to find stuff is now almost as important as the ability to create stuff. Hyperconnectors are the creative of the digital era because in the age of information overload, where everybody creates online content, effectively curating content is what really matters.

In short, the future of you depends on your ability to be a brand, a change agent, and a link to useful information. Paying attention to your personality and managing your reputation (how others see you) will turn you into a successful brand; paying attention to your ideas and defying the status quo will help you become a change agent; and bridging the gap between social knowledge and collective interests will turn you into a hyperconnector.

More blog posts by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

More on: Career planning

TOMAS CHAMORRO-PREMUZIC

Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is an international authority in personality profiling and psychometric testing. He is a Professor of Business Psychology at University College London (UCL), Visiting Professor at New York University, and has previously taught at the London School of Economics. He is co-founder of metaprofiling.com.

2013 Market Outlook.

The lesson from 2012: We can ignore the Mayans, ZH and many other preachers of doom and gloom. Everything ends and the world will also end someday. We can't get caught up in bear talk all the time and not live a normal life. This dysfunctional central bank liquidity fuelled market will again enter crisis zone someday but we can't short a rising market without risking loss of capital.

The other life lesson: We can't predict future. If that was possible, the fortune tellers and gurus will all win the lotteries. So I am not even going to try. But I follow a system which analyse the past, takes inputs from the money flow, takes into consideration the seasonality patterns and tries to determine the next move, where the "puck" is going to be. Along the way, we apply risk management and only look for high probability trades and even then follow a stop loss system.

  So what are the dominant themes for investment / trading in 2013? Lets look at the positives first:

• Energy independence in USA. With the fracking USA is producing surplus Nat. Gas and shale oil the cost of energy in USA is less than 50% compared to Europe or Japan or China. More and more companies are realizing the benefits of the cheap energy and companies are moving manufacturing to USA. It is a long term secular trend. We will not see any immediate impact tomorrow or next month but if we suddenly wake up and compare the manufacturing landscape in 2020, we will find that lots of manufacturers who require high energy inputs have moved to USA.
• Change in Manufacturing: Manufacturing itself is changing. Since industrial revolution labour cost has been one of the most significant part of cost of production and it is the lure of cheap labour that has move manufacturing to China and shut down the plants in the rust belt. But moving production to a far off place which is 1000s of miles away from your market has its own set of costs and problems. There is cost of transportation, inability to respond quickly to changing markets and of course corruptions in a developing country and loss of intellectual property rights. But now even the manufacturing process is changing. Robotics are slowly taking over the production process and replacing the blue collar workers. Take a look how Telsa Motors making cars: http://vimeo.com/43083157             Slowly but surely Robots are replacing humans from Warehouse management to complex shopfloor production. In future production lines will have fewer people who will be highly skilled technicians. The flip side is, there will be no market for unskilled labourers except flipping burgers. Even that will be challenged. With this change, the cost advantages for off-shore production will be gone and you will find more companies are relocating back closer to their markets, thereby cutting down costs of transportation and other headaches. I think, long term that spells trouble for China and Good for USA.
• New Technology: 15 years back, internet changed the way we do business.  Now something new is coming up which will again impact the whole manufacturing process. That is 3D printing. Companies will be able to manufacture what they need in quantities that they need in a much more cheaper and efficient way. 

Now the Negatives:

• Structural Challenges: For too long USA has been living beyond its means. It has over $ 16 trillion debt and much more in unfunded liabilities. There is no way in hell or heaven that it can balance the budgets. Even if USA changes 100% income tax , it will not be able to bridge the gap. The problem is spending and USA is not able to address that. With the interest rates at today's artificial low level, it has borrowed more and more and with looming deflation, Barnenke is pumping more money. This will inevitably lead to inflation which in turn will push the interest rates higher and the cycle will come full circle. The era of low interest rates are coming to an end soon.
• Structural Unemployment: The unemployment problem will continue to trouble USA and much of the Advanced world. It is a structural unemployment where skill set required is absent in a large section of the population while demand for high skilled workers remains high. The level of education, particularly math and science till grade 12 is pathetic compared to some other countries and cost of University education is becoming more prohibitive. It will no longer be sufficient to have a basic grade 12 education and hope to get a factory job. More and more factory jobs will require good knowledge of math and science.
• Political Paralysis: Or partisanship. All that politicians are interested is how to get re-elected and they are playing to their base. While the cliff thingy has been kicked down for two months the real issue will come up in February when the debt ceiling collides with cliff. That is a major headwind for 2013.
• Global Slowdown: Every country is trying to prosper through export and debasement of currency. If everyone if trying to export who will be left to buy? American consumer has long supported the world but how long they will buy the stuff they don't need with the money they don't have? 
• Geo-Political Problem: I see major issues coming up in middle east and far east which can have serious negative impact.

  Final Thoughts:

While I have a long term bullish outlook for USA, I expect 2013 to be a bumpy ride. While Wall.St. pandits will again scream as to how cheap equities are, the fact remains that we are at the upper end of the range and the forward looking profitability of the companies are not going to be great. I expect SPX to test 1500 in the 1st half of 2013 and correct from there.In the next few months I expect VIX to trade lower from here and reach low double digits. The exact timing of moves are a matter of interpretation and left for the subscribers. I expect to see better risk/reward ratio for commodities and would be watching Oil, Nat.Gas, PM sectors and other soft commodities like Soya bean , coffee, wheat etc. I think there are very few longer term investment opportunities in equities in 2013 and whatever opportunities are there, would be short term trading in nature. Because of the economic headwinds the time frames will be much shorter. But opportunities will be both on the long side as well on the short side. So let's not get married to any one idea. Like in 2012, the coming year will continue to frustrate investors with whipsaws and folks will have to be very nimble. Even if there is no recession, the growth opportunities will be limited and US economy will at best muddle through. 

If "Muddle Through" economy is the most likely scenario of 2013, combine that with the fact that the 1st year of the 2nd Presidential Election cycle, when an incumbent is re-elected and you will see that the prognosis is not that great. Precisely the reason I am calling for a short trading/investment time span, take the money and run approach.

We have immensely enjoyed the Fiscal Cliff Circus and we are now getting ready for the next part which is "debt ceiling' drama. But for now, we have removed some uncertainty and  markets in general do not like uncertainty. We would be scaling in various positions from this Friday, long and short. Today it might be little volatile with wild ups and downs. All in all, an interesting beginning for 2013.

Stay frosty and good luck trading all.

As I Was Saying ...

Fiscal Cliff Averted, China Good News, Even From North Korea ... Rally Baby!!!

Shares everywhere is set to start the year on a positive note after a tentative deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" in the US and encouraging economic news from China.

Dow Jones futures were 250 points higher - about 2 per cent - after the deal was agreed in a late-night meetings in Congress, setting the scene for a good start to the trading year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had closed 166.03 points higher at 13,104.14 on Monday after signs of a possible deal.

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The ''fiscal cliff'', which was set to kick in on January 1, would have led to $US600 billion of tax increases and spending cuts. It's important to remember that there's some tightening of fiscal policy, which is good news - that's what the US economy needs given its budget position - but it's not so severe as to cause a hard landing. The elimination of a 2 percent payroll tax cut, coupled with higher income taxes on the wealthy, will help reduce growth in the first quarter to 1 percent, from 3.1 percent in 2012’s third quarter, the latest data available. The expected slowdown is a lot better than no deal at all. What markets hate most is UNCERTAINTY.

The first half slowdown will mean that the U.S. will make limited progress in reducing unemployment in 2013 - which if you remember will mean continued liquidity by Federal Reserve for a prolonged period as it will take sometime to whittle down the unemployment rate.

There were also encouraging signs from China as data showed its manufacturing activity expanding last month for the third straight month. The purchasing managers' index (PMI) remained steady at 50.6 in December, although it was slightly lower than HSBC bank's PMI survey of 51.5 - a 19-month high. The lift in manufacturing appeared to have been reflected in rising commodity prices over the past few weeks, adding to suggestions the worst could be over for the global economy.

In another boost for financial markets, China's President, Hu Jintao, said in a New Year's Eve address that the country would work towards fostering global economic growth. The country would "step up efforts to promote strong, sustainable and balanced growth in the world economy", said Mr Hu, who is set to step down as president in March.

News that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, had called for a "radical turnabout" in his country's economy and offered an olive branch to South Korea would also lift the market. In a rare new year's address broadcast on state television, Mr Kim said 2013 would be a year of "great creations and changes in which a radical turnabout will be effected" and that ''the building of an economic giant is the most important task'' facing North Korea.

"An important issue in putting an end to the division of the country and achieving its reunification is to remove confrontation between the North and the South," he added.

Best Idea For The New Year

Brilliant idea really ... the kids will cringe ... but wasn't it too long ago when we did not have mobile phones, and everything turned out OK. Its just an hour or so, ... spend some quality time people.