Why not buy the new highs of the strongest stocks in the strongest sectors/groups and sell the new lows of weakest stocks in the weakest sectors/groups. Just thinking out loud.
I'm actually doing exactly the opposite. While its performance sucks right now (today looks like it'll be another ugly day) it does produce ok results in general. Right now you can just throw a dart if you want to buy something. I needed less short exposure, so I looked which stock in my portfolio was the worst yesterday (RDEN), bought some to reduce my overall risk and even that's up today. Home Depot is on a quest to break 100 bucks (and why wouldn't it be at a life time high, 5 times what it used to be 5 or 6 years ago. I buy 5 times as much @ home depot [actually I don't buy much there], stock volume is 1/3 of what it used to be, there's 5 times more stores [my next home depot is still 45 mins away so maybe there's not many more stores], they're 5 times more efficient [maybe not])... just buy everything.
I don't wish to sound negative, but if you can't beat the index, then it would seem better to just invest in a tracker fund.
If you have backtested and research your strategy fully, trust them, keep them going. If you feel that your strategy need to be revised as it no longer works, stop them, go back to drawing board. If your position sizing has been sound in the first place, follow them. The pain is emotional, what matter most if your strategy edge is still there. Yes, continue. No? stop. Willy nilly sizing up and down, tuning/tweaking abit here and there with your current emotion is not going to help. My 2c
Since Im still reluctantly bullish and probably will remain so until the US economy heads south it means if you have a good week I have a bad one and vice-versa. "I can't just trade the long side. We are so overbought right now, this truly feels like 99 to me (the smallest sell off is immediately bought)" Yeah and Im one of those buying! Agreed the S&P ramp up looks similar but I think the main difference is the earnings and interest rate environment. Earnings are much higher now and where else can you put your money ? I will go short when the Fed has killed the economy with interest rate rises. Unemployment getting worse etc. That could be some time away since they have not even started increasing rates yet. Until then Im long in a bull market. You could have put together a good case for going short in 1996, 1997 and 1998 but there would be sooooo much pain until you are finally proved right that few can handle it. Best of luck and interesting reading another point of view.
Not sure if real but in any case, are these daily P/L or cumulative for 2014? Are they denominated in dollars? or is 1 = $1K or whatever order of magnitude you work with?