Bill is described as "legendary". His research "studied eight different market cycles, and eventually identified seven basic factors that all top-performing companies had in common. O'Neil then developed CAN SLIM, an investment strategy that took into account not just fundamental and technical analysis, but also the historical trends and patterns of stocks." "William O'Neil quickly became the top-performing broker in his firm, increasing his own account over 2000% in a little over two years." "O'Neil also purchased a seat on the New York Stock Exchange (at the age of thirty, he was the youngest person at that time to ever do so)." "Today, William O'Neil is on the lecture circuit, explaining to sold-out audiences of institutional and individual investors his tactics for finding winning stocks and minimizing losses in trading. His company, William O'Neil + Co., remains a national investment information management and brokerage firm that exclusively specializes in providing data for the institutional investment community." I have always found Investor's Business Daily to provide common sense, applicable information that I can use with my investing. I have a mathematics minor and an engineering major. . .so putting together, proving and improving upon my system approach uses mathematical models derived from Bill's research - proven to work for the entire life of the Stock Market - has, fortunately, even improved upon this outstanding metric: paysense
(cough!, cough!, cough!) Any long-term investors want to weigh in, here? Scalping contracts for what? p$
Speaking to myself here guys? Nice article I'll re-post: Real People, Real Success Posted 12/02/2009 05:30 PM ET IBD Subscriber: Rajesh S. Rajesh S. is an electrical engineer. When IBD last spoke with him in July, he was sitting on a double-digit gain from 2008 using IBD and the CAN SLIM ® rules. For the final "Real Readers" profile of 2009, we checked in with him for a year-end update. . IBD: How has your portfolio performed since we last spoke? RS: I've broken the triple-digit gain mark! I wasn't expecting to do that well this year. But I followed the CAN SLIM rules and I was right there when The Big Picture said "Market in confirmed uptrend" or "Uptrend under pressure." IBD: Since you say you were using The Big Picture as your guide, let's hear more about how it worked for you? RS: I spent most of 2008 reading about market history and market corrections. In March of this year, the first time The Big Picture said the market was in a confirmed rally, I was ready. I saw Shanda and Netflix were breaking out of bases. I got in at the right time thanks to IBD. It was just like what I had read in Bill O'Neil's How to Make Money in Stocks about the 2003 market rally. I saw the parallels (with 2003) thanks to what I was reading in Bill's book. I was using history to understand the current market conditions. Then when The Big Picture confirmed the market was under pressure in October, I got out with a good profit. IBD: What other tools helped you find the leaders during the rally this year? RS: I was mainly using The Big Picture, the Daily Graphs® Online screening tool and the Nasdaq Stocks in the News. My criteria for any stock is that it have IBD ratings of 85 or 90 across the board and an A or B letter grade. When these stocks show up on the growth screens over and over again, and then when I see them pop up in The Big Picture, those are my primary stocks to watch. I find a lot of my big winners in Nasdaq Stocks In The News. I also use it as a guide for whether I want to be in the market. If I don't see strong stocks in Nasdaq Stocks In The News I know the market isn't doing well and I wait on the sidelines. IBD: Were you expecting to do so well this year when you got back into the market? RS: There was an interview with Bill O'Neil early on in the year and he was talking about all the fear in the market. He was saying that when people least expect the market to go up, it often goes higher. I saw that people were very fearful at that time, so I was confident that the market was going to do well. But I didn't expect to have a triple-digit gain! IBD: What would you like to say to investors that might help them also? RS: I say it over and over to people: IBD. IBD. IBD. I follow it every day. I read all the articles, especially The Big Picture, and follow the Daily Stock Analysis and IBD Market Wrap videos. For example, I'd never heard of VPRT before I saw it in IBD. If I just pick up any newspaper or magazine I wouldn't see these stocks anywhere. But IBD puts them right in front of you. I attribute all my success to IBD. IBD made me money in 2008, one of the toughest corrections since the Great Depression. How could I ever forget CLR, and but for IBD I would never have found that stock. The same thing happened this year. I found my big stocks thanks to IBD. IBD has also been a big help to my family. I was helping my father in India to trade stocks and using IBD to do it. His gains are now in the high double-digits. Interestingly, we've found that the same rules IBD says apply to the American market also apply for the Indian market. We applied IBD principles to investing in stocks in India and my father made good money. That's why I call the CAN SLIM method "the global system for understanding and profiting from stocks." I've been to Taiwan and other countries and I talk to people in finance there and I find they have no idea how the market works. They're not using the CAN SLIM rules. The CAN SLIM approach is so powerful it can work in any market. So all thanks to Bill O'Neil. IBD just rocks! http://www.investors.com/Newsletter/Article.aspx?id=514073&module=IBDCommunity&issue=200912
Contrast this with *conventional* wisdom (apparently when picking from Morningstar's "Best Funds" list - you need much *luck*): [some excerpts] But beating the category average isn't what you expect from "best" funds; a better hurdle would be finishing in the top 25% of the asset class, and just 22 of 71 picks (31%) did that. "What they are revealing with these lists," he (Hulbert) added, "is just how difficult it is for any of us to identify top performers, to say 'This is what's going to be the next great investment.' Even among funds with absolutely fabulous track records, picking next year's winners is tough." http://www.marketwatch.com/story/best-funds-list-brings-out-the-worst-2009-12-04
More chronicling (from my blog, see profile): <b>From Covered Calls to Using Index Futures or ETFs</b> My initial work from 1998-present using covered calls averages a 50% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) with a 20% (max) DD (drawdown). It maximizes gains from high-yielding CC positions during market uptrends, yet moves to cash during market corrections. So successful was I in capturing these key market trends, I decided to learn proper money management in how to trade a diversified instrument using index futures or ETFs to capture both LONG and SHORT markets. <b>Traded a 50% average annual return for 10 years.</b> My truly successful covered call system routinely beat the Nasdaq for more than 10 years, while keeping loss periods or âdrawdownâ to a minimum. Annual returns are as follows: 1999: KC Fund 77%, Nasdaq 39% 2000: KC Fund 72%, Nasdaq 38% 2001: KC Fund 16%, Nasdaq (38%) 2002: KC Fund 1%, Nasdaq (37%) 2003: KC Fund 120%, Nasdaq 50% 2004: KC Fund 44%, Nasdaq 9% 2005: KC Fund 76%, Nasdaq 1% 2006: KC Fund 34%, Nasdaq 10% 2007: KC Fund 12%, Nasdaq 10% 2008: KC Fund 28%, Nasdaq (41%) 2009: KC Fund (5%), Nasdaq 30% (Paper-traded: Jun 1998 - May 2001, Real money: Jan 2002 - present, Collective2.com audit: Jan 2009 - present. Figures are rounded.) I should also add that when you do a search on Google using "covered calls", we get 54,500,000 results. Of all websites scanned (plenty provide instruction and screens) - only a few provide actual, verified returns. Ies-invest.com is the ONLY site that can show decent gains, but did have a couple of bad years that did wipe out gains...thereby falling WAY short of my results. PS More to follow re: (improved & audited) <b>E-mini System</b>.
Note a long-term 40% average out-performance versus the Nasdaq. This can mostly be seen within a one-year period. Also note an anomaly produced by the volatile Bear Market of 2007-2009. A volatile 2007 showed a minimal out-performance, while 2008âs was huge. Ten months into 2009 has yet to produce our standard divergence, <b>thereby giving us optimistic expectations for 2010.</b>