Here is an update on my primary business The Macro Trader.  I continue to get new subscribers which is a good thing and our performance has been far better than most, which is an even better thing.    As opposed to most subscription based products which are available to retail investors we do not advertise how you could have made $123,000 on this one trade or some other bullshiz like that.  Instead we show our model portfolio performance as a whole.  We have some great trades, but like every trader ever in the history of the world no matter what some may say, we also have our share of losses as well.  If you can’t tell we hate marketing that involves lying/misleading and the investment newsletter industry has more than its share of liars.

Anyways here is our performance year to date.  We are up as of tonight 7.59% with a worst drawdown of -2.29%.  This compares very well against the HFRXM Hedge Fund Research Macro Index which is down -1.56% and has a worst drawdown of -4.76%.  Of course if we are beating any benchmark then we are also beating the SP500.  Why people continue to believe in buy and hold is beyond us but if you are a believer then you are down -6.09% for the year and are currently down -13.97% from the high for the year.  Yes, that means that we are ahead of the SP500 by almost 14% and with far less risk.

YTD Perfomance vs Benchmarks

To get a better picture of how we are doing and how our returns have been far less volatile than the SP500 here is a chart showing $1,000 invested in our model portfolio, SP500, and the HFRXM.  As you can see we have been fairly consistent with low drawdowns and little volatility.

YTD $1,000 Investment

We have never been really big fans of the buy and hold as it always leaves the door for devastating losses that you may or may not ever come back from.  Many people fail to realize that a 50% loss requires not a 50% gain but a 100% gain just to get back to breakeven.  Think about it if you have $100 and lose $50, the remaining $50 needs to double to get back to $100.  Looking at the past 10 years we have had two instances where the SP500 tanked by 50%.  The 2000-02 crash took it down 47% and the 2008 crash took it down 57% from the high to the low.  Despite the monster rally of 2009 that took the SP500 up 67.45% from its lows investors were still down -29% from the 2007 highs.

We bring all of this up in our update to highlight one thing that we do, and do quite well.  That thing is risk management.  We are only right a little more than 55% of the time but our losses are far smaller than our gains.  We strive to never risk so much on a trade that if we are wrong we cant climb back out of the hole.  We do this by using tools like stop losses on both a position and portfolio level, position sizing on both a position and asset class level, correlation studies to see if we are too concentrated, diversification across asset classes, by going long and short, by hedging, etc.  Basically we cut our losses short and try to let our winners run.

We have found that in any business and even in life that risk management is one of the things that really separates the winners from the losers.  If you do everything in your power to control your downside then you will be in a lot better position to capture the upside in any endeavor.  The Scouting motto was not just for camping “Be Prepared” is the correct way to invest as well.

Happy Trading,

Dave@DavidTaggart.com

Take a $1 trial of The Macro Trader to receive unbiased actionable research.

So I haven’t updated this for a few months and to take a small break from financial modeling and writing I figured I would give another update on my life.  Hooray for you…….all 1 or 2 of you anyways.

Reading over my last post I can see that everything has progressed in the last five months at least a little and in some cases a lot.  If only there were 48 hours in a day instead of just 24.

The Macro Trader continues to go well.  Traffic is still growing well and our number of subscriptions continue to increase.  Just as important is that our performance for the year has been solid beating the SP500 and providing absolute returns with very low drawdowns.  It is sad that the SP500 is “the” benchmark since it is far too volatile for its meager returns.   I still spend 90% of my waking hours on this site and love it like 90% of the time.

Tags Kitchen continues to grow with more and more recipes going online.  Most of these are family recipes or recipes that have been modified by family.  What this means of course is that everything has been eaten by at least one, and likely several family members.  This is important because whereas most families plan their vacations around sights and stuff, our family plans the sights around the food.  We are all eaters and mot of us are pretty good cooks as well.  I grew up thinking that all moms, aunts, grandmas, and even most dads and uncles were great cooks.  It wasn’t until around 5th grade when I went to a friends grandmas house and ate food and thought some version of what the hell was this?  Anyways while I can’t guarantee that every recipe is great I can say that most of them are great and the rest are at least good.  BTW my sister Becca has done most of the work on the site as of late.

Personal Refuge has been a PITA as Buddy Press was beyond what I needed.  Instead we resorted back to regular Word Press and have recently re-installed a storefront that is better than what was there before.  In addition we are going to have articles dealing with self sufficiency such as how to make a home made generator and other useful stuff like that.  We will also be reviewing a number of products that have been designed for the outdoors, self reliance, etc.

Dating life is unchanged which of course equals non-existent.

Weight/Fitness- I didn’t really jump on the bandwagon until the start of 2010 when we started making bets again.  I lose weight when there is money on the line.  I have dropped 20 so far this year and now need to drop 30 by the end of April.  As much as that sucks it is a fitting punishment for being somewhat of a fatass.

If you have not purchased your name.com then you are missing out, or will eventually miss out.  Miss out on what you ask?  Well here is a great article by Fred Wilson AVC.com that discusses the value of owning your online brand.  I can say that I rank number one in Google for the term David Taggart and would like to eventually have a authority ranking like my good friend Courtney Tuttle.    Aside from the rankings however is the fact that a domain name costs like $8 a year or so from sellers like Proud Domains and once someone buys it they can keep it forever. Like the article suggests owning your online brand can do a lot more for you than just make you feel cool.  By “owning your space” you can ensure that people that search for your name see what you want them to see.  In case you were wondering everyone Googles everyone so this does actually matter. Even if all you do is build an online business card this is better than doing nothing.

I cant think of much else to say right now.  I will end with a suggestion that you try out my newsletter The Macro Trader using our new subscription options where you can try us out for 1-month/4-weeks for only $1.  The best risk to reward out there.

Happy Living,

Dave@DavidTaggart.com

P.S. If you have your own site or blog feel free to link to this site at http://DavidTaggart.com

In no particular order here is an update on my life and things that I am doing.

Tigers lost to the Twins yesterday in a playoff for the playoffs.  Yes, we melted in the last month but come on isn’t having Brett Favre and going 4-0  good enough for one town?

The Macro Trader is going well.  We have increased traffic 6 fold from the June to September and are now being syndicated on SeekingAlpha and Newstex which distributes to Reuters, the Kindle, and several other outlets.  performance of the newsletter has been solid and while we are lagging the SP500 for 2009 we are killing it by over 30% still over the last two years. I spend 90%+ of my working hours, which are most of my hours, on this site and researching for the newsletter.  I love this business.

TagsKitchen.com my old cooking site will be back up this week and is going to be using Buddypress instead of regular WordPress.  This will enable us to build a cooking community and do a lot of other cool things.  Buddypress is basically a blogging Facebook/members site software.  You can blog, have a message board, allow members to have their own blogs, and a bunch of other stuff.  Most of the recipes that were on the old TagsKitchen will be on this one as well as tons of new stuff.  Not 100% sure how to best monetize it so initially we will have some Amazon and Google love. My sister Becca will be doing a lot on the site.

PersonalRefuge.com Another project that I am working on is that of a self sufficiency website.  Anyone that has known me for more than a week or so knows that I have always been interested in what will happen, or more accurately what does happen when society goes to crap.  New Orleans is a good and real example while Somalia is an extreme example.  There is a lot of information that can be useful if, more like when this happens.  Our main monetization of this site will be selling Mountain House Food Storage.   They make the best products and we are able to sell at the best prices.  Initially we will not be doing the typical shopping cart but instead will be doing over the phone and/or Skype assessments of what you need and what we offer.  We have a few standard packages but they are easily customized for each customer.  Over time we may branch out and sell other items as well but food storage will be our primary product.  And PersonalRefuge.com will also be on Buddypress which will allow us to have several different sections, a message board, and member blogs.

Dating life-Mostly non-existent…..Ok maybe totally non-existant but whatev.

BYU Football-We are 4-1 and the season is going fine.  Actually the season is going great but after the win against Oklahoma at the beginning of the season I think I set my expectations too high.  Because of this I feel a bit down on the whole thing even though we are ranked 18th.  Our next big test is TCU in a few weeks and if we can win that game I will be back on and will go to whatever bowl game we get.  If sports are this emotional for fans I can’t believe how they must be for the athletes.

Shooting-I have been so busy with work this summer that I have barely gone shooting at all.  This after 3+ years of 2 times a week.  I can still consistently do sub 1.5 second shots but on my current lack of a practice schedule I will never get to a sub 1 second shot.  Hopefully by spring time my schedule is a bit more open.

Weight/Fitness-I am a strong fat man.  Not like huge fat but still overweight.  At least I am strong right?  Well it is little consolation and this winter I will be dropping 30+.  I have a big frame and have decent height so I don’t look like a lardass but I am nowhere near where I would like to be hence the posting of my goal on a public website with my name on it. If you see me in a month ask me if I have lost weight and if I answer no then kick me in the face, I deserve it

Reading-I love books and love to read.  Lucky for me I love my work so 90% of my reading the past 10+ years have been related to investing, business, etc.  Right now I am re-reading Alchemy of Finance by George Soros. Politically homeboy is nuts but as a trader he is one of the best ever.  Two other books I am reading are Global Convertible Investing by Hart Woodson and Portable Alpha Theory and Practice by Sabrina Callan.  Convertible bonds have not been my strong point so I am building that up and with all the success that Bridgewater has had with portable alpha I figured I should do more research in the part of the alternative investment world.

Book Links
The Alchemy of Finance (Wiley Investment Classics)

Portable Alpha Theory and Practice: What Investors Really Need to Know (Wiley Finance)

Global Convertible Investing: The Gabelli Way

Thats it for now.

Happy Living,

Dave@DavidTaggart.com

I get this question all the time, so instead of trying to explain what I thought was going to happen to each person I decided to build a site that gives the most accurate answer you will find anywhere.  If you need more then this site provides then it will cost you.

Here is the site

What Will The Market Do Today.com

Happy Trading,

Dave Taggart

Welcome to my blog.  I have owned my domain name for a few years and finally got around to getting my personal blog up the other day.  I still have a lot of site editing to do but for now at least I can post.

Here’s a little about me.  I was born in the late seventies and was raised primarily in Cody, Wyoming and Provo, Utah with an eventful stop in East Lansing, Michigan and stops in Laramie, Wyoming and Park City, Utah as well.  I also served a LDS mission to Puerto Rico so I guess you could say I lived there for two years as well.

As it says in the sidebar I have been in the investment business full time since 2000 and have loved almost every minute of it.  A little over a year ago I went out on my own and currently own and operate The Macro Trader, a weekly global macro publication with frequent intra-week updates for time-critical analysis and actionable trade ideas.  In addition to The Macro Trader I am a partner in Attitrade.com a site that provides traders with a lot of useful scans, volatility charts, and other tools for traders as well as several education programs for the beginner all the way to the  advanced trader.  Aside from trading related businesses I am also an investor in a few other web sites.  Over time I will go into each business that I am involved with and how they are doing.

Throughout the day I am on Twitter with the handle @dctag I also have @DavidTaggart and am considering changing over but for now if you want to find me use @dctag. I am usually pretty active but occasionally am absent from Twitteronia so if you don’t see a post one day I am probably not dead but instead too busy.

I am hoping to post fairly regularly to this blog as it reflects on me and therefore I can speak my mind.  I don’t recall ever being accused of not having an opinion on something so now and then expect a full fledged rant.  I will try not to swear very often on the blog as I am trying (not hard enough and with little success) not to swear in my offline life but there will no doubt be the occasional word or twenty.

Anyways that is enough about me for now.

Happy Life,

David Taggart