www.romanvenable.net:  Clark's Weblog



Saturday, January 31, 2004
My New Investment Software

Seth Dillingham has made my investing research a little easier. Ridiculously easy, actually. As I've written before, I use Robert Sheard's The Unemotional Investor as the basis for my stock picks. This requires that, on a regular basis, I enter 100 stock symbols into a spread sheet from one web site (Value Line), then look up two pieces of data for each stock from another web site (Investor's Business Daily). (Both are subscription-only, in case you're wondering.) Tedious, but worth it.

Using perl and MySQL, Seth provided a system which automatically looks up what the 100 symbols are, grabs the other data I need, then dumps them into a MySQL database. This gives me the data that was taking me the better part of an hour to get before, in under 2 minutes. But wait, there's more! Since it's in a relational database (MySQL is a free, open source relational database), once I get several time points in, I can begin to ask for more detailed information like "which of these 100 most timely stocks has had an increase in relative strength rating over a certain time period?"

Asking Seth to set this up for me means I get a professionally done system that works, thereby saving myself countless hours of hacking away with a product which no doubt wouldn't even come close to the quality of his work. It also give me a good starting point to learn more about relational databases in general, MySQL in particular, and maybe al little perl and cgi, too.

Categories: Investing
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A suspicious mind always looks on the black side of things. --Publilius Syrus


Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Lots of People Expect Apple Stock Price To Fall

The short interest on Apple's stock (AAPL) has gone way up with the recent run-up in price, rising more than 25% from April to May (June numbers not yet out). What this means is that lots of people sold the stock (by 'borrowing' it from a third party) with the intent of buying it back later at a lower price.

Here's what the chart looks like today:

Now, I'm not one to call people stupid, but with the World Wide Developers Conference coming up next week and the prospect of significant announcements, I've just gotta think there are better stocks to short sell than Apple Computer right now....(hint, hint)...

Categories: Investing
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We must give lengthy deliberation to what has to be decided once and for all. -Publilius Syrus


Wednesday, May 21, 2003
The IBD 100

Investor's Business Daily has a new service: the IBD 100

The Investor's Business Daily 100 is a computer-generated ranking of the leading companies in America. Rankings are based on a combination of each company's recent earnings growth record; IBD's Composite Rating, which includes key measures such as return on equity, sales growth and profit margins; and relative price performance in the last 12 months. "Quarters of Rising Sponsorship" counts quarters in a row with more mutual funds owning the company. A company's inclusion in the ranking should not be viewed as a recommendation.

When I compare this list to the ValueLine list of 100 most timely stocks, there are many similarities. I think I'll try using this list with my Unemotional Growth strategy for a while.

Categories: Investing
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In a heated argument we are apt to lose sight of the truth. -Publilius Syrus