2011 Year To Date (System):  -3.00% (Version 3.3)

2011 Year To Date (System): +7.00% (Version 4.4)
2011 Year To Date (Actual): +0.40%

2011 Year To Date Options (Actual): +0.00%
2011 S&P:  0%
BladeTrader Performance Against S&P: -3.00%

 

Lets review our last comment: 

"Overall, we still feel 1250 is the target for the year as Black Friday appeared to be very positive with shoppers buying exactly what they wanted versus "boom" years in which shoppers went blindly into stores buying anything at a discount.  This is good news for America as we get back to normal spending patterns along with saving."

Our 1250 target was right on for 2011.  We should see similar performance in 2012 with a test of 1375 potentially and another difficult summer bringing the S&P to to finish out at 1300 for 2012. 

As we close in on the end of the year, there will be some changes.  This year was more about getting ready for next year than about trading.  Running an algorithm to prove its good and offer solid advice is one thing, but when its time to move to the next level, it takes more than a good algorithm, it takes some planning. 

From this point forward the updates will be monthly and be in line with other investment advisors and hedge funds.  Many only report quarterly, but for now Monthly will suffice.

Our capitalization plans will continue, but there will need to be some additional structure around it, mostly adding a dedicated resource to handle the requests.

Technology and management will be split into seperate parts.  The technology will simply focus on making great investment decisions while the management will simply focus on capitalization, fund build-out, and corporate relations.  The too lines need to be seperate to ensure good investment decisions.

Finding good technologists is simply too difficult, and too expensive.  Finding a manager to run daily operations should prove more fruitful. 

  I have not yet completed the End of Year but didn't want to leave anyone wondering.  I will have all the reports put together this next weekend. 

BladeTrader 4.4 had a good 2011 but is not a viable solution, it had some difficulty with years 2007 and 2009 and just didn't perform well under heavy stress, thus the reason for reverting back to BladeTrader 3.3.  I am working on extracting the viable elements of the new version but I am a little disappointed since it showed a lot of promise after this summer in handling summer issues.

As for "tweaking" the system, we will simply merge all the good things about the various versions into a new system, with the majority of the system coming from version 3.3.

There have been some other regulatory items that have kept the website off line, but this should also be resolved after this month.

The algorithms will be back on line Feb 1 using the same algorithms we used in 2010. 

2012 is a our last year of the three year plan to work out the system, so I expect big things from 2012 as we solidify all the development.

I will keep everyone posted on accounts after I release 2011 results, but expect it everything to be in place Feb 1.  There was a lot of effort to see if there was any possibility of salvaging BladeTrader 4.4, but at this point we need to go with the best algorithm.

Please look forward to another communication next week.