# 2012 Forum Year in Review



## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

Time to see what shocked us and what we thought of 2012 on the Canadian Money Forum.

Shocked: 1. I don't know about shocked but I did think the selloff in gold equities was a little much. But then again costs have gone up and easy finds are hard to come by. 
2. Apple takes a dive is a shock for many but expected for me as everyone owns it.
3. RIM makes some noise is a shock but then again you would think something should go at least half right.

Can Kicking: Europe and the US did a masterful job of kicking the can down the road. Bank of England grabs Carney hoping there is more then just can kicking.

Sports: 1. The Olympics were great and the swimming and women gymnastics were the best from what I saw. 
2. NHL strike is stupid and now we can care a lot less about it and all the money they hope to make.
3. Toronto wins the Grey Cup is special because Toronto won something.

Forum: 

Belguy wins the popular threads award as he collects 100's of replies as everyone tries to ignore him. 
Carverman takes the General Discussion forum hands down.
T.Gal takes the trading and posting on trading award.
Lepturn takes the option manipulation and strategy award
Kcowan takes the worst ignore of Belguy award
Humble Pie takes the Alice in Wonderland award while explaining options and probably doing the dishes and taking out the garbage at the same time.
Four Pillars takes the best content posting award as he seems to add a lot as usual to the forum.

So there is 2012 in my eyes and I hope for a great 2013.


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## bayview (Nov 6, 2011)

Economic wise Im "shocked" the USA is not officially in a recession in 2012!

On the Forum, I will award:

1. King HaroldC the Forum's All Rounder for his insightful knowledge & sharing over many topics - lifestyle, finance, investments, politics, etc. 

2. MGal the Forum's Contract & Tax expert for her tons of useful advice on legal & taxation matters.

3. Zylon the Entertainer for bumping up the music thread with his great contributions covering numerous genres

4. TRMail the Aesthetician for reminding posters to uphold the posting rules to maintain the Forum's form & beauty.

Merry Christmas & A Blessed 2013 to everyone!


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

I was thinking the same recession type thing for the US in 2012 when I made my predictions last year but I had forgot it was an election year. Ben and friends pulled everything out of the hat to prevent that from happening before Obama got elected. Also some good awards and observations there thanks bayview.


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## 44545 (Feb 14, 2012)

2012 was the first year I started investing in earnest. I read "Four Pillars of Investing", "Bogleheads' Guide to Investing", "A Random Walk Down Wall Street", "The Naked Investor"... among others.

Maybe not "shocked" but I've been struck by just how much macro-economic noise there is floating around. 

All of the doom and gloom, all of the irrational exuberance - a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing. None of it tells me what's going to happen tomorrow, next year or next decade. 

Instead of listening to all that trash, I'll live frugally, save as much as I can, keep on investing in broad, passively managed index funds, and stay the course.










http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/try-to-focus-on-your-personal-economy/


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

congratulations dogcom on the progress. Women are close to 1/3 of the 2012 nominees. Better, but perhaps not yet good enough.

junior achievers: argo, GOB, barwelle, dmoney, young & ambitious, metatheta.

lazarus award for being banned 3 times: newbie the negotiator.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

Geez, when you don't read the trading forum apparently you miss a lot of shenanigans (and good contributions!) The negotiator got banned? I should read that forum more.


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## scomac (Aug 22, 2009)

CJOttawa has just earned my nomination for "Post of the Year"!

:encouragement: :encouragement:


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## Spidey (May 11, 2009)

CJOttawa sums up my sentiments pretty well, as well. If anything I'm perhaps shocked by the lack of shocks given the constant warnings. A bit of a frustrating market this year but also one of the ones where I've had the most fun buying and selling, even if it was only with a small part of my portfolio.


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## Young&Ambitious (Aug 11, 2010)

Thanks Humble!

It's been an interesting year, lots of learning and yet tons left to learn! 

And next year? I wonder where Europe will end up, America and its debt/currency, and the housing market in Vancouver/Toronto. Will this so-called bubble ever happen??


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## Cal (Jun 17, 2009)

dogcom said:


> Carverman takes the General Discussion forum hands down.


Funny, I have always jokingly wondered to myself if carverman knew that there was a financial forum on this site too.


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

Thanks for pointing out the gender equality issue Humble Pie. We will have to work on that in 2013. Also like Moneygal, I didn't know that the negotiator was banned 

Young&Ambitious we are already in a real estate correction in Vancouver and the only question now is how far it will go?

CJOttawa congrats on being nominated for "Post of the Year".


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## Four Pillars (Apr 5, 2009)

dogcom said:


> Four Pillars takes the best content posting award as he seems to add a lot as usual to the forum.


I'm flattered - thanks!

However, I'm going to hand it over to Electric12 who I think provides a ton of good info.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

the negotiator was banned as newbie. Like lazarus he rose as moneyisfornothing but got banned again. Like lazarus he rose ... as jet_powder ... but ... got banned ... again ... like lazarus he rose ...

the interesting thing is that both lonewolf & original newbie back in his day approach & used to approach a particular kind of 100-delta leaps option with exactly the identical kind of analytic. It's a rare approach. It stands out because it happens to be accurate.

the language used to describe this analytic, across nearly 2 years & allegedly from 2 separate posters, is identical. It's unlikely there could be 2 separate people in the whole of canada who would know to do this. So i am left wondering how many personalities, or how many IP addies, are really going on here.


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## lonewolf (Jun 12, 2012)

I was first jet powder then was banned & came back as loan wolf. I appricate Avrex letting me back & Humple for saying something like he hopes I can stay. Those are the only 2 charactors I have posted as.

I have been on sites where very creative individuals have been more then one person but they did not do it to be destructive but to argue both sides of an idea which has really added to the forum.

If going long a market with high liquidity i.e., spy or spx I will often buy deep in the money options & will dump well before exploration to give my investment a positive curvature by make more money point for point as the market moves in my direction, then I would lose point for point if the market moves against my position. Since I will buy little to no premium but mostly intrinsic if the market goes side ways little premium is lost. I do not really like to go long out of the money calls because the move up is slower. Perhaps going long an out of the money call on a leveraged inverse etf I would be more comfortable using out an of the money option.

I have done very little individual stock trading & do not like the wide bid/ask spreads for individual stocks for using options compared to the more heavily trade indexes i.e., spy. Iam More experienced with options & futures on the stock indexes. (dont trade futures anymore)

The more liquid @ the money option I think is best suited for the short term day trader lower bid/ask spread

In my opinion the best time to buy out of the money option (stock market) is when a sharp sudden unexpected move is about to happen. Premiums are less expensive near market top & or @ certain points in price pattern i.e., top of wave 2 in a 5er down. The market goes down faster then it goes up causing put premiums to explode higher. I dont really care if the option goes in the money or not when I use them I will make sure the option expires after I expect the max momentum down. The timing has to be precise, using leaps will help if timing is a month or 2 late. The rally after a crash put premiums can drop rapidly. Buying out of the money puts is not a habit of mine & I seldom use them. I last used them in 2008. Since around 2009 I have been waiting to use out of the money puts again when the potential jaws of death pattern is near complete in the dow. Will put a little more money on the table near the top of a wave 2 rally before wave 3 down of a 5er down because the premiums @ the top of wave 2 should be lower then @ the top. I will use my DNA markers which are planetary alignments which have been present @ other crash lows as guide posts as to when to exit my position & or elliott wave.

If Iam wrong I lose a little if Iam right the out of the money options can really be big money makers.


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## jcgd (Oct 30, 2011)

I only know the genders of a few people here and I kind of like it that way. As much as I don't like it about myself, I think knowing a person's sex affects what they say means to me. I can't keep track of many of the posters and often when gender comes up I am surprised that someone I assumed was female a was a male, or vise versa. Just saying that I don't think about gender equality much here because for the most part, save for maybe three people, I don't know or think about people's sex and I'm judging them completely on their forum personality. Of course people mention their husbands and wifes and you get hints about the gender, but I really prefer not to think about it

T. Gal, M. Gal, easy to keep straight. Other seemly random names... no clue what sex the person is. 

Thanks for everyone for their contributions here. I've learned a heap and hope I can teach others in the future.


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

Jcgd you have actually got me there as I only know the easy ones like T.Gal, M. Gal and a few others myself. Humble-pie however was just joking about gender equality and it made me laugh so I went along with it. Also while on this topic I forgot to give Berubeland the real estate award so there is one more for the females.

Lonewolf so you rose from the ashes and were reincarnated. I hope that you are over whatever sins you committed to get banned.


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

lonewolf said:


> I was first jet powder then was banned & came back as loan wolf.


You certainly don't owe any appreciation/explanations to anyone other than the moderators here [or those who have helped you in any way]. You have as much right to be here & have your say as anyone else [even when you're not always easy to understand].


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

Personally, I can describe 2012 with a couple of letters: WD for well done [as far as volatility & returns go].

Nothing really shocks/surprises anymore, not with respect to markets/people, etc., but if I had to pick one event, it would be the fact that, the year is coming to an end, and people are still being massacred in Syria [40,000+ in 21 months], and by their own people for goodness' sake. Countries/gov. agencies/human rights organizations, etc., can't do/say/move fast enough to constantly vilify Israel for defending itself, but what about Syria and the rest of the Middle East where thousands of innocent people are being butchered by their own, what has been/is being done exactly in nearly 2 years? 

A second somewhat surprising event would be President Obama's narrow election victory, though not as narrow as in the 2000 Bush/Gore, aka the 'Stolen Election', when the results of electoral/popular votes had given the winner 271/47.9% vs. 266/48.4% to the loser.

*Dogcom:* regarding some of your comments:

*AAPL:* it rose very quickly; by almost 100% since Nov.2011, so the price collapse which began gradually & consistently since Sept. 20/2012, had not been a surprise despite the incredible sale numbers [have no regrets *yet*, of not having sold my long-term position].

*RIM:* I was surprised how quickly it rose from its lowest; 100% in just 2 months since Sept./2012, and still months before the release of their new system [coincidentally enough, their rise began when AAPL began to fall]. Similar story with NOK, which was another spectacular rise from the dead & lows of $1.69 just 5 months ago.

*Sports:* yes, the Olympics were so much fun, and how could it not when it began with 007! :love-struck:

What Canadian could forget the women's soccer team & more specifically, *Christine Sinclair?!* How about *Lightning Bolt?! Phelps* winning a record 22 overall Olympic medals. *Mo Farah's* brutal 5,000 AND 10,000m victories. Then there was *Oscar Pistorius; the Fab 5* [US Gymnastics], and the list goes on and on. Thanks for reminding us of the London Games dogcom. Let's look at one of the great faces of the Games again [which was similar to that of Donovan Bailey at the 1996 Atlanta Games]. 










*NHL strike* - FWPs? :rolleyes2:

*Toronto wins the Grey Cup -* hip hip hooray!

*Belguy wins the popular threads award as he collects 100's of replies* - LOL, but indeed very true! :chuncky:

*Carverman takes the General Discussion forum hands down* - does not shy away from controversial topics & he has my respect for that and appreciation for the humour!

*Lepturn/HP*: Options greatest here.

I would give a golden award to about a dozen folks here!

As for gender, I wanted to make it clear from the beginning, that I was a female, and for no other reason than because I am one & to encourage other newbies, that simple! Not enough gals participating on this forum yet IMO, but *the ones that are here, are simply the best! *


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## PuckiTwo (Oct 26, 2011)

﻿Karen wins the Inspiration Award for her contributions in the thread: Wheat-free lifestyle. With her heroic change of eating habits to fight diabetes and staying the course she is a role model to all of us. Thank you Karen.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

dogcom the pie would not joke about gender, especially not on the eve of Ada Lovelace Day.

on another issue, i knew i had forgotten one marvellously talented kid in the junior achievers section. Cannadian. I think he was all of 20 years old when he arrived here. It took me a while to realize he wasn't a 35-year-old analyst.


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## jcgd (Oct 30, 2011)

Thought I'd add, thanks a million to Canadian capitalist for providing this forum for us to use. Without him we wouldn't have this wonderful forum. 

I also really like when you guys mention people and their contributions. It provides an opportunity to go back and read their contributions, of which I'm sure many snuck by me.


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## CanadianCapitalist (Mar 31, 2009)

jcgd said:


> Thought I'd add, thanks a million to Canadian capitalist for providing this forum for us to use.


Thanks for the kind words. I should point out that Frugal Trader has an equal hand in running the forum. And thanks to all the members for their posts and commentaries. I sure learn a lot from these threads.


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

T.Gal I am sure you are doing great with Apple and thanks for those extra sports memories.

I will go one better jcgd and give CC and Frugal the best forum of 2012 award.


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## Barwelle (Feb 23, 2011)

thanks for the mention humble.

zylon's always posting some good charts. He should get a nomination for that.


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