Marketocracy results

Well, I am a big fan of full disclosure, but this is a hard post to write. The Marketocracy website allows anyone to participate in managing a mutual fund - fake of course. Nevertheless, you are bound by some rules; you can't bet it all on one stock, as no one stock can be more than a certain percent of the total. You can't be on margin, and you must be at least 65% invested. If you want to be a sector based fund, then a certain percentage of the holdings must be in that sector. They do all the calculations across months, quarters, and years to figure your returns and most importantly, compare those returns against the other marketocracy funds.

The best of the best are called the M100 - the 100 best performers, long term; culled from the 85,000+ managers and the 100,000+ funds being managed. Those 100 actually make a little money, too - the company uses the best managers' ideas to run an actual mutual fund and those managers are compensated. It is no secret that I firmly intend to be one of those manangers one day.

And that is why I am writing so sheepishly today. They update the quarterly returns quite late - Q2 was just posted about a month ago. And in my Heartstone Health fund (http://www.marketocracy.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Portfolio.woa/ps/FundPublicPage/source=CmOhHbFfEfOmLoNbMaKiAbDf), I was the 7th best fund (yes, 7th, not top 7%!!!) for the three month period. For the 3 year returns, for as long as I've HAD the fund for more than 3 years, I've been in the top 89%, and this quarter I came in at #67 overall.

I was ecstatic, of course, but now for the disclosure. Since they posted the results in September, I knew already that my 3rd quarter results were going to equal my second quarter results to the downside. Yes, I fear that I may well be the 7th WORST fund across the universe this coming quarter. Celsion dipped about 40%; VirnetX went from the $30s to about $20; and Dendreon crashed from the $30s to about $10! To be frank, I am not sure if any holding had a positive return in this quarter.

Since I am a sector fund (biotech/healthcare) my beta is quite a bit higher than the S&P 500. Beta is a measure of how volatile I am versus the market-as-a-whole. It is the long term that matters, of course, and I'm fully confident that I will come back and with a vengeance. Bring on the fourth quarter!

Regards,
Trond

Q2 update

Well, color me annoyed - I spent nearly an hour writing a post last night, only to have the Post feature not work.

Basically, Port24 is doing well, with an annualized 18.24% return, or $157,121.31. I started about 3 and 1/4 years with $100K, and the goal of achieving 24% a year. So while I am clearly quite short of that, the S&P and Nasdaq, respectively, have returned over that same time period 0.2% and 5.9%.

My marketocracy fund is also doing well: Interestingly it is almost the same return at 18.37% annualized, only over 4 1/4 years.

There was a lot more fluff, but it looks like you'll be spared that, dear reader.

:-)
Trond

Marketocracy - top 100!

To those who don't know, Marketocracy com allows you to "manage" a mutual fund, having to follow strict diversification and cash management rules.

In the period ending June 30, 2009, I finally cracked the top 100 for the first time. In over two years, I have beaten the S&P 500 by 78%.

http://www.marketocracy.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Portfolio.woa/ps/FundPublicPage/source=CmOhHbFfEfOmLoNbMaKiAbDf

Yay me!

Regards,
Trond