Wow, have I been remiss. I’ve been adding benefit after benefit to TradeStops and not doing the greatest job of telling you about them.
Please permit me to take a break from my weekly “disciplined investing” soap-box and share with you some of the highlights that have been added to your TradeStops subscription this year.
Online Broker Synchronization (Basic & Pro)
We have dramatically expanded our support for online brokerage synchronization. In fact we’ve successfully imported portfolios from nearly 50 different online brokers now. Here’s a list of our top 25 currently supported online brokers.
You can download data from the above online brokers into your TradeStops account and TradeStops will check each evening for any new transactions.
Automatically Add Alerts (Basic & Pro)
Many of you have asked for alerts to be automatically added to new synchronized positions. We’ve now done it and you can enable it in the Settings section of TradeStops under General Settings and then Program Options.
Under the Program Options section you’ll find a setting to “Create Alerts Automatically.” Set that to Yes and then choose what alert type you would like to automatically be set on new synchronized positions from the “Automatically Create” drop down menu. The default alert type is the Smart Trailing Stop.
Voila. Now new alerts will be automatically added to new synched positions and you will be notified via email.
Smart Trailing Stops for All (Basic & Pro)
Everyone can now take full advantage of our powerful and proprietary Smart Trailing Stops (STS). We’ve added STS to both the Basic and Pro levels of service.
Of course, we also further refined the Smart Trailing Stop strategy by automatically determining the optimal high close that the trailing stop should be trailed from, and then setting our stop VQ% below this optimal high close. You can read all about Smart Trailing Stops 2.0 here.
STS Portfolio Analyzer (Basic & Pro)
You can easily run a Smart Trailing Stop analysis on entire portfolios now via the STS Analyzer tool that’s available in the Research section of TradeStops. Just select a portfolio to analyze and then click on Run Research and you’ll immediately see all of the relevant Smart Trailing Stop details on your covered positions – including the current VQ and STS Price.
Improved Asset Allocation Analysis (Basic & Pro)
We subscribed to the S&P Global Index Classification System to improve the quality of the Asset Allocation Analyzer:
Remember … just don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. Make sure that you’ve got at least 4 to 6 colors in this chart and that no slice is more than about a quarter of your portfolio.
VQ Analyzer (Pro)
The new VQ Analyzer addition was almost an afterthought but I now believe it to be one of the most important tools in TradeStops. It takes the concept of “normal expected volatility” from the level of your individual equities to the level of your entire portfolio.
It’s simple, but powerful. For the first time, investors can ask questions like “How volatile is my entire portfolio?” and “What kind of overall correction might I have to stomach?” The VQ Analyzer provides the answer. It allows you to see how your portfolio breaks down in terms of Low Risk, Medium Risk, High Risk and Sky High Risk investments and to see the Average VQ of your portfolio across all of your investments.
Newsletter Center (Pro)
The Newsletter Center allows you to view the open recommendations of widely read financial newsletters right from inside your TradeStops program (if you are already a subscriber to thos newsletters). Currently you can add positions to your own portfolio (by clicking on the green plus sign next to each position) and you can see the current VQ and Smart Trailing Stop values on open recommendations.
Advanced Position Sizing
Want to risk $5,000 on the future of media by buying Netflix? Just plug a couple of values into the TradeStops Position Size calculator…
And immediately learn that you can buy 21 shares of NFLX at $623.02 per share for a total position size of $13,083.42. If NFLX falls 38% (it’s current VQ), then you will have lost $5,000.
Simple. Smart.
Entry Indicators (Pro)
I’ve been talking for a while now about a couple of new entry indicators that I’m really excited about. They will be available to my TradeStops Pro subscribers this Thursday, May 28th.
My new Re-Entry Rule finally answers the question of “when is it safe to get back in if I’ve been stopped out?” This is a question that has been on the minds of disciplined trailing stop investors for a decade or more now. My new indicator tells you when the trend is your friend and when there has been a substantial-bounce-back following a correction. It’s priceless.
Often times you’ll hear the suggestion to “Wait for a pullback before you buy.” My new Low Risk Entry Zone indicator finally quantifies what it means to wait for a pullback. Based on the Smart Trailing Stop and the VQ, the Low Risk Entry Zone tells investors when an investment that is behaving well has pulled back a bit, but not too much. Investors can use this new indicator to be alerted to good low risk opportunities to buy equities that they are interested in.
Again, both of these new indicators will be available on May 28th.
That’s Not All …
In addition to all of the above, we’ve updated the design of TradeStops (more to come on that later this year), upgraded our servers, improved the responsiveness of the site with faster page loading and we have invested heavily in staff and resources to better help you leverage the power of TradeStops.
We’re excited about the future of investing and the future of TradeStops. We hope you are too.
To the growth of your wealth,
