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The regular meeting on Tuesday 10 February is at the Melbourne PC User Group headquarters at 10.30 am (location details as for Melb PC monthly meetings, 479 Warrigal Road, Moorabbin).

Please see the Home Page for more details.

The User Group Meeting rooms are the top floor, north side of 479 Warrigal Rd. The building is on the west side of Warrigal Road, just south of Cochranes Rd opposite Bunnings. Preferred parking is likely behind the building, entering by the access road just south of number 479. If coming from the north travelling south along Warrigal Road it is necessary to travel a short distance past number 479 and then execute a ‘U’ turn at the provided location in the dual carriage way.

The performance of stocks in 2014 was reviewed from an International and Australian perspective. The characteristics of the stocks in the ASX All Ordinaries Index with the most capital gain were discussed. These characteristics may provide pointers for 2015.

The health and information technology sectors contain a high proportion of volatile stocks. Strategies to identify stocks with manageable gain to risk ratios will be considered.

Economic and currency predictions for Australia versus the United States were discussed in relation to the possible performance of Australian shares and share derivatives related to the USA.

Correlation tools for stock prices from online brokers and other online sources was discussed. The range of tools was large from correlation of fundamental data, broker recommendations, correlation with external indices and calculated stock valuations.

Various means of measuring price momentum of stocks and indices were discussed. Key factors included reference stocks or indices and the time period and a means of smoothing short term price variations. Stocks in the Information Technology Sector were also considered. Some consider this sector to be equivalent to the Industrial revolution of the 1800s with enormous potential for selected start-ups.

The meeting focused on stocks in the Health Sector. Past, present and future prospects of Health Sector Stocks were considered within the categories of conservative, growth and speculative.

Using Stock Price Moving Averages as part of an investment strategy was the main topic. Included in this discussion were the types of moving averages and strategies and terms based on moving averages such as “Golden Cross”, “Death Cross” and “MACD”. Moving averages may be regards as a measure of price momentum and studies of outcomes from investment strategies based on price momentum were considered.

The conclusion from back testing of a series of per cent trailing stop loss (sell) values at the April meeting was that larger values in the range of 20% provided better outcomes than smaller values in the range of 10%. Including multi-component factors such as the present momentum of the stock market provided better outcomes in some back tests but were more difficult tp generalise. Analytical means to include multi-component factors were discussed.

The topics that were discussed included:

• Seasonal Charts Geoff Keenan discussed the art of interpreting and preparing historical seasonal charts. Seasonal charts show the historical time variation over a period, normally one year.
• Back Testing was used to investigate whether the strategy of a trailing stop loss or fixed loss and gain per cent values provide better overall results.

Strategies were considered for the Telecommunications. A number of companies in this sector have capital gains exceeding 1000% in the last five years as well as companies paying regular high dividends. Start-ups continue to appear as companies for individual investigation.

Strategies that might be considered for use with more speculative stocks were considered. with the focus being on stocks in the Gold sector. Being fully informed on the current environment for speculative stocks, from the macro (world view), to the sector view down to the individual stock was discussed.

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