And so another year draws to a close. I wish all my readers a very Happy New Year.
Accuracy:
This is the final count for 2016.
We had two losing months, but our mean accuracy (how often I called the closing direction of the market correctly) was 62.9%. Before you sniff at that, consider that according to CXO Advisory Group the overall accuracy of what they call "gurus" is 47.4% (see chart below), so we're not doing too bad. In fact, of the 68 gurus listed by CXO, the Night Owl would rank tied for fifth place. Sadly, CXO seems to have overlooked me. Such is life.
We didn't do quite as well in our general forecasting. For example, I thought the Dow would end the year more or less flat, not up over 13%. I also thought Clinton would win the election, though I was hardly alone on that one. And I thought the market would sink no matter who won, and that of course was badly wrong.
As far as my real life trading account, I finished the year up 13.7% thereby accomplishing my goal of beating the Dow (though not by much) as well as my fallback goa to not lose any money. I know, I know, callers results not verified, blah blah blah, but there it is nonetheless. Hey, if I was going to make up numbers, I'd have made up bigger ones than this.
So we close the books on 2016 and look ahead to a new year. The Night Owl will resume regular operations next Monday night. See you then!