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ment management
Buy/ sell decisions with your TRS-80
Making money with securities is easy if you follow half the amount newly invested. If you sell shares, it
these basic principles: (1) Buy sound stocks or mutual doesn't change at all. It is the difference between the
fund shares. (2) Buy more shares when the price is low. actual and the control values that triggers the buy/sell
(3) Sell shares when the price is high.. instructions at line 2110, which are in turn blocked if
The first principle is well known and volumes have fewer than 10 shares would change hands. The
been written about picking investments, diversifying, computer applies the formula for you and lets you sleep
etc. I will not try to cover the subject here. This article is at night, confident that a "do nothing" instruction
about using your TRS-80 to manage your chosen meant that the price had not changed enough to make it
investments according to the last two principles. worth buying or selling any shares.
It is notoriously difficult to buy at the bottom and sell
at the top. If I knew how to do that, I wouldn't need to
work for a living. What we want is a tool which allows us Suitable securities for investment
to sell our investments gradually as they rise in value A stock which never moves is not suitable since you
and to acquire more of them (again, gradually) as they will never buy or sell, and it will just sit there losing
fall in value. All we need, really, is a formula plus the ground to inflation. You want about as much volatility
realization that buying or selling all of our holdings in a as you can be comfortable with (look up "Beta" in any
particular security is unwise. We will always miss the investment handbook). You also want a stock whose
best opportunities. individual share prices are relatively low so that when
The program shown below provides such a formula your TRS-80 tells you to buy or sell a certain number of
fora portfolio of up to 20 different securities. Using this shares, that number will be closer to the magic 100 so
formula, you can ignore the Dow-Jones Industrial beloved (and charged lower commissions for) by
averages, stop worrying about the prime rate, buy a stockbrokers than to a weird number which will sock
newspaper with a list of stock prices every three months you with an "odd lot differential" charge. Many mutual
and let your TRS-80 do the worrying. funds fit the bill, offering the advantages of liquidity,
Lines 100-200 display the menu, check to see whether low individual share prices and small (or no)
or not you have a diskette and store this information for commissions on sales or redemptions. The new fund
use in the later I/O routines. When you create a new groups which allow you to switch your assets between
data file, the amount of cash you have invested is stored growth and income or money market funds in the same
as C(I). The value, V(I), and the control value, C V(I), are group (by phone) offer an almost ideal vehicle for this
set equal to C(I). The latter two change as you update investment tool.
stock prices using the routines at 2000. If the price goes It would be wise, before rushing out and investing
up from the original purchase value, the value your money on my say-so, to try out the formula on a
increases, but the cash invested stays the same. stock with a known history. Pick a date in the past,
Likewise, if the price goes down, value decreases while initialize a data file with the stock's price as of that date,
investment remains the same. pretend you bought 1000 shares or so and then update
The control value is the interesting variable. It the file with the new price every three months after the
changes only as you buy more shares and then only by "initial purchase" date. Keep track of the money you put
22 80-U.S. Journal
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Feature program
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