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Weekend Virtual Portfolio Update 1/30/2012

Here is a quick update of past trades and our current position.

AA Money

No trade this week as we wait for AA to settle. Phil remarked last week that AA seemed overvalued. In the meantime, it looks like we might have to roll our Feb 9 calls. Good thing we sold only 5 of them against our position.

Last week P&L – 310.00

We lost ground last week, but we still have 11 months to sell premium!

FAS Money

Very good week for FAS Money as we benefited from the large amount of premium sold the previous week. We covered most of the shorts in advance of the Fed speech, but sold another set of options on Wednesday after the speech - 2 FAS calls that expired worthless on Friday, 2 FAS put that we are still holding and 2 FAZ put that we bought back for a profit on Friday. A late stick comparable to last week’s almost gave us problems at the end of the day though!

Last week P&L – $4277.00

IWM Money

A decent week in this virtual portfolio. As with FAS Money, we covered most of our short positions before the Fed speech, the difference being that we were more bearish in this portfolio and the early run last week damaged the position. We sold more options after the speech as well – TZA and TNA puts and TNA calls. We showed some small profits on the TNA options but had to roll the TZA puts and the TNA calls at the end of Friday to counter the late stick.

Last week P&L – $1682.00

FAS Strangle Experiment

A decent week even though we stayed away after Wednesday… We benefited from the set of calls sold last Friday when we rolled our position due to a late stick. The market sold off early Monday and we were able to get out with a nice profit. We sold another profitable strangle on Tuesday and that was the extent of our trades last week!

Last week P&L – $10,350.00

Still, we are now up to 50% of PM margin. Not bad in 10 weeks…

AAPL 50K Portfolio

Well AAPL didn’t disappoint in earnings and the portfolio took off… Great job by lflan!

Last week P&L – $33,385.00

$25KP Portfolio

As usual, I’ll let Phil comment this week.




Timing the Market – Backtesting the Mehods (Part 1)

In a previous article, we outlined two different methods that can be used to time the market and help the retirement investor avoid the kind of downtrend that has plagued this market over the last ten years. We believe such protection is necessary given the likelihood of continued market volatility.

This article will show the results of backtesting the first method presented in the earlier article. It involves initiating long or short trades based on a market index crossing its 10-month simple moving average. We started the test from January 2001 to have at least a 10 year sample.

Backtesting the Index

For the test, we used the S&P 500 ETF (SPY). We initiated a long SPY position once it moved above its 10-month SMA and shorted SPY when it crossed below the same average. We entered our trades the beginning of the month after the index closed above or below the average. This induces some lag and has some negative impact discussed later in this article. In an IRA account, it is not possible to sell an instrument short without fully obligated collateral (in this case cash), but there are many inverse ETFs that can be used as effectively as index shorts – for example, SH the ProShares Short S&P500. For those unwilling to short the market, we have also run the simulation with long positions only, exiting the market when the index crosses under the SMA.

Figure 1 – Backtesting results with an index ETF

 

The final results as of 10/1/2011 are:

Buy and Hold – $9,181.79

Long Only – $17,257.86

Long and Short – $25,091.75

These results are only as accurate as the data available and exclude any dividends, commissions and taxes (none in an IRA obviously), but they are nonetheless telling. A buy and hold strategy over the past ten years basically broke even (this was the "Lost Decade") while a long only strategy shows gains of over 72%.. Not great after 10 years, but it beats losing money! A long and short approach yields 151% gains over the past 10 years. Not bad considering that Bernie Madoff could have stayed out of jail and still made good on his promise if only he had use this method.

Looking at the graph, we can see that there are still some large drawdowns especially in the Long and Short test. This is the result of the large and rapid market moves that have occurred in the last 3 years. While this method keeps you in the trend (or in cash), in the long run it cannot avoid the type of sharp moves like the ones witnessed in July and August 2011 when the index lost over 10% in two weeks.. Also keep in mind that we are not using any stops in our trading approach. We let the system index crossover determine our entries and exits. There is little doubt that the system could be improved by using sensible stops that will keep the investor in longer up trends while limiting the damage of violent corrections. One such approach would be to use the Average True Range (ATR) to calculate stops, but that is a topic for another article.

Now that we have a method that has proven profitable over the last ten years, could we improve on it by using leveraged instruments?. There are many such instruments available in the market now:

  1. Leveraged ETFs (2x or 3x)

  2. Options – on the index, or for more leverage on the leveraged index ETFs.

How do these fare using the Long and Short method? The problem we have for the leveraged ETFs is that they are somewhat new to the market, so our backtesting date range is limited. As for options, historical data is sparse or expensive so we will use what is our disposal – in this case the data from the Thinkorswim trading platform. It is not perfect, but should give us a good estimation of the results using leveraged products.

Leveraged ETFs

For this test, we will use the triple leveraged ETFs, TNA and TZA. They are quite liquid and mimic the moves of the Russell 2000 index.. Following the rules that we have outlined, we bought TNA when the index crossed above its 10-month SMA and bought TZA when the index crossed below the average. For comparison, we have also included the results of the buy and hold method and the timing method (long only).


Figure 2 – Leveraged ETF results

 

We could have included a slightly longer period of time as we had data going back 8 more months. However, when these ETFs were created, the market was already in a downtrend and we wanted to start with a new trend to be more accurate. This period is also not ideal as the market was in an uptrend the entire time except for 2 short term corrections. Notice that the buy and hold equity curve is somewhat constant. This period outlines 2 shortcomings:

  1. The timing method does not do well when the market trends for a long time with short corrections. Note that buy and hold does beat the timing method over the 2 years. The timing method will not lose money, but it will not make as much either.
  2. The leverage ETFs have some value over short periods of time, but corrections in one direction or the other plays havoc on the returns. The biggest problem with these ETFs in the long term is the constant decay induced by the market ebb and flow which is the reason why they have to be reset on a regular basis. They usually die from the proverbial death of a thousand cuts. With no stop in place (not an ideal trading scenario), the smallest of change of direction will drive the equity curve to the ground.

On the other hand, these ETFs have some potential in a more controlled trading environment as, for example, your initial investment would have gone up 125% after the first year. But with some stomach churning downturns. Switching between the 2 ETFs is what caused the biggest dip in 2010. TZA got hacked in half when the market recovered quickly. Note that switching back to TNA at the beginning of 2011 produced a quick recovery of the equity curve. But the last 2 months have been brutal on that ETF.

In order to produce a more accurate conclusion on the use of these ETFs for timing the market we would need to study them over a longer period of time like 10 years for example. They do show potential, but are hampered by their structure.

Options

Another way to leverage your investment is with options. The problem in testing with options is that there are many strategies available – single options, spreads, and other multi-leg strategies. In a retirement account, selling naked options is not possible so we can already eliminate that strategy. Other strategies such as iron condors and butterflies are market neutral and this is not what we are looking for. We want strategies that will bet in one direction of the market. That leaves buying single options (no spreads), buying vertical spreads or calendars spreads. For now, we will not consider calendar spreads as simulating these trades over a long period of time would be very time consuming. That leaves buying single options and vertical spreads. Once we have chosen our instruments, we need to decide on strikes and expiration periods. If you believe strongly in the direction of the market, buying At-The-Money (ATM) options would make sense, but long dated options will have a lot of premium and in particular ATM and Out-of-the-Money (OTM) options. One must consider premium as the enemy of the investor. Over time it evaporates, reducing the value of the option even if you have bet the right direction. Deep In-the-money (ITM) options will have a lot less premium while still allowing you to leverage your investment. A vertical spread (either with calls or puts) somewhatalleviate the premium problem as you buy one option and sell another against it , thus reducing your premium exposure. The additional consideration is the choice of strike. The further your vertical spread is ITM, the more protection you will get from a move against it, but the greater you limit your profit potential. You will also need to choose expriration dates for your spread.

For backtesting options spreads our purchased options will be 20% ITM. These uually consist of only 20% premium As for the option dates,we will pick LEAPs with around 2 years until expiration, as bull markets can last over a year..

The earliest data that I have from Thinkorswim (TOS) that match our timing system date from June 2005 when we should have goneshort. Initiating a short trade means buying puts. And of course, we will buy calls to go long. To calculate returns with the options, I will use the Thinkback feature of TOS.

Here is a table of the results:

Date Option Price Number of contracts Value Date Price Value Profit
06/01/05 SPY Dec 06 145 Put $24.95 4 $9,980.00 07/01/05 $25.50 $10,200.00 $220.00
07/01/05 SPY Dec 06 95 Calls $28.55 3 $8,565.00 12/15/06 $47.40 $14,220.00 $5,655.00

Unfortunately, at the time there was no access to longer dated option and the system kept us long for 2 ½ years which were not covered by the LEAPS. But after about 18 months, we were up 66% on the initial investment. We’ll start again in February 2008 when the system indicates a time to go short.

Date Option Price Number of contracts Value Date Price Value Profit
02/01/08 SPY Dec 09 160 Put $26.40 5 $13,200.00 08/03/09 $60.40 $30,200.00 $17,000.00
08/03/09 SPY Dec 10 80 Calls $23.90 12 $28,680.00 07/01/10 $24.82 $29,784.00 $1,104.00
07/01/10 SPY Jan 12 120 Puts $25.57 12 $30,684.00 09/01/10 $21.08 $25,296.00 -$5,388.00
09/01/10 SPY Jan 12 85 Calls $27.60 9 $24,840.00 10/01/10 $32.65 $29,385.00 $4,545.00
10/01/10 SPY Jan 12 135 Puts $26.37 11 $29,007.00 11/01/10 $22.71 $24,981.00 -$4,026.00
11/01/10 SPY Jan 12 95 Calls $26.68 9 $24,012.00 10/03/11 $18.15 $16,335.00 -$7,677.00
                $11,433.00

The final tally is a profit of $11,433 after 6 years. This is on par with the results we had for the system going long and short with the ETF itself. Once again, putting stops in place would have preserved a larger profit but we just let the system determine when we entered or exited the trade. As we can see from these results, leverage goes both ways – we get larger percentage wins when the market moves in our favor, but our losses are compounded when we are wrong, as in the last 2 years when the market made rapid moves , both up and down It is also clear that when the market makes small moves over time, as it did in 2009, the decay inherent in buying options reduces the profit potential.

The advantage of options is that they offer many possible strategies. Since it is not possible to sell options in an IRA account, we need to look for strategies that will offset some of the premium decay like verticals for example. In a vertical, you buy one option and sell another one against it. Since the option you sell will have more premium than the one you buy, you therefore reduce the possible decay. You could also use a strategy like a calendar where you offset the decay by selling shorter dated options against you long position. This will probably be the topic for another article.




Re-Launch of the Income Trader – A Strategy for a Market with Compressed Extreme Moves

Reminder: Kojo is available to chat with Members regarding his virtual portfolio performance, comments are found below each post.

Click here to learn more about Income Trader

The word ‘RISK’ is a simple four- letter word; yet, the management of risk is critical in any investment or income generating strategy. When historical norms no longer hold, and markets can make moves within a span of days, or just a few weeks what used to take a whole year or years to make, it becomes critical for trading and investment practitioners to rethink old models and adjust given new information or market realities. Whilst increased volatility increases market risk as a whole, it also provides tremendous opportunities to make an abnormal return if you are on the right side of the market trend. For market participants, the question is – are you prepared to assume the increased risk that can provide the environment to make huge returns, and at the same time, if your thinking is wrong, assume huge losses. Or, is it wise in a period of high volatility to disengage and get back in  when sanity returns to the financial markets? This is a critical question that market participants have to answer and honestly face up to the conclusions they come up with. For most people detached from the market and not involved in any trade, there is always the false assumption with the knowledge of hindsight that they are prone to being risk takers. And given the choice, they will definitely take more risk rather than less and that somehow they harbor the wrongful notion that they would have been on the right side of the trade. Taking calculated and limited risk where the risk reward structure is favorable is always preferable to assuming tremendous amounts of risk in the hope of being right.
 
In  an era of investment where crisis, whether real or imagined hit the market with such frequency, and cause extreme market moves within a compressed timeframe, what should one do? Should we totally disengage, call it quits and look for new avenues? Or, should we take cognizance of such realities and design our investment strategy for such markets? The market, it seems is so structured in a way that now a tsunami or an earthquake or a plane crash is no longer a real event that


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Timing the Market

By Jean-Luc Saillard

Why time the market?

When dealing with your retirement savings, it is always prudent to seek to preserve your capital especially if you are getting closer to the time when you will be needing the money. As investing in the stock market brings a lot of uncertainty and risks (look at the last three years!), some market analysts have developed methods to avoid being caught in deep corrections like the one from 2008 to early 2009. We believe that a retirement investment strategy should feature a market timing method.  The following two market timing methods are examples of methods I find interesting.

SMA on a Monthly Chart

Some time ago, I wrote a blog post about a market-timing method that I discovered in an old article of Active Trader (Mebane Faber – April 2009). The system has you in the market when it is above the ten-month simple moving average, and has you going to cash when it is below that average.  The author claimed that using this method would yield better returns over time and limit account drawdowns from sharply falling markets. Between 1900 and 2008 the strategy returned 10.45% a year versus an S&P market average of 9.21%. It has proven to limit account drawdowns in bear markets significantly.

Here are some illustrations of the equity curves comparison:
 
 
The vertical axis is a log scale – the difference today is between $1 million for the non-timing system and $5 million with timing!
 
The next graphic shows the same comparison since 1972, but also adds a curve for a margin portfolio with 2x leverage (non-IRA for example)
 
 
Once again, the vertical axis is a log scale. Clearly, the Internet bubble years between 1996 and 2001 were favorable to the non-timing system, but the subsequent crash helped the timing system recover nicely – lower drawdowns do help! Over time, the leveraged portfolio performs much better than its 2x multiple would indicate.
 
With that in mind, I refreshed my charts to see where we stand. So below is the latest monthly chart with a 10 period SMA as recommended by the author.
 
 
I have circled in green the month where the system would have put us in cash. It’s not perfect as for example in mid-2004 and mid-2010, we would have


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Iron Condor Strategy for Retirement Accounts

Why Trade an Iron Condor?

This article describes the overall strategy for entering and exiting an iron condor trade as well as the mechanics of adjusting the trade when necessary. The approach we present here can be applied to unrestricted money accounts, or retirement accounts, but the risk mitigation element of this strategy is specifically aimed at retirement account investors. But let’s start by answering a basic question – why are we trading the iron condor (IC) in the first place? If we follow established guidelines for the IC, which will be detailed later, we can realize the following benefits of the IC: 1) a trade that is relatively low risk, 2) a trade that has a high probability of success, 3) a trade that puts you on the winning side of time decay and volatility, and 4) a “limited” or “defined” risk trade that is allowed in retirement accounts (depending on broker).

Basic Definition of an Iron Condor

Let’s start with a simple definition of an IC. An IC is a credit spread where one strangle is sold closer to the strike price, and another is bought further from the strike price, thereby constraining the risk of the sold strangle. While this definition is accurate, a better way to think about an IC is to focus on the two sides of the trade – the higher call side and the lower put side. A notional example would be as follows:

  • The Russel 2000 (RUT) is currently at 1000
  • We sell a call 100 points higher than the current RUT mark, and buy another call a further 10 points higher
  • We sell a put 100 points lower than the current RUT mark, and buy another put a further 10 points lower
  • The resulting IC looks like this:

o Bought call @ 1110

o Sold call @ 1100

o Sold put @ 900

o Bought put @ 890

Note that you receive a credit for this trade, and though I have described selling the two wings separately, it will be easiest for the beginner to sell the IC in one trade.
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Zero Hedge

Europeans Betting Millions That Facebook Will Plunge Another 30% By December

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by Tyler Durden.

While US banks have been busy refocusing their "creative financial products"-time over the past two months, instead defending against allegations of muppetism, or explaining how hedging is really betting it all on red, and then doubling down (just because the casino supposedly has the bank's back), Europe has been busy coming up with new and creative ways of betting on the demise of FaceBook. While official shorting of the most overhyped and overvalued company in history only became a reality for most investors today, Europe's banks h...



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Chart School

The ''Real'' Goods on the Latest Durable Goods Orders

Courtesy of Doug Short.

Earlier this morning I posted an update on the May Advance Report on April Durable Goods Orders. This Census Bureau series dates from 1992 and is not adjusted for either population growth or inflation.

Let's now review the same data with two adjustments. In the charts below the red line shows the goods orders divided by the Census Bureau's monthly population data, giving us durable goods orders per capita. The blue line goes a step further and adjusts for inflation based on the Producer Price Index, chained in today's dollar value. This gives us the "real" durable goods orders per capita. The snapshots below offer a quite sobering corrective to the standard reports on the nominal monthly data (which itself was significantly below expectations).

...

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Insider Scoop

New York Stock Exchange Spokesperson Says There Have Been No Discussions with Facebook About Switching

Courtesy of Benzinga.

Rich Adamonis, NYSE (NYSE: NYX) spokesperson told Benzinga "In response to incorrect reports re: NYX and Facebook (NDAQ: FB): There have been no discussions with Facebook regarding switching their listing in light of the events of the last week, nor do we think a discussion along those lines would be appropriate at this time.”

document.write("") (c) 2012 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.


For more Benzinga, visit Benzinga Professional Service, ...

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Market Montage

Chinese, European Data Continues to Weaken as Market Potentially Forming New Bear Flag

Submitted by Mark Hanna

Courtesy of MarketMontage. View original post here.

First we'll go to the technicals.  Back in mid April I had opined a 'bear flag' formation was being created. [Apr 17, 2012: Potential Bear Flag Forming]  But the market being the difficult beast it is, head faked everyone and rather than a break down from said flag it first went UP and nearly touched yearly highs.  This caused everyone to think the bear flag had failed…. only to lead to a horrid May in the market.  Generally a bear flag will resolve relatively quickly but the longer...



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Sabrient

Sector Detector: New “Grecian Formula” is making us all gray

Courtesy of Scott Martindale, Sabrient Systems and Gradient Analytics

Despite the fact that U.S. equities are well-positioned and well-supported to go up, once again it is the headlines out of Europe—especially Greece—that are scaring off investors. Some are saying that it is now likely (and even desirable) that Greece will default on all its sovereign debt, withdraw from the euro, and severely devalue its domestic currency (Drachma?). This will allow them to operate a balanced budget while pumping cash into growth initiatives, rather than suffer the ravages of Germany-mandated austerity.

Some say, so what? Greece makes up only about 2% of the Eurozone’s overall economy. Nevertheless, you might say that this new “Grecian Formula” is creating the opposite effect to the men’s hair product, i.e.., rather than losing the gray we are al...



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Phil's Favorites

Rumors and Denials of Rumors

Courtesy of Russ Winter of Winter Watch at Wall Street Examiner

The market rallied higher once again on more rumors (some kind of unworkable bank deposit scheme: what Europe’s loan-deposit ratios look like), and denials of yesterday’s rumors (L-Pap now says Greece to say in EU, blah, blah).  The second chart shows what’s involved with PIIGS banking deposits.  Using hook theory,  trading rumors is the modus operandi, and not just plain rumors; but rather, inside-job rumors.  It’s only a matter of time before this market collapses, but one has to slough through the rigged foul stench along the way. Fund managers scramble all over themselves to load up on “safe” German Bunds and US Trea...



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ETF Selector

Markets Die Then Flatten…Again (SPY, DIA, QQQ, IWM, FB)

Courtesy of John Nyaradi.

Markets died and then rallied to flat again as European leaders “prepared contingencies” for a possible Grexit

Markets died hard and fast earlier today as major indexes registered as much as 1.5% of losses after news that Euro zone officials were unofficially “preparing contingencies” for a Greek exit from the Euro.  Unofficial statements were not enough to keep markets down however, as major indexes rallied back to flat levels by the end of the day.

So the world continues to wait on Europe, as the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEACA:SPY) gained .05%, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (NYSEARCA:...



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Option Review

AT&T Weekly Puts In Play

 

Today’s tickers: T, FXE & OI

T - AT&T, Inc. – U.S. equities are on the decline as Europe’s woes once again take center stage. Shares in AT&T, down 0.90% at $33.24 this afternoon, are faring better than most of the other Dow components so far, though options activity on the wireless carrier suggests some strategists are bracing for further declines ahead of the long w...



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All About Trends

Mid-Day Update

Reminder: David is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

Click here for the full report.




To learn more, sign up for David's free newsletter and receive the free report from All About Trends - "How To Outperform 90% Of Wall Street With Just $500 A Week." Tell David PSW sent you. - Ilene...

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OpTrader

Swing trading portfolio - week of May 21st, 2012

Reminder: OpTrader is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

This post is for all our live virtual trade ideas and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current  trades are listed in the spreadsheet below, with entry price (1/2 in and All in), and exit prices (1/3 out, 2/3 out, and All out).

We also indicate our stop, which is most of the time the "5 day moving average". All trades, unless indicated, are front-month ATM options. 

Please feel free to participate in the discussion and ask any questions you might have about this virtual portfolio, by clicking on the "comments" link right below.

To learn more about the swing trading virtual portfolio (strategy, performance, FAQ, etc.), please click here

Optrader 

...

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Stock World Weekly

Stock World Weekly: Test Issue

NEW: Ilene is available to chat with Members regarding topics presented in SWW, comments are found below each post.

Here is this week's test version of the latest newsletter. We apologize for some formatting issues that need to be worked out. Please tell us what you think. 

Click on Stock World Weekly here, and sign in/sign up.

...

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Pharmboy

Big Pharma - Where Are We Now?

Reminder: Pharmboy is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

In this article, please revisit an article written two years ago titled, "The Calm Before the Storm."  This article focused on the patent cliff that was looming in the pharmaceutical industry, that was later picked up by the New York Times and several other bloggers!  Subsequent articles were written about big pharma company's revenue streams, and the pros and cons of of their later stage pipelines.  Other articles have also attempted to identify smaller biotechs with the potential to reap big reward...



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IRA Strategy/Income Trader

Weekend Virtual Portfolio Update 2/26/2012

My last weekend update is dated from January 30 so after a long hiatus, here is an update of our virtual portfolio. Since the last update, we have closed the AA Money portfolio due to a lack of enthusiasm (and activity) and I have stopped tracking the FAS strangle as the low VIX makes it hard to get rewarded for the risk! But we have added a small $5KP virtual portfolio which does not use any margin. FAS Money We have had to recover from a big move up by FAS and a low VIX which keeps option prices low. But the portfolio has gaine about 10% since the last update. Last update P&L - $5499.00 IWM Money Not a lot of activity in this portfolio where the main focus is on the large IWM BCS. But the portfolio has grown over 20% since the last update. Last update P&L - $1998.00 $5KP Portfolio This is the virtual portfolio that replaced the AA Money portfolio. It does not use margin and we will keep holdings under $5K. AAPL $50K P...

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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...

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