This section is dedicated to the folks that have contributed to the development of this backtest to this date.
There have been many different contributions that folks have made. There have been financial contributions, informational contributions, and other contributions that have helped or encouraged this gathering of data for this backtest. With more than +18 months already under our belts there has been tremendous effort exerted to bring you what we have so far.
There are three sections to this work. The first, which is on this page below, is a description of the major team players and their contributions to the completion of this project. The second, which is on this page has a list of folks that have provided contributions either financial, informational, or otherwise. The third is a special page where, if you want, you can mail in donations to help offset financial expenses, compensate for time, or give in relation to what you feel you have gained for using the information provided.
RS Backtest Team Members
Gabriel E. (a.k.a. "Hip Hop"):
Gabriel, after e-mailing me several times about IBDs, (I really wasn't trying to ignore him but I will admit I was focused on a future trip to Boston for collecting the IBDs) he passed a test by pulling IBDs from several time periods that other facilities like Harvard and the New York Public Library didn't have, scanned pages and sent them to me. He sold me on coming out to Stanford University instead, and in conjunction with a wedding Anye wanted to go to, we went to Palo Alto.
While we were out there slaving over finding and photocopying IBDs and only having three days to copy 176 issues (at 20-30 copies an issue!), Gabe was nice enough to drop by and help copy. With his help and fun conversation we managed to finish just in time. Although he didn't save us from having a bad case of back strain and hang nails (from the acidic carbon black of the toner) we got all but three issues which were gathered later.
Gabe has continued to help the project by tracking down gaps and bad data in the IBD and reporting back via e-mail. While he is a grad student at Stanford he has spent many hours in the dusty basement of Stanford's Business School Library finding little bits of EPS, RS, and A/D rankings. He has been one of the critical members of this Project and it wouldn't be there without him. Now that the Project is finished I can leave him alone.....maybe!
"Buffy":
"Buffy" has decided to remain anonymous although she has contributed significantly to the speed in which the final project will be completed.
Buffy, much like Gabriel, caught my attention by sending me information. I was in the preliminary phase of collecting information manually through a series of books at the Houston Public Library called the Daily Stock Price Record. Using these manuals and gathering all the dividends and prices for certain dates by hand would have likely taken a decade just doing it on weekends (which was the only time I was able to visit HPL and spend that much effort).
Buffy, after providing consolidated lists of T=1 data to her, was able to generate daily stock prices, dividends and daily returns for over 95% of the equities from a highly accurate database of stock information called the CRSP database. Her work has and will be critical to expediting the work process of the Project.
Anye M. (a.k.a. "Malachite"):
Y'all need to give a special shout-out to her. It's not because she's the gal in my life but because of all she's done for the Project.
Anye has done it all. She's put up with my late nights and weekends working and the overall compulsive desire to work and finish up the project. She let me drag her butt to California, forced her into compulsive labor in dusty basement of Stanford's Business Library searching for IBDs, compeled her to photocopy almost half of the issues we found, asked her to record several years of data from the collected papers (she can speed read so it only took her half the time to go through a paper than it did for me--that's so frustrating!!!), and untold of horrors along the way. She's also be helping me with improving this website (although I am tending to ignore her professional advice much to your viewing detrament) by teaching me more DHTML skills.
She generally has put up with all of my s*^t involving this Project, which at times is incredibly frustrating, and, without her, would have driven completely psychopathic by now (versus the partially psychopathic I am now ;p). Without her this project would have failed or stalled a long time ago.
Me (a.k.a. "Sux2BeU"):
I don't quite remember when I fired the first shot and started this project, but I know it's been at least 18 months since I started. Sometimes it just seems like forever has gone by. I will admit that now that the project is finished I'm feeling a lot better about it (after sifting through 176 IBDs, 300 T=1 Value Line and processing +26K stock data listings things get better quick!).
Even though folks saw the great returns they were getting and I was showing with the monthly trackings of the RS-IBD M5 portfolio, no one had proven if the IBD-based portfolios wern't a fluke. This was even in the face of calculated returns of straight RS xx-wk portfolios, first cousins to the IBD ports. The whining got to a point it was annoying. "It hasn't been backtested....it hasn't been backtested...blah, blah, blah!" It got to a point to where I had to put the critics down. It was a moral imperative!
Enough preaching. I kept the Board up-to-date on my activities. I've done everything so far that I could do to make both phases of the Project a success. I've burned vacation days with Anye and Gabe in California copying the papers. Spent endless weekends at the Houston Public Library, the University of Texas Library, and Tulane University Library copying and digging up old issues of Value Line and recording stock data before meeting Buffy. I've spent over $1200 on copying, parking, airline flights, hotel rooms, food, gas, etc., to get where and get what I needed. I've estimated I've spent well over 1500 hours by the time it is over. I've even been repremanded at work for doing this stuff. Whenever there is a free moment I am working on it. In fact as I write this it is well past my bedtime.
In short, this has been my life for the last year and a half. I hope if nothing else you appreciate the hard work not only I have put in but others as well. Please use the information to your benefit.
If you would consider helping to compensate the other team members as well as recoup some of my expenses that would be appreciated. Please go forward to the List of Donors for this Project where I give recognition to the folks that have already contributed.