EdgeWare FastBreak Standard Version 6.5 - Manual (Page 29)

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The Harnsberger Option invokes a strategy developed in cooperation with Fritz Harns-
berger, a money manager in Santa Barbara (see Resource chapter). Mr. Harnsberger
noted that the standard FastBreak ranking system is a “sell based” system in that it will
not buy a new fund until a currently held fund drops in relative strength and generates a
sell. Often there may be a fund or funds that are doing extremely well on the buy ranking
but can’t be purchased until a fund is sold.
The Harnsberger Strategy is a “buy based” system in that when a fund not held is highly
buy ranked, it is purchased and replaces the weakest fund held. The advantage of this
method is that a new fund leader is purchased as soon as possible.
Please see the chapter on FastBreak Calculation Details for additional details on the
Harnsberger Strategy.
Use POP (Persistence of Price)
Selecting this box activates the Persistence of Price function. See Appendix A for a com-
plete description of how this function works.
Note: POP will work only with certain ranking options. See the table at the end of this
chapter. You may want to consider excluding Money Market from ranking when us-
ing this option because the option will have a tendency to purchase the money market
very often (money market funds never have drawdowns). However, for a more conser-
vative strategy, leave the Money Market in the ranking.
Use Short Trading
Selecting this box activates short trading functionality. Some mutual funds, and stocks,
can be “sold short” and this option allows strategies to be tested that use relative strength
as a buy and sell criteria for short selling. In this case, the fund to be sold short is the one
showing the weakest relative strength. The short position is ended when the fund has
good relative strength compared to the other funds in the trading family.
When this option is selected, FastBreak creates an “inverse” fund for each fund in the
trading family. For example, if the real fund is down 2% one day, the inverse fund is up
2%. This inverse relationship is calculated for each day in the data base. All perform-
ance data will be created with the assumption that a “short position” is held in the fund.
Set sell rank = buy rank
If this box is checked the number of days used for a buy ranking period is also used for
the sell rank period. Notice that when this box is selected the “Sell min” and “Sell max”
selection boxes are not available because they become meaningless.