Model Portfolio Update: Down But Not Out

It’s been a few weeks since my last Self Investors Model Portfolio update, but now that the IPO Community is up and running for the most part I’ll have more time to dedicate to the blog.  I haven’t been doing too much trading since the last update, choosing to remain in a large cash position while  cutting losses and locking in gains quickly on a few positions.  It’s just difficult to make any head way in this volatile market, so my strategy is to just chip away at the losses that my big cap holdings in Google, Cisco and Microsoft have handed me.  I’ve been relatively successful with the strategy of playing both sides of the market and have gained significant ground on the S&P in recent weeks with gains in AUY (17%), FCSX (9%), CYNO (14%), HCBK (8%), CLHB (9%), PWRD (8%), TOL (8%) and DHI (10%).  Not large gains, but you take ’em where you can get ’em in this environment.  For much of the year, I had been lagging the S&P by a few percentage points but have made up significant ground and am now outperforming the S&P by 3%.  The losses are still there and a bit of a hole to dig out of if I’m going to repeat my performance of last year, but I’ve remained patient for the right time to get more aggressive and am confident I’ll greatly outperform the S&P again this year.

I did get a bit more aggressive today and added a few long positions with the big pull back.  In fact, I added more long positions today than I have in several months.  I just like the way the market reacted to the Bear Stearns situation and managed to hold at the January lows.  We were overbought in the short term with the indices hitting some short term resistance, so today’s pull back wasn’t too surprising and the lack of severity in the volume indicated a good spot to dabble in a few longs.  If I’m wrong I’m out with small losses and riding my 2 short plays down.

I now offer buy and sell alerts in the Model Portfolio through Yahoo or MSN instant messenger.  If interested in tracking my trades in near real time along with the IPO, ETF and breakout stock tracking features, the Gold membership here might be right for you.  Your membership is greatly appreciated and helps to support the long hours of research and implementation of new features and products.  Thank you.

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