One Million Dollars!
That's up 66% on our main, paired portflios as we approach our 2-year anniversary. 66% is our 3-year goal for the Long-Term and Short-Term Portfolio strategy so of course we decided to lock in our gains after having a rough ride in September, when the LTP balance fell as low as +26% on September's dip to S&P 1,870. That led us, in our last review, to add another $50,000 worth of downside protection in the STP and it worked perfectly, as the October dip barely touched us.
Well, not PERFECTLY, our net balance on the Long and Short-Term portfolios has dropped from $1,020,881.30 to $1,002,144.60 - down $18,736.70 (1.8%) for the month. As I noted in our Chat Room, we did add ABX, ARO, BHI, BRCM, COH, IRBT, RIG, UNG and YHOO trades since our last review so we're hardly sitting on our hands - just playing the market cautiously in the final quarter since we're so far ahead in the game.
Unfortunately, like all prevent defenses, you end up giving back a little ground in the interest of preserving the greater victory. Of course, that doesn't stop us from having plenty of other trade ideas - they just weren't added to our tracking portflios yet.
AAPL, for instance was featured as it dropped back below $115 and IBM was officially announced as our trade of the year as it plunged to $130 and it's already begun to recover. At our Butterfly Portfolio Seminar in Washington last week, we went over 20 stocks we'll be watching in 2016 but mostly AFTER we get through the holidays intact!
It can be hard to sit on the sidelines in cash - especially when we've had such fun increasing our cash piles all year long.
