$2,075,462!
That's down $209,538 since our July 28th review and back to where we were at the beginning of July so, as we expected, a bit of a wasted summer as we've had a hard time gaining advantage in the market chop. The challenge has been protecting the positions we have while trying to position ourselves to take advantage of a China Trade Deal that never actually comes.
As you know, I'm very skeptical of a deal getting done and I wanted to cash out as even $1.4M (233%) is a silly amount of money to gain in less than 2 years in our paired LTP/STP portfolios. Our aim is to make 60-80% in two years and we usually cash in and reset our portfolios when they are up 100% so we're miles ahead of our normal pace, thanks to the huge rally and also to our timing which turned the STP, which usually treads water when the LTP does well, into a bigger winner than the LTP.
Since we are "going for it" and not cashing out (and see last week's webinar where I made an impassioned case for cashing out), we made a lot of aggressive moves this month to take advantage of the recent sell-off and, though we did add another hedge, I think our risk to the downside is substantially higher now so I'm setting a stop at $1.2M in the LTP (now $1,283,604) as it would be idiotic to let these gains slip away - I'd much rather cash in the whole thing and start from scratch. And yes, if we're cashing in the LTP, we'll cash out the rest as well.
CASH!!! is a valid position. In fact, since early July, the US Dollar has gained 2.5% so, had we cashed out early in the summer, we'd be better off than we are now.
