IN PROGRESS
We are back where we started from in last month's review (13th) with the S&P 500 roller coaster at 5,543 then and 5,633 now and there's nothing we like more than a slowly rising market but it sure doesn't feel that way as we fell to 5,400 in-between. Our core strategy - other than, of course, picking great value stocks - is using those long positions as a platform through which we create an income stream SELLING OPTIONS (we don't buy them hence our slogan: "Be the House - NOT the Gambler") which enables us to do well if the market is up or flat - and even if it is down slightly.
That's because the only sure thing in the market is that ALL premium expires worthless so selling options premium gives us a tremendous advantage in most market conditions - anything but a sharp drop generally makes us money and, for a sharp drop - we HEDGE!
Hedging keeps us from losing a lot when the market has one of it's little pullbacks and, just as importantly, hedging lets us ride out these dips without panicking out of our perfectly good positions.
So, despite the wild swings (in fact, we adjust to take advantage of them), our strategy is practically perfect for this kind of market and that range on the charts - is exactly the 20% drop (hopefully not!) that we are prepared for through our hedging strategies. Here's how the last 30 days looked on the S&P:
Fortunately, we do not hold a lot of Magnificent 7 stocks (my premise was they were overbought ages ago) and we certainly don't own any Oil Companies (dying industry) so, of course, we had a very nice month!
Let's take a closer look:
$700/Month Portfolio Review: We just did the review last week (10th) and we were at $30,080 in month 25 and, as of yesterday's close, we were at $30,487 (up 74.2%), so just chugging along and making our money - on the way to $1,000,000 in 11 years at this pace:
Keep in mind that, even if you missed the first 74.2% worth of gains, we still have $969,513 (3,180%) left to gain over the next 11 years by simply continuing to make these nice, steady investments and adding $700 each month from our savings.
