The short term investing stock picks blog

Five Percent Stock Picks Blog Portfolio
November 2006-April 2007 [amended]

Blog return: 11.5%

DJIA return: 8.08%
S&P 500 return: 6.82%
Nasdaq return: 7.58%

3 index average: 7.49%

Five Percent Stock Picks outperformed by 4.01 actual percentage points or 54% higher that the three index average.

I allowed the market to play some catch up this month by being extremely under-invested.  In April by cash flow never dropped below $5,000 which is 1/2 of my original start value.  I can’t give an exact reason why this occurred.  In hindsight it seems like a mistake to have somewhat missed out on a great run.  That said, my picks for April were never better - in terms of hitting the 5% target.  I simply passed up a variety of stocks I did not feel comfortable with.  Perhaps prior to the February sell-off, I would have pulled the trigger, but not in April.  That, also, may have been a good thing, because it is allowing me to increase my exposure to large caps.  Previously, I had selected mostly small and midcap stocks.  I can’t say I’ll be fully invested with this portfolio in May.  In all honesty, its an opportunity issue, not a market issue.  That said, I am slowly turning bearish on this market.  I think I finally morphed when the piss poor GDP numbers came out and did not effect the market and even brought forth some uncanny apologists for the number.   Oh yeah, and perhaps Amazon’s run up too — are you kidding me?!  That doesn’t encourage me- it scares the hell out of me. 

From a blog stand point, I was happy to kick off the newsletter.  I’m not pushing it on my readers yet because it needs perfecting.  The basket idea, which works well for me and this portfolio, isn’t practical for everyday investors.  My current paying subscribers have been happy to help me along with this process, along with those of you who sent me comments on the freebie I posted two weeks ago.  I’ve been trying out the Stockalicious portfolio button (on the portfolio page) and haven’t been all that impressed with its accuracy, but the site itself is worth a look.  A handful of users and two companies have offered to pay me to do "User Request" style reports on specific stocks — I’ve declined so far.  I may offer an affordable service to expand these reports for individuals sometime in the near future.

Thanks for reading.  Email me with any comments or concerns.