It's been a fantastic year for our primary, paired portflios with the Short-Term Portfolio finishing 2016 at $475,076 (up 375%) while our Long-Term Portfolio came in Friday at $1,179,723 (up 136%) for a grand total of $1,654,766, a gain of $1,154,766 (192%) from our $600,000 start back on 11/26/13. We're up $109,345 since our pre-election review on 11/6 - that's 10% in two months and, into December options expirations, we cashed in some more winners, bringing us to over $900,000 in cash (80%) into the holidays, a position we call "Cashy and Cautious".
On the whole, 2016 went about as well as expected. Last December, our paired portfolios stood at $1,004,162 so we've added 65% in 2016 and we were, fortunately, Cashy and Cautious into last January too because we were able to take full advantage of the Q1 correction in 2016. I strongly urge going over our early 2016 positions - most of them are still in our portfolios and the ones that changed make for an interesting watch list like ANTM, BHI, BID, BP, CHL, CIM, ECA, INTC, KORS, MYL, RIG, STWD, SWKS, TGT, WFM, WYNN - to name a few.
Our value-oriented strategies dictate we get out of even the best stocks when they become over-priced but that doesn't mean we don't want to get back into them when they calm down! Value investing is all about patience, even when we like a stock, we still prefer to scale into the position - just in case we're a bit early... They also dictate we regularly review and contemplate our positions and, when necessary, sit on the sidelines.
Our two smaller portfolios are self-hedging but also with a good deal of cash on the side in this very uncertain market. Our Options Opportunity Portfolio closed out the year at $237,225 (up 137%) and that's up $131,739 (132%) from $105,486 in our 12/7/15 review.
