Another Four-Day Week Would Have Been Better

Decent early week gains evaporated before the market’s clock ran out. All three major indices closed lower for the five-day period. Only the S&P 500 managed to hold on to a small gain YTD.

Market Shadows’ Virtual Value Portfolio  mimicked the broad action with a modest decline this week, but maintained healthy year to date profitability.

We used the choppy environment to buy shares of Toyota Motor (TM) Riding in Toyota at a great price and to sell our position in Caterpillar (CAT) Released Our Cat for a very acceptable gain.

We also initiated a new short position in Bunge Limited (BG)   Soy Numero Uno for our Virtual Put Writing Portfolio .

After eighteen months of effort, our original $100,000 stake now weighs in at $147,985 including our cash reserve, which stands at about 4.4% of our total account value.