Here is my monthly process
Trigger: At 4PM Eastern, the market closes on the last trading day of the month.
- Immediately, my FastFollowInvestor.com (FFI) model* identifies those investments to add to or reduce.
- At 5PM Eastern, I email my investment changes** to friends and colleagues.
- That night, I have a (working) dinner date with my wife. We use a spreadsheet to calculate buy/sell trades in our investment accounts to match the model.***
- At 10AM Eastern on the first trading day of the next month, I log into our accounts to buy/sell ETFs as we calculated the night before.
This process is repeated every month…forever!
The highlight is definitely dinner with my wife.
But, I should not skip over this fact too quickly. The most difficult part of investing is psychology. How do you stick with it through good times and bad? By tying monthly FFI trades to a dinner date, I’m creating a habit that I can commit to for decades.
What changes did I make in February?
Gold and international equities were winning trades in December and January. The FastFollowInvestor.com model increased both positions in February.
- Gold is now nearly 40% of my portfolio (up 25%)
- International equities stand at 45% (up 10%)
February also brings a new allocation to mortgage REITs (up 10% to 10%).
And, after languishing for 3 months, I hold no more commodities (down 10% to 0%).
What remains is very little cash (less than 5%). It is interesting that just 3 months ago, FFI held an 80% cash position!
One thing I love about this system: I must never decide when to move out of cash and into the market. The model does it for me.
See you next month! :-)
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*FFI is a deeply diversified portfolio of asset allocation, trend-following models for individual investors.
**Broad-based, liquid ETF indices of stocks, bonds, real estate, gold, and commodities are possible FFI investments.
***I think of these trades as monthly rebalancing into the best-trending investments.
