Week 8 Portfolio Update

My portfolio is down a little more than 5% since its inception on July 1st.  Given the ill-time nature of that inception, that is not too bad. The TSX is down about 9% in the same time frame.

As I have previously discussed, this week I sold all of the Leader Energy Services from the Portfolio.  I also sold my stake in Xenith Banchsares and half of my stake in Oneida Financial.   I added to my position in Argonaut Gold on Wednesday when it dropped back below $6.  I also added to OceanaGold on the same day.

My cash position is still lower than I want it, and it is lower in percentage terms than my cash position in my actual account. There are two reasons for this.

The first reason is that I keep adding to my gold stocks.  I’ve built up a large position in Argonaut Gold now, and I have a reasonable position in OceanaGold again. I want to write up on both of these stocks at some point soon.  For the moment suffice to say that Argonaut Gold is trading at a valuation below its peers yet has a above average growth profile for the next few years.  OceanaGold is trading at a valuation well below its peers and its second quarter results, which crushed the stock, were not as bad as they look at first glance.

The second reason, which I have already alluded to in a previous post, is that in my actual account I like to trim positions over time, selling 10% every day or two, rather than all at once.  This doesn’t work great in the practice account, because the amounts are small (its only a $100K account), and the commissions are higher (they are $9.95 versus the $6.95 that I actually pay).

In the first month I was following my account moves exactly and I found that I spent over $200 on commissions in the practice account.  That’s over 2% of the portfolio annualized.  So that wasn’t going to work.

Therefore, in the practice account I have decided to buy an  sell stocks in larger blocks.  The downside of this is that I can end up with smaller or larger positions in the practice account than I would like.  This is the case at the moment.  In my actual account I have smaller position percentage-wise of Equal Energy, Lydian International, and Arcan Resources right now.  I have a larger position of Jaguar Mining where I have been buying on dips in small amounts.