{"id":12808757,"date":"2025-04-15T08:57:57","date_gmt":"2025-04-15T12:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/?p=12808757"},"modified":"2025-04-20T17:27:28","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T21:27:28","slug":"philstockworld-april-portfolio-review-members-only-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philstockworld.com\/2025\/04\/15\/philstockworld-april-portfolio-review-members-only-4\/","title":{"rendered":"PhilStockWorld April Portfolio Review (Members Only)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"VMwareWhat a month it has been!<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

As I said back in March<\/a> – “Thank God for hedges!<\/em>” and we have since gained AND CASHED IN over $1M worth of our $2.35M worth of hedges – leaving us with PLENTY of CASH!!! to redeploy to our longs, which are still on sale.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

We are NOT out of the tariff woods yet – not by a long shot and overall, the S&P 500 is still 270 points (4.7%) below where we were last month (18th) and we’re resting on our Strong Bounce Line but heading into a Death Cross that officially struck the S&P yesterday at 5,750 – 345 points above where we are now (5,405). With looming Tariffs (90 days), a Stagnant Economy, Inflation and uncertain Corporate Earnings – I can’t say I’m enthusiastic about getting back to our highs:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

While our system of Being the House – NOT the Gambler<\/a><\/strong> means we don’t need an up market to make money, we do have to be in position to make money and – if we have to give up on our prior targets (because the Fundamentals of the Economy have been changed) and that means we’ll need to spend quite a bit of money adjusting our positions and then we’ll have to spend more money hedging those positions (because we’re certainly not “safe<\/em>” from Trump changing his mind between now and lunch<\/a>) and here’s how stocks have performed over the past 30 days:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As we expected, Health Care, Utilities and Consumer Defensives are doing OK but let’s not get too excited as Consumer Defensives are only making up about half of the previous month’s losses. Even Energy has collapsed, indicating nowhere is safe in this downturn and this is with tariffs mostly on PAUSE – 88 days from now we could be right back in a doom spiral!<\/p>\n

We had thought tariffs would be 10-20% and we’d eventually adjust but 10-20% is where we are now – AFTER Trump’s pause and they could double and more from here in July – making it very difficult for companies to plan ahead. Even our Magnificent 7, who are 1\/3 of the S&P’s market cap, are still down 18% since Trump took office as we wait, patiently, for their earnings and guidance.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Finviz<\/p>\n

AAPL, TSLA, AMZN and NVDA have huge tariff issues to navigate while META is testifying before Congress this week on literally Trumped-up charges and GOOG is facing and AI attack on their search business model (80% of their revenue) while MSFT, who are down 6.5% for the year, have escaped most of the carnage – so far.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Where the Hell do we go from here? Let’s look at our portfolios:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Short-Term Portfolio Review (STP):<\/strong> $2,158,102 is up $1,086,164 (101%) since our last review and that’s what should have happened as we had $2.35M worth of protection against a 20% drop and we had 10% of it when we cashed out some of our hedges – right on the button – aided by our handy 5% Rule\u2122 Chart of the S&P 500 (above).<\/p>\n

Now we’re testing the Strong Bounce Line and we have to decide if we have enough hedges to protect our longs (we don’t) so we either need more hedges or less longs! The high VIX (30.96) makes things complicated as it’s over 50% higher than last month and makes every put and call we’ve sold look like a big mistake at the moment. You have to learn to look past that and do your own math…\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n