Mid Year Performance

I decided it was time to take a look at my mid year performance. So far it’s been a good year. I don’t like to use relative performance as in comparing how you do against an index. I aim for absolute performance regardless how the index performs. The special situations / arb plays definitely help deliver some nice abnormal rates of return (alpha). So far my non-retirement portfolio in which I can employ the use of leverage (margin) is up 49.94% year to date. My retirement portfolio, which I can not use leverage is up 28.41% year to date. The bulk of my gains where in the beginning of the year in which I made big wagers on two arb plays: Pharmasset and Inhibitex. I basically split my portfolio into growth companies and special situation / arb plays. I keep the growth portion of the portfolio fairly simple with holdings such as Apple, Visa, MasterCard, etc… I will go in heavy with leverage if I have a strong conviction on an arb play. Right now, I’m just trying to take it easy and make a few $$$ here and there. Now is not the time to be greedy...