Welcome to the February update of Plan 5 Picks. It was a rough beginning to the new year for the market, and Plan 5 followed suit. Here’s how Plan 5 Monthly performed in January:

Plan 5 Monthly: January 2015 Results

Every pick went down this month, with the overall loss of -9.77% being a good bit worse than the S&P 500’s change of -5.07%. As is typical, market losses are exaggerated by Plan 5.

Three new picks this month, with NVidia, Netflix and Sina being replaced by Casey’s General Stores, Facebook, and Google. Here’s the latest set of picks:

Plan 5 Monthly: February 2016 Picks

If you’re following along with Plan 5 Monthly, it’s time to rebalance your portfolio. An easy way to do that is to use the online Balance Calculator. If you’re new to Plan 5 or would like to read more about rebalancing a Plan 5 portfolio, check out this comprehensive guide to the process.

If you’re following Plan 5 Quarterly, it will also be time to rebalance your portfolio this month. But first let’s take a look at how Plan 5 Quarterly has performed with its last set of picks over the past three months.

Plan 5 Quarterly: November 2015 – January 2016 Results

Plan 5 Quarterly also lost some ground over the past three months, though its -7.25% loss was not dramatically worse than the S&P 500’s -6.75% loss. Four of the five picks went down, with two of them losing over 15% of their value. Only Activision Blizzard showed a small gain.

Here’s the new set of Plan 5 Quarterly picks:

Plan 5 Quarterly: February 2016 Picks

There are three replacements for the new quarter, as Netflix, Pegasystems and Xoom are being substituted by Casey’s General Stores, Facebook and Google.

Again, followers of Plan 5 Quarterly will want to rebalance your portfolios. The online Balance Calculator and the step-by-step guide are useful resources for helping with this.

Finally, here’s a look at overall Plan 5 performance so far, since its inception:

That’s all for this month. I’ll be back at the end of February with the latest picks.

Thrive!

Mike Ferrier

Welcome to the January update of Plan 5 Picks. We’ll start with the Plan 5 Monthly results for December:

Plan 5 Monthly: December 2015 Results

Two of this month’s picks showed a modest gain, but that was more than balanced out by the others, most especially Netflix’s 8.11% drop, and Pegasystems’ 7.16% slide. The overall loss of 3.61% was further than the S&P 500’s 1.87% loss.

There are two substitutions this month, with Nuance Communications and Pegasystems being replaced by NVIDIA and SINA. Here are the January 2016 Plan 5 Monthly picks:

Plan 5 Monthly: January 2016 Picks

If you’re following along with Plan 5 Monthly, you’ll want to rebalance your portfolio at this point. You can find a refresher on how to do that right here. Or, even easier, you can try out the Balance Calculator tool that will do the math for you.

If instead you’re following Plan 5 Quarterly, it’s not time to make any trades this month, but let’s take a look at how the current picks are doing two months in. Here are the results so far:

Plan 5 Quarterly: November-December 2015 Progress Report

Plan 5 Quarterly is so far doing pretty well this quarter, with its 4.93% gain easily beating the S&P 500’s 1.77% loss. Four out of five picks have showed a gain so far. Xoom, which completed its purchase by PayPal in November, locked in its small 0.32% gain by finishing at a value of $25 per share. We’re not done yet though; there’s one more month to go until the current Plan 5 Quarterly period will be over, and it will be time for a new set of picks.

Finally, here’s a look at Plan 5’s overall progress from the beginning:

That’s all for this month. I’ll be back at the end of January with the next update.

Thrive!

Mike Ferrier