July 1st was the first trading day for that month and I purchased 64 shares of Ford, the top performing stock of the S&P 100 over the previous six months from January through June. I bought the shares for $14.92 each, for a total investment of $954.84. I also held $14.90 in cash. These two amounts totaled $969.74, the sum of the proceeds from the stock I bought and sold in June, Capital One Financial Corp. (ticker: COF).
With the end of July, it was time to close out the position and identify the new top stock of the S&P 100. This past Friday, July 30th was the last trading day of the month so I sold the 64 shares of Ford for $13.91, a whole dollar less than what I paid. The proceeds totaled $890.43 yielding a loss of $64.41 for a negative return of 6.6 percent. The Ford stock underperformed against the benchmark S&P 500 exchange traded fund (SPY), which returned 1.9 percent in July. This was also the second straight month of negative returns following the negative 5.6 percent return on COF stock in June.
Over the first three months, this modified strategy is down 9.6 percent and underperforming badly against the benchmark S&P 500 ETF (SPY) which is up 4.5% from May through July.
The New Top Stock
The new top performing S&P 100 stock over the last six months is Capital One Financial Corp. which was also the top stock for May and the stock I held in June. So COF is back.
Monday, August 2nd will be the first trading of the new month and I will take the $905.33 from the proceeds of the sale of the Ford stock and buy five shares of COF, which closed at $161.70 on Friday. This will total about $808.50 in stock and leave the remainder of $96.83 in cash. While cash will still equal only 11 percent of the total allocation, this month 4 portfolio will be the heaviest in cash to date.
An update will be forthcoming. Please check back in 30 days.