How to Navigate Through This Downturn

The market's massive rally last week, on the back of many weeks of positive returns, should not be used to justify a positive return in mutual funds or stocks.

A tug of war exists between a positive desire for European's financial mess to be resolved, and the reality that creating more debt to resolve a debt problem is not a viable solution in the long term.

The point is not to cry about a financial market collapse: the point of any investor is to figure out how to minimize losses while maximizing returns.

Navigating through this downturn starts with formulating a thesis about the market. Central to the thesis is that stocks will be stuck sideways. Stocks will need to be sold at once price and bought back at another. What are the results?

Using kapitall.com as a "virtualized" portfolio planning tool, most equities were sold into the rally last week. The allocation is now 73% cash and 27% stock.

The total return since inception is 31.5%.

Holdings as of October 31 2011:

For further reading on what will happen next, stock picks are exclusively published on seeking alpha. Here is a list of these articles.

iPhone "5" Launch Hands Market to Android

Mobilesyrup reported that only 10% of consumers are intending to upgrade to an iPhone 4S. Consumers expected to be wowed, only to learn the update would still have a 3.5 inch screen. With Android making larger screens more appealing, the iPhone upgrade cycle will not be as strong as anticipated.

Android has 41% of the market share of smart phones. However, Apple has the largest profit share for smart phones.

About Greece Debt

TradeFields Portfolio Beats Averages

TradeFields finally rolled out an upgrade to its virtual investing game site. It also released an updated iPhone and iPad app. Let's hope to see the Blackberry app updated.

For a more detailed analysis on stocks picked for the model portfolio below, navigate to my seeking alpha page.

TradeFields is accessible on facebook here, or on its own website.