I finally got around to setting up a virtual mutual fund at Marketocracy.com. This virtual fund gives me 1 million in play money to prove my worth. If they like what they see, they will set up a real fund. Just like every real mutual fund you need to setup an investment charter and style. They will report on performance once you have maintained the mutual fund compliance rules. In a nutshell they are as follows:
- No position can exceed 25% of your total portfolio value.
- Half your portfolio must be comprised of positions under 10% each.
- Your cash position isn’t limited by this guideline, although you must be 65% invested.
- No fund can hold more than 25% of invested assets in Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) for a majority of the quarter.
- Once you setup an investment style, you can’t drift into another style during any specific reporting period.
Once you have met these compliance rules, you will start to be eligible for tracking. The next quarter starts on October 1st. Since I want to run this portfolio like it was REAL money, I feel hard pressed to become within compliance in that short of a time. So I’m going to aim for full compliance starting on January 1st and I will have all of 2006 to prove myself and the value of this investment style. The style I want to follow with this money is primarily conservative in nature with minimal trading. I plan on keeping a minimal cash position. The main difference and value added I think I can provide compared to the PBW ETF is that I can rotate holding percentages into the various sub-sectors (i.e. Fuel Cell, Solar, Wind, etc.) So if I feel that I will get more bang from my investment buck, I may sell some holdings in the Fuel Cell sector to add to the Solar as an example. I will start to place my trades in the coming days and will detail each of the trades and why I like them here on the website. Some of these trades will overlap with the real trades I make with my real portfolio and I will detail the specifics here as well along with more details about this program. As an aside, I tried to place a trade in LSGP when I purchased it in my portfolio. They would not allow a purchase of this stock since it trades so thinly. So some of these early stage development companies will not be included in the mutual fund holdings.
