Beating The Averages: No Moral Victory

A quick update on how the portfolio is doing....
Holdings Return YTD: -4.5% (-2.61 yesterday alone).
Dow Jones Return YTD: -7.54%
S&P 500 Return YTD: -8.97%
Nasdaq Return YTD: -12.92%
In play we have ETFC, CBAK, FRPT, DFNS, and IOGH. (I will not comment further on IOGH, I hold on to it so that every time I see it I am reminded of every lesson learned thus far.)
Breaking it down by holdings we get this:
ETFC: -7.33%
CBAK: -29.67%
FRPT: +12.21%
DFNS: +37.04%
IOGH: +40.0%
Our CBAK position looks ugly but is still green from our basis. The red is basically all our gains wiped out from the end of December run-up. Although ETFC seems to be getting punished for daring to cross the $5 mark, we remain confident in the company's turn around plan. FRPT has held up well possibly because of 1)rumors of a large contract soon (reported by Trade The News) and 2) an upgrade from Stephens, Inc. from "Underweight" to "Equal Weight". A strong January vehicle production number via press release would be welcome.
All told we are holding up well in a horrible start to the year and in terms of the major benchmarks, but we have a lot of work to do. We continue to evaluate our positions and understand that beating benchmarks is no moral victory.

Stocks Double in Six Months

The new year will bring a new direction and focus for this blog. The writings here have always been meant to follow the story of building a fortune out of nothing. This began in June when I asked my youngest brother to split a $100 deposit into a Zecco Account just to see what we could accomplish in a short amount of time, helped with zero commission trades. The result: We doubled the money as 2007 came to a close. We did a great job in a short amount of time and this has inspired some goals for 2008.

1)Make it a family affair. Three brothers collectively sharing ideas and making money.
2)Double again by Dec31, 2008 (or sooner!)

We will begin by doing an account reset. $50 is on its way into the account. I've also included my excess holdings into our figures which unfortunately did not do remotely as well and will drop our overall percentages. All together we will be starting with holdings totaling $297. Rounding up a bit we arrive at a year end goal of $600.
Gone this year are the free trades though, as our account is under the new $2500 minimum account balance that is required. We simply have to work that much harder and make wise choices in our stocks.
Stocks that are currently in play:
CBAK
FRPT
DFNS
IOGH
I hope everyone's new year is off to a great start and wish everyone a fast fortune!