Keith, I don't think this was a debate rally, just a natural reversal of the end of quarter sell off. By basket, I assume you mean a portfolio of stocks you aim as if a mutual fund as Lichello described in his book. If that's the case, I would have sold the two stocks closest to a sell target price.
Hi Keith, It seems to me that your approach should work. You may want to assure yourself that the minimum order size in $$ for the basket is larger than any of the minimum orders for the individual components. Then you should be able to hunt down the proper component for the execution of the trades. I did a similar basket approach when I first started AIM because I had many small holdings in the same general business sectors. Combined they acted like a sector fund. Gee, maybe I should have sold my idea to IShares back in the '80s!!!
Here's what my Retirement Account looks like after two years:
This account is up 8.2% in the last 12 months. The Lipper Balanced Fund index is up 10.6%, but it's fully invested. Current breakdown on my account is 41% Stock ETFs, 35% Money Market Funds and 24% Bond Funds. The Lipper index is 60% invested in stock funds and 40% in bond funds. So, my ROCAR turned in a respectible 12.8%. While not as exciting as my first year with this strategy, it's done well enough.
Recently we had a sale in the Energy sector (IYE). I also took a look, being the second anniversary, at the relative cash reserves of the components. I re-allocated in the Tech sector (IYW) to be in balance with the I-Wave. It was showing 44% Cash, so I added shares and decreased cash to bring it to 69% fund and 31% cash. Both the Financial Service (IYG) and Biotech (IBB) are fat with cash, also, but neither are selling at much of a discount right now. I'll continue to watch those and maybe when they call for an AIM buy, will re-allocate those as well.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
