Gold and Energy Adviosr - Performance, Profits & Cash Flow

Gold and Energy Advisor was started in March of 2004. We appreciate you subscribing to our service and we thank you for your business.

We are proud to say that we have generated cash flow of $56,869.79 from profits, dividends and option premiums since inception. On a percentage basis the portfolio has gained 165.5%. Hopefully you've benefited from our recommendations.

Here are some details on the management and performance of the GEA portfolio:

-The portfolio started with approximately $50,000

- Appreciation (includes adjusted cost basis from option writing, does not include dividends) of open positions, $25,879.60

- Long-term profits of closed positions: $34,449.79 (includes dividends and option premiums)

- Short-term profits of closed positions: $22,449.79 (includes dividends and option premiums)

- Portfolio distributions, profits, dividends, option premiums, appreciation = $82,749.39

- The total return of portfolio is 165.50% since inception ($82,749.39 from line above/ $50,000 initial investment).

You may wonder why this return is different from our annual figures. As the portfolio grows larger, we need to generate more profits to achieve similar returns of the previous year. For example, in 2007 the portfolio began at $82,577.84 and total profits, appreciation, dividends, and option premiums equaled $24,628.20 providing a total return of 29.82%. At the end of last year last year, the portfolio was worth $101,727.46 (minus some but not all distributions). If we generated similar cash flow of around $25,000 with $101,727.46, the total return would drop to below 25% because of the larger portfolio.

Click here to review last year's performance.

- We closed approximately 94 positions and we've only had four losses. That's about a 96% win/loss ratio. Those losses were hedges and could have been minimized by exiting earlier, but we felt we needed to keep the hedges on at the time.

-We've made over 106 recommendations which averages about 26 recommendations per year.

Here is a link to the GEA portfolio if you would like to review the trades and recommendations.

Here are the details of long-term capital gains we have taken:

The columns include the entry price and date, exit price and date. The date and Update help subscribers confirm the actual instructions and recommendations.

The majority of our profits have come from our longer-term (holding period longer than 6 months) positions.

Below are more metrics about our long-term closed positions:

- $34,449.79 in profits, dividends and option premiums

-Average holding period is 1 year and 10 days

-Closed 23 positions, one break even, 22 gains, no losses

- Average total return, 36% per long-term closed position. Average cash flow generated (profit, dividends, option premiums) is $1,497.82

Below are the short-term capital gains we have taken:

Below are more metrics about our short-term closed positions:

- $22,420 in profits, dividends and option premiums

-Average holding period is 42.35 days.

-Closed 71 positions, 4 losses and 67 gains.

- Average profit, $302.97. Average return is harder to calculate because many trades used equity in account.

- All of the short-term profits were not reinvested but were considered distributions.

Although we do issue many short-term, aggressive recommendations as we do try to take advantage of volatile energy prices, we are primarily a long-term, conservative investment newsletter and we don't want to become a trading service.

If you would like a more active, aggressive service with higher potential returns/risk, consider our Gold and Energy Options Traders.  Click here to learn about the service. Their recommendations are for risk capital only.

Open positions

We have two short-term positions not shown, both are under water and do not impact the above information. One will probably turn into a loss and the other should be fine.

Below are details on our open long-term positions:

- $25,879 in appreciation (the appreciation includes a reduction in our cost basis with the use of writing options)

-Average holding period is approximately 3 years.

- The average open position is up 108.85%. The newer positions are substantially up less than that and the older positions are up substantially more than that.

One of the mind sets we have is to maximize the invested capital we have. That means taking advantage of the options market. Some of the strategies we employ using options include:

- Using the equity in the account to sell puts on stocks that we're interested in owning.

- Selling call options on our positions to lower ours cost basis, lower the volatility of our portfolio and enhance our returns.

Since we plan on holding many of our recommendations for long periods of time, we will write options to lower the cost basis of our positions.

- The use of deep in the money calls to conserve cash and enhance returns.

Below are articles written by our good friend and options guru Bill Johnson. The articles explain the option strategies we use for the GEA portfolio.

Click here to read Options and the GEA Portfolio

Click here to read Advantages of Call Options Over Stock

Click here to read What is Option Writing?

Click here  to learn more about the Gold and Energy Advisor service.

If you're a new Gold and Energy Advisor subscriber, please read our User Guide. Click here to read the report.

Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. The short-term recommendations are normally risky and risk capital should be used.

The trades above are hypothetical; GEA does not own any GEA recommendations. Your
returns could be different than GEA due to actual entry/exit prices and commissions.