All the talk about the attributes of Buy and Hold has me nutty! Would I love the almost 20% from an S&P Index fund YTD—YES. The losses of -39% in 2008 NO. So why not go somewhere in between and sleep well, and drop your blood pressure meds? There is a price to pay with Buy and Hold. Ask those who retired in 2007/2008 the price they’ve paid.

This is a great article on the Oracle of Omaha’s Buy and Hold performance vs. the S&P. Not bad—Alphavest offers the same concept with a boost in our Best of Buffett investment option for clients. Alphavest’s Best of Buffett takes the top 10 holdings as reported quarterly by Berkshire Hathaway and optimizes them for Relative Strength (who is performing the best visa vie one another), and buys the top 5 performers, and repeats this process every month. Wanna peak? The 5 stocks in the Best of Buffet in the portfolio now; AXP, PG, USB, DTV, WFC.

The upshot: In October 2008 when the S&P was loosing double digits, the Best of Buffett portfolio had 75% cash in it, quite simply because the relative strength of CASH was outperforming the top 5 stocks Buffett owned. That’s sleep at night. Buy it, (NOT to be confused with Buy and Hold it)—it yours for the taking!