Family responsibilities have kept me from posting. As a father of eight (five adopted), I found the WSJ article on how much children cost fascinating. Fascinating, and hooey. It doesn’t take that much to raise children properly. In a large family, particularly, one of the benefits is that the children like having so many siblings (even as the parents go nuts). It restricts the number of extra activities that any child can take on, particularly as older children must help to make the family work.

It is very easy to be too indulgent with children. Children respect and love strict parents, if the parents are rational and communicate why they are that way.

But I digress. Last week was tough. I did 60 bp better than the S&P 500, and considerably better than small cap indexes. That’s cold comfort when you’re losing money.

Last week, some oddball names helped me. I sold some Fresh Del Monte Produce to rebalance my positions, because it had run so much. I will do the same with Grupo Casa Saba if it runs another 5%. Much as I think the stock is undervalued, on any stock I own I still take a modest amount of profits after every run of 20%.

Anyone looking at my broad market portfolio would see a decent amount of economic sensitivity in the names there. I am not trying to overdo it; I am aiming at cheap names in sectors that I like. That’s how I invest. I let industry selection and cheapness limit my risks, rather than exiting the equity market altogether.

More to come next week as I look at my indicators, and see how the market responds after the weekend. Personally, I would be neutral-to-positive over the next week.

Long SAB FDP