My decision to sell PICK.  Was it unwise?  Only time will tell.

The figure above shows around when I bought shares and the last point shows my exit point for several of the shares bought. 

PICK is the stock symbol for iShares MSCI Global Metals & Mining Producers ETF.  Its current value as of yesterday’s close was $32.57, and its one-year total return is 27%.   However, its historical returns are negative – see below.

I choose to purchase PICK for the fund because its stock price was at a low and produced high dividends.  To make my decision to sell PICK, I used my portfolio control algorithm, implemented in a Google Sheet, to make the decision for me.  My assumptions are a 50% probability that the stock may go up/down, and that I have a max to initially invest of $1600 in PICK – and I want to make a decision once a month.  The algorithm is investment conservative – e.g., avoid losses. See figure below which compares the average return of the conservative method verse a lump sum investment in PICK.   

The algorithm running on historical data made the following buy/sell decisions.  

Date	Decision	Shares / Total	Portfolio Value / Cash
09/01/2015	Buy	42  / 42	$1600 / $809
01/01/2016	Buy	8  / 50	$1439 / $703
04/01/2016	Sell	6  / 44	$1820 / 708
11/1/2016	Sell	7 / 37	$2047 / 872
01/01/2017	Sell	4 / 33	$2168 / 1077

Based on this analysis, I decided to sell several shares to reach 33 shares in my fund’s holding.  I still have fractions of shares in this account.  Therefore, I will continue with dividend reinvest with PICK until I approximate an even share amount. 

Two years have passed since I started my drive free car (DFC) fund.

On July 20, 2015, I began my experiment to invest the amount of a typical car payment into an investment account with the purpose of using the fund to pay for a reliable vehicle in the future based solely on its growth.  I began the fund with a deposit of $613.30, and I planned to invest ~$480 dollars per month over its lifetime.

However, life is unpredictable, and I had to stop contributing to the account as of 04/24/2017.  I, however, plan to re-contribute to the DFC fund starting in November.

As of July 18, 2016 - July 30, 2017, I have made the following deposits:

Date	Deposit
04/24/2017	$460.00
03/22/2017	$460.00
01/23/2017	$460.00
12/22/2016	$460.00
11/22/2016	$460.00
10/24/2016	$460.00
09/22/2016	$460.00
08/22/2016	$460.00
08/08/2016	$460.00
07/22/2016	$460.00

And in January, I withdrew $100.00 from the fund, making the total contributions at $4500 for this year - and $5,736 (approx) for last year.  The current value of the fund is $11,493.00.  Therefore, theoretically, I could withdraw $1257.00 (the Interest) without hurting the principal that I have invested.  The return on the investment over the last two years has been 12.28%.

I have included, below, some vehicle options that priced around $1257 - e.g., my return on my investment (free money for a car) over the last two years. 

My DFC Fund is now $11,007.90.  I have stopped contributions temporarily going forward.  In April, I made a contribution of $460.00 to the fund. Below, I have included some car options that are around $11,000.  Also, I have included a graph showing the performance of the SP500 as of May 28th.

My DFC Fund is now $10,419.79.  In March, I made a contribution of $460.00 to the fund. Below, I have included some car options that are around $10,750.  Also, I have included a graph showing the performance of the SP500 as of March 25th.

My DFC Fund is now $10,286.24.  In February, I made a contribution of $460.00 to the fund. Below, I have included some car options that are around $10,500.  Also, I have included a graph showing the performance of the SP500 as of February 23rd.

232 days later . . .

I have lost 34 lbs, and I have donated a good portion of my now baggie clothes.  Bye-bye jeans with 36" (+) waist.  Hello, new jeans with a 32" waist.

My DFC Fund is now $9,730.66.  In January, I made a contribution of $460.00 to the fund.  However, I withdrew $100 from the fund in order to create a new fund for clothing.  Below, I have included some car options that are around $10,000.  In addition, I have included a graph showing the performance of the SP500 as of January 27th.

Acronyms
DFC – Drive Free Cars

Rethinking diet

In 1996 as a teenager I was becoming increasingly sick.  I had blood in my stool nearly daily and uncontrollable fevers and chills.  And I had lost my Appetite and would try to sleep all day.  A few days after my 16th birthday, my parents took to a doctor because of a high fever and these symptoms.  During, the checkup I passed out.  I awoke in a hospital bed with medical professionals attempting to lower my fever.  I ended up staying in the hospital for over a month.  I was officially diagnosed with Crohn's Disease and put on a liquid diet of chicken and beef broth for about a month.  The doctor’s prescribed a ton of medicine for me.  However, the systems for Crohn’s didn’t disappear.  I still had bleeding and outbursts of fevers.

I battled Crohn’s through my undergrad with medicine after medicine.  I ate mostly bread and meats - but avoided veggies based on the recommendation of a doctor.  I felt like crap most of the time.  My immune system was weak because of the drugs.  

In 2004 I came across a book on the specific carbohydrate diet that provided a diet that would alleviate the symptoms of my Crohn's disease.  It removed complex sugars, e.g.,  refined sugars, bread, and pasta, from my diet which would kill off the bad bacteria that was assumed to be the underlying cause of my disease.  The diet worked well. I was able to come off of my medicines.  And my inflammation in the intestines, a symptom of Crohn's disease,  decreased.   I felt great and was easy for me to follow.   However, I returned to eating ‘regular’ food around 2009.  And I barely had any Crohn's symptoms or major reactions.  Little to no fevers or blood in the stool.  Life is good. Right?

Well, before changing my diet from SCD to more ‘normal’ diet,  I weighed around 165 lbs. Within the first year of returning to the ‘normal’ high sugar diet, I gained about 10-15 lbs of weight, likely all fat.  Then in 2010, I crossed the 200 lbs mark - wow!  My waist had gained 5 inches over two years!  Over 2010 to 2012, my weight hovered around 190 - 210 lbs.  Then when I started law school in 2012 I ate bread and sugary snacks all the time - I had too I thought, there were no other options.  Really, I just craved those foods.  By 2016, I reached 225 lbs.

Then over summer, I was researching ways to lower blood pressure, and I came across intermittent fasting.  I tried it right away, and within the first 40 days, I was down 20 lbs!   I have continued to intermittent fast, over 180 days now, and my weight fluctuates around 190 lbs.  But, I am still eating the high sugar foods - bread and pasta.   Can I do more?  

Yes, I can.  This year, I plan to try out a Ketogenic diet – high fat and low carb eating. The main reasons for my decision, are the number benefits from this diet.  Such as more energy, reduction of inflammation, clearer thinking, and better mood stabilization (e.g., serotonin and dopamine levels are optimized)

Source: http://www.ketogenic-diet-resource.com/ketogenic-diet-benefits.html

My cognitive strategy - a habit of ‘positive’ visualization and thinking patterns.

One has a better probability of achieving success through mental preparation - a positive belief or image of achieving success.  In 1992, several researchers interviewed various members of the U.S. Olympic team to determine their pre-competition preparation.  The research indicated that those who had the best outcomes followed a strict mental preparation plan of total focus on seeing their own success, building confidence, and visualizing routes to achieve high performance. Ultimately had higher probabilities in winning.  However, those who had the worst outcomes were not confident in their preparation plans and often had thoughts on failure.   The conclusion was that pre-competitive states (positive or negative thoughts) play a critical role in competitive performance.  Thus, like the Little Blue Engine, who said “I think I can,  I think I can” and climbed that big mountain, we can become high achievers by our own positive visualization and thoughts.   The methodology for this cognitive strategy is easy as 1, 2, and 3.  

1. Recognition of the challenging situation - for example, doing 100 pull-ups; or becoming a millionaire
2. Use of affirmations and visualization to see your own ability to execute a target behavior for achieving those results - tell yourself you can do the pull-ups and then see yourself doing 100 pull-ups; or tell yourself you can be a millionaire and then see yourself investing and watching  your net worth grow)
3. the resulting performance - now, actually doing the pull-ups or investing.

Takeaways:

1. Use self-dialog, tell-yourself that you can achieve. Often referred to as affirmations in ‘pop’ psychology.
2. Use mental imagery - the imagined results of behavior and success - before you actually perform. Often referred to as visualization in ‘pop’ psychology. 
3. Avoid or replace your distorted beliefs and assumptions that may be the basis of your dysfunctional thought processes.

In the future, I plan to investigate and discuss the brain’s chemical responses to affirmations and visualization.  

Over the weekend, motivated after watching the minimalists, I went through my closet and donated nearly one hundred clothing items -- yet, I still have excess clothing. 

 My underlying motivation dealt with the value of clothing and space.  First, clothing has a  relatively low value -- e.g., the cost to replace an item is trivial -- Second, clutter-free space has high value added -- it feels great not to have clothes cluttering my room and closet.  

 Further, I decided to create a fund that would allow me to replace clothing as needed.  The goal is to have the interest generated by the principal investment pay for all my clothes. And, this system should be faster to implement than my drive free cars fund.  I moved $100 from my drive free cars fund (DFC) and created a new fund, the Free Clothes Fund (FCF). 


At the outset, I'm not sure exactly how much money I will need to buy clothes per year because depends on where I shop.  But I would like to have enough money in the fund to know that I could purchase clothing as needed or desired. Watch for more on the FCF fund. Below are some options I found on eBay showing how cheap a replacement suit is.