Buy and Hold vs. Moving Average ETF Investing 2-12-10

Finally! The market closed up for the first time in 5 weeks. It was a painful journey down so closing up for the week feels quite good. Overall the S&P 500 closed up 10 points for this past week.

Our two ETF investors are a little happier since their portfolios are up at least for this week. The buy and hold ETF investor saw an increase of about $161 in the balanced ETF portfolio. His total portfolio balance is currently $14,454 and the total gain is 43.9% since we starting tracking this portfolio in March of 2009 (50 weeks ago).

The moving average ETF investor gained about $109 for the week. His portfolio is now valued at $10,570 (same balanced portfolio). He has gained 5.2% for the same 50 week period.

The most recent 12 week comparison is shown below.