Lauren, good morning.

I'm absolutely love analogies, and I suspect you have a really good one here, but I'm still a little stuck.

Right now the part I'm stuck on is where your portfolio goes from 50 to 51% stocks. You said that you accept the market valuation for the first 50% but not the additional one percent, just as you accepted the market valuation for two candy bars but not three. Am I right so far?

Now since candy bars are countable, I'm assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that when you say the market valuation of your stocks, you mean the valuation/price of the shares of your stocks (or the NAV of your mutual funds?). Because with the stocks, the only way you wound up with 51% instead of 50% was because the share price went up, right? You didn't buy more shares. But with the candy bars, there was never a change in price; the decision was based on whether or not you wanted a certain number of "shares." Right?

With a 50/50 portfolio, you buy or sell with a change in the actual price, (which by the way makes sense to me), in essence selling some & taking a profit when they become worth more, and buying more when they're "on sale." But with the candy bars no change in price was required for you to make your decision.

I don't know how to reconcile that difference, & until I do I can't past that point. Believe me, I would if I could. Unfortunately it seems I'm the only one here who is having this problem. So is there any chance you could e-mail me about this? it's barefootjan at gmail dot com

Thanks either way,
Jan