Well we’re back to cash… After getting off to a great start, up 12% in the first 3 weeks, we were lucky this week to get back to 12% after having a run of bad luck (or bad skill actually, as we went bearish too early and got punished for it) .  The goal of the $5,000 portfolio is to play around the volatility of earnings and make no mistake, it’s a high-risk way to trade $5,000 and is meant to be a small portion of a large portfolio - not something you would want to do with your only $5,000.  Of course the usual disclaimer is, this is a virtual portfolio, don’t try this at home, trading is dangerous, always consult a professional financial adviser, etc, etc.  The idea is to practice different option strategies and we’re learning from our successes and failures - I hope!   Our first play 5 plays that we closed were on AA, DIA, SGR, MCD,  and DELL, which had a total gain of $629 in our first 6 days.  For details on those trades, go to the Day 6 post .  We have been posting all of the moves for the $5KP in member chat, of course, but also on Seeking Alpha’s Stock Talk , where we have discovered the added bonus that, like Twitter, you do not have to refresh the page to see new comments!  If you want to follow these trades, just click on " Follow " under my picture and you will automatically see any comments made there.  A full review of Stock Talk commentary regarding the $5KP is available here  and please make sure you click " Follow " on my picture so that you will be able to track further updates. We closed positions on WFC and AXP, up $258 in  our last review on July 25th  and we have since closed our YUM position with a $256 loss on the 28th, which was a shame as we gave up on 8 Aug $35 calls at .45 ($360) and they flew up to $2 ($1,600) just a week later.  Unfortunately, in a small portfolio, you don’t have the luxury of riding out your losses and, at the time, we felt lucky to escape this underperfomer with a relatively small loss. A VNO put spread we couldn’t fill the week of the 21st, was an easy fill the next week and 3 Sept $50 puts were in at $3.70 ($1,110)  and 3 Aug $50 puts were sold for $2.90  ($870) .  The premise of this play is a tough one to hold on through as we expected VNO (and all commercial realty)  to…