In today's Action Alerts PLUS Daily Rundown, Chris Versace explains the indicators he uses when gauging the portfolio's performance. Rewind the full May members' call here.

Transcript:
 
SARA SILVERSTEIN: I think it's been frustrating for a lot of people how the S&P has performed, compared to the portfolio. You talk about looking at a blend of barometers given the blend of stocks in the portfolio. Can you talk a little bit more about that? And is the S&P a good benchmark for us or no?

CHRIS VERSACE: So I think if we hadn't moved into some small and mid-cap names, we had stayed really in the area of the S&P 500, then I think it would be a fair barometer. But we haven't. We've purposely gone to look for opportunities in other areas that AAP hasn't done in the past because of some of the pronounced tailwinds that we see and we want to take advantage of that.

We also want to explain and teach members how to invest in small and mid-cap stocks, how to build positions over time. So for these reasons, we made a conscious decision to move outside of what the, quote, "S&P 500 landscape" is, blending in some small mid-cap stocks, which is why I mentioned the Russell 2000. So I do think that on a blended basis, that's probably a better way to capture what the portfolio has become, yes.

SARA SILVERSTEIN: And without perfect timing, is there a reason that we don't want to just be 100% in the S&P 500 all the time, because that's the alternative with a benchmark like that?

CHRIS VERSACE: Well, I mean that would point to someone buying an S&P 500 index, which people can certainly do that. But we also say that we don't buy the market because we're looking for individual opportunities that outperform over the medium to longer term. And we can certainly point to a number of different positions in the portfolio that have done that. And that's obviously what we want to do going forward.