Variations

I was messing around with my kids' accounts today and decided that they have too much cash.  Both of them are a ways above 50%, and generally, that's too much.  The money is just sitting there making nothing, and there really is not a safe way to have that money create income without having it not be available for when you need it.
I figured out that there were different ways of addressing this, and neither one help with a way to make the cash part of the account make some extra income...I'm still thinking on that one.  In one of the accounts, there was a particular stock that had sunk in value since originally buying it.  Since the market had gone up in that time, I at first considered selling it and replacing it with something else.  I took a look at it and discovered that it is one of these stocks that variates from one level to another, and seems to go back and forth.  I looked at it's fundamentals and discovered that it's still making money, and that quite a few analysts were recommending it as a strong buy, which is unusual for a stock that really is in the tank.
I decided, instead of selling it, to buy more as a new stock purchase, which means that the same amount would be added to the Portfolio Control, as if I were starting a new account.  Generally, when stock is purchased in an account, it is when the total stock value (total of all the stocks) has come down to the point that there is a Market Order generated by AIM.  In this case, only half the amount is added to the PC.
I figured that my son is young, and can handle a little more risk in his account in order to generate added income.  After all, this stock pays a pretty healthy dividend still, and even if it stays where it is, it will still be generating cash.
The other way, in my other son's account was to just leave it alone.  He has too much cash as well, and I noticed, when I was on the Robert Licello website a while back, that there were some variations put on there by readers who were able to have a little more risk in their account, but would stand a pretty good chance of having more reward from it.  The variation is, when the Cash in the account is above 50%, and when there is a Sell signal from AIM, to not actually sell any stock, but to add the amount of the Market Order to the Portfolio Control.  It's not really all that risky - it's just keeping stock-to cash the same, but making the PC, which governs when a sell signal is given, a higher amount, so it would take a higher amount to trigger a sell order.  It would also start Buying orders earlier, should the market tank, which is okay for the most part, since there is extra cash to do that anyway.  Seems like a good variation to, as long as it is only done in extreme situations, and all the other rules are followed.  All of his stocks are doing pretty good, so I couldn't do the same thing as I did in the other brother's account.  This is a good method when the market just keeps going up and up, like it did in the 90's. The readers on that site also suggested cutting the Buy Safe in half when Cash gets over 50%, which I did as well.  I vowed to put it back to a full 10% the first time there is a Buy order, though.  We don't want a disaster happening like it did to me when I broke the rules in 2008, breaking the one-order-per-month rule.  I found out that is definitely a no-no, first hand!