Contingent Immunization

We all like to be heroes, especially the gun-slingers on Wall Street (glammy term for "portfolio managers"). But sometimes things go...awry. And our offensively positioned portfolio, composed mostly of non-dividend-bearing, high P/E Ratio, fast-growing companies...hits a speed bump. It falls 15 percent in two weeks. Suddenly, that portfolio isn't looking so heroic. So it now has to adopt a defensive strategy...one predetermined in its charter, which said that "if the portfolio takes a 15 percent dump, then it has to sell half of its positions and put those in U.S. Government bonds." Or something like that.

The repositioninug of the investments was portfolio "immunization from bankruptcy"...contingent upon a big value drop.