USG purchase

I made another USG purchase this morning. It is a building materials (mostly wall board) stock that I have been holding for the past six or so months looking for the bottom of the housing market. I just bought some more about a month ago. I think Warren Buffet was also getting in at around that time. It has gone down more (-9.6%) since then, but I'm looking at it as a really long term buy and trying to hit the bottom with consecutive purchases to bring my cost average down as it continues to drop. With the flooding in the mid-west I'm betting there will be a lot of wall board purchased in the next six months so I'm buying more and may do another purchase in a week depending on what the stock does in the next few days.

This was a 2.2% (of my account) purchase of USG, and puts my complete USG holdings at 5.5% of my account. Before this purchase it was down around 15% and now it is down around 11%. Think long term...

I also really like the 5 year chart.

My account has continued to fluctuate. It opened yesterday at +8.2% for the year and is sitting today at +10% for the year. There was a big drop in FNM and FMC and I'm continuing to look at it. GE dropped a bunch more and I'm really glad I sold it when I did. Wouldn't go near it right now. I got the papers for the Activision/Blizzard deal and voted for the merger last night. I rarely proxy vote so this is one I'm really excited about.

Ups and Downs

I was in an all day training class both Wednesday and Thursday and spent every break working on a big presentation I have to give next week. I didn't look at my account until late today. I was initially shocked to see that it had dropped 2% today, then I looked and saw that it was sitting very close to the record. So it must have spiked big time yesterday and dropped again today. I like that I have a new high water mark because that makes me feel like it is going in the right direction and continues to push the envelope. Right now it is sitting at 10.1% for the year, but yesterday it was sitting at 12.7%. I'm still happing with the holdings and need to find something to do with that cash left over from selling out of GE.

Waiting and watching

I'm still here, I've just been letting my account ride for a while. I go through trading spurts and the most recent two months was one of the biggest I can remember. Right now I'm happing with the holdings. The account reached a high of 11.2% up for the year and dropped back down to 7.9% at the beginning of the week. It is currently sitting at 9.2% so all seems well. The biggest swings are currently caused by Activision since it is my biggest holding.

I still have to decide what to do with the cash from the GE sale. I just don't have any ideas right now and like to have some cash available when I do have an idea.

Looks like I'll have to give a monthly update tomorrow after the market close. As of today it has been a very good month.

GE stop triggered

My stop on GE triggered today at 31.79 and I sold the entire amount. It closed at 31.72. It ends as an 8.5% loss for me and could have been a lot worse. I think the credit crisis (GE Capital) is effecting them a lot more than anyone is letting be known. This was something I didn't think through when I invested in it last year as a hedge against inflation. I now have 6.7% in cash to figure out what to do with. I don't have any solid ideas, but I may make another 1% purchase of EIX. I tried to make this a few weeks ago, but didn't realize that my cash had gone into the USG purchase.

As for GE, I do think it will recover, I'm just not willing to take any more chances with it. Anyone involved in credit, that hasn't corrected is suspect at this point.

Over all, my account has pulled back a little bit from the most recent gain, but it is holding most of it pretty well. The GE loss is hopefully just a footnote since it wasn't a big holding.

There must be something wrong..?

My account keeps going up, like crazy for the past two weeks. As of today I'm up 11.2% for the year and just two weeks ago I was up 2% and two weeks before that I was -2%. No really, this is how it usually works. My account takes huge swings and as long as more of them are up than down, the long term aspects are positive. Also, you have to be willing to take some big downs (like my holdings in AMD, DRIV and GE) and even miss some opportunities (like selling Apple/APPL) too early.

For now I'm happy with my holdings and I'm sticking with them. DRIV and AMD seem to be returning. GE is a mess, but at least it has stableized. If it has more credit issues I'm selling it and I still have a stop on it a few points below where it sits now.

You have to believe in the companies you hold. Especially the leadership. Until six months ago I had been holding Motorola at around 18. It is a stock that I watch. I liked it even more because the CEO was Ed Zander who was an exec at Sun Microsystems when I was there. I had met him briefly a few times on a sales call and at some training/sales meetings. I really liked the way he worked so when he took the CEO job at Motorola I bought in. The stock didn't change much and when I learned he had left (that Icahn guy causes a lot more problems than he solves) I sold the stock. I didn't actually sell it because Ed Zander left, I sold it because there was a leadership hole and organizations without good leaders don't do well (especially when Icahn is stiring the pot). Now it's sitting at 10 (Icahn must really like to lose money..?) and I don't have much interest in it. Mostly because I don't watch it as closely and I don't understand what their strategy is going to be. You can't say enough about a hot performing company, or a company with a great leader. Both are signs of a stock to hold and most of my current holdings fit that bill.

Also I should have sold all my Sun Microsystems (JAVA) when Jonathan Schwartz became CEO since I never liked his strategy with Java (turn it into the biggest piece of bloatware imaginable because we have to be all things to all people) and from what I could see he was devisive with people. I could have told you (and should have told myself) that a devisive leader was the last thing Sun needed. The stock did a reverse split (annoying), renamed itself to JAVA (very annoying) and is now continuing to spiral down to the price it was before the reverse split (he needs to be held accountable). Sun needs a new leader and I'm only holding a very small amount in my account so I can watch it.

Anyway, here's to good leaders and my account being up 11.2% for the year. I expect it will probably drop back down to 5% before it goes up more, but for now I'm pretty happy. :-)

Current Holdings Starting May 2008

Symbol	Paid	Cur	Acct Pct	Gain/Loss
ATVI	$13.44	27.05	24%	101%
TTWO	$16.18	26.24	18%	62%
SNE	$43.88	$45.79	9%	5%
DRIV	$47.72	32.85	7%	-31%
GE	$34.70	32.70	7%	-6%
IBM	$117.07	120.70	7%	3%
FNM	$24.52	28.30	5%	15%
FRE	$23.11	24.91	4%	8%
EDD	$19.79	$7.57	3%	-11%
AMD	$13.69	5.96	3%	-56%
STMP	$12.98	13.71	2%	6%
USG	$46.99	$5.31	1%	-25%
TIVO	$5.89	8.23	1%	40%
JAVA	$17.27	15.66	1%	-9%
CASH		–	6%

Those are the current holdings as of the end of trading on April 29, 2008 and the beginning of Trading on May 1, 2008.

That is up 1% for the month and up 8.1% for the year. The account has been fluctuating up and down by 2% all month. It was up about 2% up until just before the market closed. All and all a good month. GE got hammered and I held it. STMP made a huge recovery. SNE went up 5% since I've owned it for just a few weeks and I can't complain. It offset the loss in GE. TTWO passed the week I've been waiting a long time for. IBM made a move and dropped back down a little and I'm very happy with it. I shouldn't have sold AAPL, except for the fact that I sleep better.

Placed GE Stop

I finally decided to at least place a stop order in on GE in case it decided to slide even more. I put it at 31.78 and I'm selling all (~9%) in my account if it drops to that number. I came up with that number looking at this three month chart. Which shows the low at 31.70 on March 10 and 31.75 on April 14. I wanted to be a little above those marks thinking maybe other people would choose those as their sell point and I wanted to jump the gun a little if it headed that way. I may still sell this in the near term if I see more of this type of infighting in the leadership or if I see more bad news about possible spill over from the credit crisis.

GE Sneezed and didn't bounce back

I'm really changing my stance on GE.

GE: Quintessential American Finance Company

No bounce back?

I was holding it because it is a solid big cap manufacturer and not thinking how much of a hold they have in the finance arena. The fact that it didn't bounce back even a little while the market made a huge bounce is very troubling to me. Especially since other big caps (IBM/Intel) announced great earnings. This tells me that something else is going on here and maybe the credit crisis is about to pummel them. I will probably sell in the next few days if it goes down any more or doesn't come back a little. Right now I'm down 7% which isn't all that bad, but if it is part of the credit mess things could get much worse very quickly.

GE drops

GE took a big drop this morning after announcing an earnings of 44 cents a share, seven cents short of expectations (does some quick math 14% below expectations). The share price dropped 12%. I'm still holding it and it did drag my account down significantly, but I'm not willing to sell in fear. The whole economy is taking hits and it's no surprise that companies are going to report lower earnings. For me it's just a matter of where to keep my money and during tough financial times it seems to be either big chip stocks or commodities like gold (GLD) and silver (SLV). Since those are at record highs and I already took a health profit I'm sticking with the big cap stocks. At least for now. One thing I have noticed, that after big drops like this stocks usually come back pretty quicly the next day so maybe I'll buy more!

I was already up 5% since I purchased it last year so now I'm down 7% on GE. Not a bad number for me during a sketchy economy.

They say this is the biggest drop since 10/19/1987, but if you look at this chart it doesn't even register.

My overall account is at -1.4% for the year now when it was up 2% a week ago. It's always a wild ride, hang on and don't be afraid. I was down 10% for the year at one point in February I think.

IBM purchase

I've been very concerned about inflation for the past year and one of the big reasons I was holding GLD and SLV until they spiked like crazy. I read that another hedge against inflation is big chip companies and since they have not moved in years I've been holding GE (5%) for the past year and it has done fairly well for me.

Today I bought IBM at 115.51 (6% of my account).