I could just as easily have
titled this week's post as My Cunning Plan Has Failed, but it hasn't failed
permanently. It's just failed for now
The Plan was to buy MIND CTI
Ltd (hereafter referred to as MNDO) at a low price in September of 2011 and sell my shares in March or April for roughly
twice the purchase price. A simple,
two-part plan.
Part 1 went swimmingly. I bought 1,600 shares of MNDO at $1.85 a
share in September. Yay.
Part 2 never quite
coalesced. The stock didn't peak in
March and didn't double this year to $3.70 a share.
It did, however, peak in February and increase by nearly 50% to $2.76 a
share. Had I sold at that time then my
cunning plan would have been a success.
Not the success that I had hoped, but a significant success nonetheless.
But I wasn't ready to sell in
February. I missed the peak, just
barely. The day it peaked I did reduce
the price of my sell order to $2.78 a share, but the stock never went to $2.78
a share. Not this year anyway.
But there's always next year.
That's what I'm telling myself, anyway. My revised cunning plan is that I don't have
to buy shares in MNDO in September because I already own shares. In fact I now own 1,749 shares in MNDO thanks
to the magic of dividend reinvestment.
MNDO paid its dividend last week, and 149 additional shares were
purchased for me without me spending an extra dime.
My sell order is in. I'll be selling my 1,749 shares for $2.75 a
share. I'll have to renew that sell
order a few times between now and March of 2013, and somewhere in there I may
have reason to increase or decrease the price per share. But if something unexpected happens and the
stock price shoots up sufficiently between now and next year then the sale
should go through automatically at $2.75 a share.
And my cunning plan will
succeed. It will just take longer than I
originally thought.
Meanwhile I will have the
distinct displeasure of staring at another item in my portfolio that is worth
less than I paid for it. As of this
writing my shares in MNDO are worth $1.81 each.
Bugger.
But at least I still have a
cunning plan.
Your cunning plan is more successful than you might think if you consider not automatically reinvesting the dividend next time. A relative of ours with a lot of experience in the market was telling me last night that there are times when he will hold on to a stock that is technically "losing money" because the dividend pays regularly and well.
ReplyDeletePlus the news for this company looks pretty good and today it gained more than the overall market. I'd say you're cunning plan will, in the end, work.
You're right. I need to talk to my rep at Ameritrade about turning dividend reinvestment off for individual stocks. That said, for my long-term investments I like to do the reinvestment so that I can get compounded returns. TICC just paid its quarterly dividend for the second time since I bought my 200 shares. Now I have 211 shares, which will pay me even bigger dividends next quarter, etc.
ReplyDeleteAgain, though, you're right. For a stock that I'm not planning to hold it really doesn't make since to reinvest.