Catching Up October 2012

I posted last week for the first time in roughly six months.  I took the occasion to give a quick and dirty Annual Report.  During the six months in which I neglected to update ye olde blogge, though, I continued to sell and buy equities within my rollover IRA, but I did not continue to inform my loyal readership of what I sold and what I bought, etc.

Well, that changes as of right now.  There were a lot of trades during the Six Months Of Silence.  If I had been a more faithful blogger then I would have written a nice little column about each decision I made at roughly the time I made it, with all the pros and cons.  I would have let you know why I did what I did when I did it.

Well, it's too late for that now.  At this point I barely remember why I did what I did when I did it.  And even if I do remember, I definitely do not have the patience to walk you through the thinking behind every investment decision I made for six months.

I can, however, list those decisions in order, with a minimum of commentary.  Here we go.

16 April:  Sold 100 shares of 3D Systems Corporation (DDD) at $25.78 each.  Having purchased my shares at $15.50, I feel good about the profit I realized with this trade.  That said, it turns out I could have - in a perfect world - sold the shares in question for $43 each or more in late August.

20 April:  Purchased 190 shares of Monster Worldwide, Inc. (MWW) at $8.32 each.  I've had a few opportunities, since then, to sell for $9 or more, but I'm hoping, eventually, to sell for $24 or $25 a share. Of course, I'm not sure when exactly that will be.  The theory is that the shares will recover whenever the job market does.  As of this writing, though, my shares are worth about $7.50 each.

23 April:  Purchased 80 shares of Cherokee Inc. (CHKE) at $12.25 each.  This stock pays a pretty respectable quarterly dividend of $0.20 per share.

18 June:  Sold 17 shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) at $220.74 each.  I had purchased my shares for $174.25 each, so that was a decent profit.  That said, Amazon's price per earnings is a bit high.  I think it's over-valued.

21 June:  Purchased 70 shares of Dreamworks Animation Skg Inc (DWA) at $17.85 each.  I saw it as under-valued, and I figured Madagascar 3 would do okay at the box office.

25 June:  Sold 81 shares of Cherokee at $13.49 each.  As you can see, I was able to sell more shares than I had originally purchased. How cool is that?  I love Dividend Reinvestment.

25 June again:  Purchased 15 shares of Amazon at $218.70 each. Amazon may be priced a bit high, but my fellow investors love it.  I sold my Cherokee stock in order partially to finance this purchase. Honestly, I can't remember why, specifically, I decided to turn around and buy Amazon again.  I think I still had cash from my sale of Amazon a week before, and decided that, all things being equal, it had been doing me more good while invested in Amazon.

13 July:  Sold 70 shares of Dreamworks Animation at $19.80 each.  I'd made my profit and I got out. I don't foresee Rise of the Guardians doing too well over Thanksgiving.  In fact, I saw a cardboard display for Rise of the Guardians in a theater when I finally saw The Avengers and my first thought, upon seeing the Rise of the Guardians display, was "I need to sell my Dreamworks Animation stock."

16 July:  Purchased 140 shares of Corning Incorporated (GLW) at $12.24 each.  This is an under-valued, dividend-paying stock.  The dividend could be bigger, but I'm hoping to sell at over $22 a share, someday.  If I can accumulate some extra shares while I'm waiting for Corning to increase in value then that would be a nice bonus.

19 July:  Sold 15 shares of Amazon at $223.40 each.  I went back to my belief that Amazon is over-valued.  Of course, it turns out that if I'd held onto my shares then I could have sold them for $250 or more, each, since then.  That said, this sale at this time allowed me to make my next purchases.

23 July:  Purchased 100 additional shares of ABB Ltd. (ABB) at $15.69 each.  This is a stock I already owned.  I'd purchased shares, previously, at $18 each.  It pays a decent annual dividend.  I'd had an opportunity to sell at nearly $22 a share back in February, before the dividend was paid for the year.  Since then my shares had declined in value.  This purchase was me doubling down, and I'm glad I did.  ABB has gone up by a greater percentage than Amazon during the same period of time.

23 July:  Purchased 125 shares of Cherokee at $14.02 each.  I didn't want to put all of my eggs in the ABB basket, so I purchased Cherokee again.  I could have purchased at a lower price if I was more patient, but I'm not unhappy with how things are.

Amazingly enough, that's it.  I've not done any buying or selling since July.  Some shares have been purchased for me, during the six months in question, as a result of dividend reinvestment, but I'm mostly eliding those transactions for now.

Apparently I'm a bit indecisive. I bought some Cherokee. I sold my Amazon. I then sold my Cherokee and bought some Amazon again. And then I sold my Amazon and bought Cherokee again.

At the end of the day, Cherokee pays a 5% annual dividend yield. Amazon does not.  That said, if Amazon stock takes a temporary dive then I just may get a bit indecisive again.