First sell!

Well, it's been the better part of a year since I last posted. I know I need to get my time frame down a bit if I want to continue doing blogs. People don't like to only read something every 9 months or so. Actually, it better be more than a bit.

Anyway, the stock market has obviously taken a change in direction since last post. I just had my first sell in this account since doing the AIM for Dogs blog. Actually, since I had this trading account as well. My stocks ended up being Du Pont, AT&T, Merck, Pfizer, and Home Depot. These are the ones that survived the deep hole of March with their dividends intact, for the most part. I say that because one of them - Pfizer, actually lowered their dividend, but not enough to cause me to sell it. They are still in the Dogs of the Dow list. A few of the candidates wouldn't still qualify as stocks to buy if I were starting an account now, but have not changed to the point where I would replace them. Du Pont and Merck are no longer small Dogs, but I am still happy to keep them. I wouldn't replace a stock if it's price went too high, whatever 'too high' means :) I just sell off pieces of it if it gets outside the average value of each stock of the group when a 'sell' signal for the group is hit. DD did go up to the point that, when my evaluation time came up, it was the highest valued stock of the group, in terms of total dollar value. So that was the stock I sold. I now have 28 shares instead of 32. Still plenty of stock to let it continue it's climb, if that's what it's going to do. Incidentally, Du Pont is down almost $5 a share since I sold those 4 shares. Probably just luck, but funny how it worked out. Home Depot has been out of the running as far as starter stocks for a long time, but I won't replace a stock if they haven't actually lowered their dividend, and they did qualify at the time I bought them in the first place.

Just to give a run down of the status of the account, almost half of the cash I have now (which is up to over 5% of the total stock value) is from the dividends that have been distributed since the last purchase, which happened in June. The other half is from the stock I just sold. The total value of the account peaked out at just under $4600, shich is not the highest it's been, but more than what I opened the account with back in April of 2008. I have contributed a bit over $600 to it as well. That was generally at the bottom of things so I could at least buy some stock when I got a signal to. Unfortunately, since I did too much buying at the beginning of this market downfall (remember? I was buying every time I got a signal instead of waiting for my one time a month) I ended up not having the cash to buy the stock when it was really cheap. My account would be a lot higher if I would have followed those rules back in October of last year. Oh well, I am, after all, your guinea pig. So, make sure you learn from me.

I'll make sure I start posting on a regular basis from now on. If I don't before, though, have a great Holiday Season!