Well, the markets have kept on falling...
They've made a bit of a comeback this week, but finished on an off note. The last update, on 8/22, showed we now have a buy signal in the buy/sell advice column, which doesn't mean we are now buying any stock. There's a ways to go before we actually would get an actual buy signal. It is pretty significant, though. The last time the buy/sell advice column was on the buy side was June 2009.
This happened real quick, too. In July, the value of my account was within 85 bucks of selling off more stock. It lost over $500 from that update to this last month's. Cathy's lost over $1000. Her account went from almost selling stock one month to real close to buying some this last month. That is really unusual for AIM. An account has to move a bunch to switch around like that.
It seems Cathy's group is quite a bit more volatile than my AIM for Dogs account is. Her account was within $100 of actually buying stock in August last year. My account didn't even come close to getting a buy signal in that column. If this market comes under much more duress at all, I'll bet Cathy will be buying some stock - most likely some HP or Sony. Those two are really down.
If I was a betting man, I would bet that this is not the end of this downward slide. There is way too much volatility for this to be a simple correction. I believe we have quite a ways to go on the downside. Possibly come Halloween or Thanksgiving, I'm pretty sure we will have spent a bit of our cash on some new stock. Guess we'll have to wait and see...
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
We've Hit the Top - For Now
Wow - what a couple of days will do to a bull market!
It's been a while since I entered here - things just seemed to be staying the same, so I didn't feel I had much to say. But, now, like everyone else, these couple days have brought me out of my hole to make some comments about the market...and, while I'm at it, I'll update on how the AIM accounts are going.
The last couple of days has got almost everyone talking about the market - it's kind of funny - things have been so quiet over the past few months, because the market just seemed to keep trudging on, slowly upwards. And now, when something like the credit rating of the US gets dinged, it throws everything in an uproar (or, downroar, as it were!)
Now, this could be the beginning of a larger downtrend, or just a correction - I don't know, and no one else does either. All I know is our accounts are now 25% in cash (they should be 50%, but I'm still trying to catch up after the mistakes I made in 08-09.) My boys' mutual funds are at 50% - I didn't screw up their accounts. I still feel we've got enough cash to stay with the program and buy stock when the formula calls for it. We'll only run out of cash if something really disastrous happens in the market.
It's not like this came all of a sudden. I hadn't sold any stock since April, which indicates the markets had flattened out in the last few months. A lot of my friends were alerted this was coming - that's why we put some of our cash into silver ETFs and looking at gold.
By the way, if you are interested in hedging and investing in gold, here is a great way to do it, especially if you don't have much cash. You can earn points by becoming an affiliate with this company: American Gold Reserve. Just go to http://americangoldreserve.com and sign up, hit "Take the First Step," using scoop32 as the sponsor user name.
Didn't mean to get off track there, but I do believe people should have at least a part of their investments in gold or silver right now. Many of my friends, whom I trust, believe this is only the beginning. If it goes the way they're talking, even cash won't be a very good hedge.
It's been a while since I entered here - things just seemed to be staying the same, so I didn't feel I had much to say. But, now, like everyone else, these couple days have brought me out of my hole to make some comments about the market...and, while I'm at it, I'll update on how the AIM accounts are going.
The last couple of days has got almost everyone talking about the market - it's kind of funny - things have been so quiet over the past few months, because the market just seemed to keep trudging on, slowly upwards. And now, when something like the credit rating of the US gets dinged, it throws everything in an uproar (or, downroar, as it were!)
Now, this could be the beginning of a larger downtrend, or just a correction - I don't know, and no one else does either. All I know is our accounts are now 25% in cash (they should be 50%, but I'm still trying to catch up after the mistakes I made in 08-09.) My boys' mutual funds are at 50% - I didn't screw up their accounts. I still feel we've got enough cash to stay with the program and buy stock when the formula calls for it. We'll only run out of cash if something really disastrous happens in the market.
It's not like this came all of a sudden. I hadn't sold any stock since April, which indicates the markets had flattened out in the last few months. A lot of my friends were alerted this was coming - that's why we put some of our cash into silver ETFs and looking at gold.
By the way, if you are interested in hedging and investing in gold, here is a great way to do it, especially if you don't have much cash. You can earn points by becoming an affiliate with this company: American Gold Reserve. Just go to http://americangoldreserve.com and sign up, hit "Take the First Step," using scoop32 as the sponsor user name.
Didn't mean to get off track there, but I do believe people should have at least a part of their investments in gold or silver right now. Many of my friends, whom I trust, believe this is only the beginning. If it goes the way they're talking, even cash won't be a very good hedge.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
...And it keeps on Chuggin'
Well, the market didn't slow down - matter of fact, it took off this month. If it hadn't been for a bit of a correction with the oil prices last week, I would have harvested a bunch of cash from all the accounts. As it was, Cathy's account gave back a bunch because of HPQ having a crappy quarterly report. Her account was up largely because of a really great report from Whole Foods which caused their stock to shoot up like $10 a share. I probably would have sold 5% or more worth of stock if it had been a week earlier. Every account except Sheldon's (the only one with a sale last month) sold some off.
It's amazing, as I keep saying, as much doom-and-gloom talk as there is about the economy, how this market keeps on going. I guess that isn't so much out of the ordinary. We've had quite a few times like this in our history. The market usually is the first to react to new bad news, many times before most people guess that there's anything amiss in our economy. We've had so much crap happen, the market will probably keep going until things actually appear to get better. Most of the time, as I've seen, it's when we're fat and happy and thinking everything's rosy that we get broadsided by a big drop or a good sized bear market.
Meanwhile, I'll keep collecting cash from these rising stocks. Unfortunately, I usually sell pieces of the ones that are really doing well. It's just the way the plan goes...and those stocks won't necessarily be the ones that tank when the time comes. But it does seem to always work it's way out. Especially the way I've set up the plan for this trading method. I'm mainly talking about the Dogs plan, which includes an 'individual stock disaster' clause. I don't have that for Cathy's account, because not all of the stocks in her account pay a dividend or are part of the Dow.
It's amazing, as I keep saying, as much doom-and-gloom talk as there is about the economy, how this market keeps on going. I guess that isn't so much out of the ordinary. We've had quite a few times like this in our history. The market usually is the first to react to new bad news, many times before most people guess that there's anything amiss in our economy. We've had so much crap happen, the market will probably keep going until things actually appear to get better. Most of the time, as I've seen, it's when we're fat and happy and thinking everything's rosy that we get broadsided by a big drop or a good sized bear market.
Meanwhile, I'll keep collecting cash from these rising stocks. Unfortunately, I usually sell pieces of the ones that are really doing well. It's just the way the plan goes...and those stocks won't necessarily be the ones that tank when the time comes. But it does seem to always work it's way out. Especially the way I've set up the plan for this trading method. I'm mainly talking about the Dogs plan, which includes an 'individual stock disaster' clause. I don't have that for Cathy's account, because not all of the stocks in her account pay a dividend or are part of the Dow.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Continued Growth
Yes, we are still continuing the expansion of the market. Friday showed a sign that the market is not just mindlessly going upward, but then it continued it's ways today.
I did sell off a few more shares from my wife's account last Monday, and the market continued upward until Friday. Cathy's account was the only one this month, though. Everyone else's took a break. Mine was within a few cents of having a sale, and if my day would have been Tuesday, I would have, but I've vowed to stay strictly with the program. I've found that, more often than not, it works out for the better. I doubt this bull market will come to a screeching halt in the next month. It might in the next few months, and it could decide to flatten out this month. I've already collected up a pretty good amount - probably not enough to fund a disaster like what happened in early 2009, but if we had a significant correction, I could pick up a good amount of stock cheap. I started Cathy's account with a good amount of cash (not the 50% you're supposed to, but I figured we'd just been through that disaster and it should be a while before something that bad happens again,) and there's more in there now. I've looked at a few charts people who do the AIM thing, and they say that your account should be around 50% cash now. Sheldon's and Harrison's accounts are getting close to that, but not mine or Cathy's.
If this trend keeps up for another 6 months we might be close, and I might get to the point of passing on a couple of selling opportunities for the boys' accounts. Once the cash balance is above 50%, many (though not Robert himself) suggest an amendment to the original formula to apply the amount of a scheduled sale to the Portfolio Control. This ensures maximum gain during a long bull market, without sacrificing the safety of the plan. The other thought is having separate Buy and Sell Safe columns so the market doesn't have to dip as deep to pick up more stock. This is all on Robert Lichello's site, www.aim-users.com, under AIM Improvements. I like these as I am not quite as conservative an investor as one would have to be to follow the original instructions Robert laid out. I just know, through personal experience, to abide by the rule to have no more than one transaction a month, be it buy or sell.
One thing's for sure, both Cathy and I have a ways to go before the cash in our account reaches 50%, and I'm even adding a little to mine every month, and my account receives a much higher dividend, as you'd expect from the small DOTD stocks in my portfolio.
I did sell off a few more shares from my wife's account last Monday, and the market continued upward until Friday. Cathy's account was the only one this month, though. Everyone else's took a break. Mine was within a few cents of having a sale, and if my day would have been Tuesday, I would have, but I've vowed to stay strictly with the program. I've found that, more often than not, it works out for the better. I doubt this bull market will come to a screeching halt in the next month. It might in the next few months, and it could decide to flatten out this month. I've already collected up a pretty good amount - probably not enough to fund a disaster like what happened in early 2009, but if we had a significant correction, I could pick up a good amount of stock cheap. I started Cathy's account with a good amount of cash (not the 50% you're supposed to, but I figured we'd just been through that disaster and it should be a while before something that bad happens again,) and there's more in there now. I've looked at a few charts people who do the AIM thing, and they say that your account should be around 50% cash now. Sheldon's and Harrison's accounts are getting close to that, but not mine or Cathy's.
If this trend keeps up for another 6 months we might be close, and I might get to the point of passing on a couple of selling opportunities for the boys' accounts. Once the cash balance is above 50%, many (though not Robert himself) suggest an amendment to the original formula to apply the amount of a scheduled sale to the Portfolio Control. This ensures maximum gain during a long bull market, without sacrificing the safety of the plan. The other thought is having separate Buy and Sell Safe columns so the market doesn't have to dip as deep to pick up more stock. This is all on Robert Lichello's site, www.aim-users.com, under AIM Improvements. I like these as I am not quite as conservative an investor as one would have to be to follow the original instructions Robert laid out. I just know, through personal experience, to abide by the rule to have no more than one transaction a month, be it buy or sell.
One thing's for sure, both Cathy and I have a ways to go before the cash in our account reaches 50%, and I'm even adding a little to mine every month, and my account receives a much higher dividend, as you'd expect from the small DOTD stocks in my portfolio.
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