So I know it's been a minute since a last updated my blog reason being I was away on vacation and didn't do anything to the portfolio--however since I returned I have been made alot of changes which I will go over. First of all while on vacation--I kinda made it a habit of getting up at 9:00am and throwing on CNBC and than fall back asleep listening to the markets. I normally don't get to watch CNBC during market hours because I am at work--the one thing that I caught me off guard was how optimistic everyone sounded last week when the Dow hit 14k from the traders to the analysts. One of the major rules of investing is whenever the media starts getting too optimistic thats generally a bad sign---this was evident this week as the markets are down 6% in a week. So I am going to share with you my thoughts from my portfolio (buys & sells) to whats going on with the markets.
The Market
-As much as it sucks losing money sometimes it's really important for the markets to go through what happened this week. One of the major reasons was well we went too high too fast an indication was the Dow hitting 14k--the pull back brought the markets to a respectable 7% gain for the entire and in my opnion should finish in the 10% - 12% range for end of year. Nobody really knows how big this whole sub-prime thing is however what I do know is that as long as the FED doesn't start raising rates--we should be fine. Remeber the market thinking is very short term as an investor you gotta thing long term at the end of day it's a good thing that banks are making lending guidelines stricter.
My Sell (s)
Apple - Another rule of investing or trading whatever you want to call it is that if a stock has made a nice run before it's earnings sell it--trust me even though you might think it will go higher and will have an awesome quarter SELL IT! Most of the time and trust me I've got burnt on this the stock will tank because analysts expectations are extremely high into the call. Buy the stock back a couple days after the calls cause generally one or two days laters the analysts start changing their EPS estimates on the stock and this generally is positive or negative either way if you made profits no reason to risk--most ppl risk it because they are greedy bottom line. So that said my Apple position was up over 50% since January and so I closed my position taking a nice gain. I will probaly buy back once the dust settles and it comes back to mid or early 130's which it should. The call had a very bullish undertone the biggest being Steve Job's saying there are more products in the pipeline :) The stock went higher after the earnings which is fine with me...i rather lose out on 8% than possibly losing 20% on my gain.
Canadian Pacific - Wow big surprise last week while on vacation closed my position on this railroad one of my best trades and core positions. This was just a matter of taking my profit and waiting until the stock comes down before the whole LBO thing which won't happen TRUST ME. CP has said it and UP won't buy them out and the CAD gov't won't be happy. I will buy it again once it settles in the 70's
Buy (s)
iShares S&P Latin America 40 - I've had my eyes on the index fund for about three weeks now after I sold my holdings in HET & AQNT. I had diversification in Asia (SHG), Eastern Europe (EWO) and Europe (EWD) these were my foreign plays and all three positions have done well for me. The index fund has a large exposure to Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile. My biggest conviction to buy the fund was diversification but I was not going to pay a huge premium for my position so I waited out for a nice downturn in the market which I got and built a position at 10% below it's 52 week high.
Canadian Pacific & Union Pacific - As mentioned above I had sold my holding in CP only to buy it back at much lower price in this case I bought it back under 8% of what I sold it at saving myself around 1k not bad eh? I also built a position in Union Pacific probaly the best performing railroad of late due to it's strong pricing power which is very important because revenue off shipments has been off. I split my position between both the companies and now I have three names in the sector (CNR, CP & UNP).
All in all mixed feelings about this week I am glad to get a good deal on (ILF) and (UNP) however it sucks when the market craps out like it did this week atleast I can say I played the week well and glad I was sitting on alot of cash :)
