Portfolio Update: CNI Gaining Steam? DDDelicious Returns, Not Yet For NENE

Just a quick update on the portfolio. 

DDD continues to perform stellarly, jumping today to around $86.50 a share.  This has been our best investment, with big thanks to Jim Cramer for recommending this stock months ago.

CNI's split, and slowly growing back a little, bouncing between $56 and $57.  Such is the pain of diversification: you'll often feel a little remorse seeing the slower half of your stocks perform.  Considering it's the dead of winter in Canada, I'm grateful for any growth in this railroad stock.  This is definitely a hold.

TWO is due for a dividend at month's end and has edged up to around $9.50.  This is another example of putting extra leftover money into a small, high-yield position so it adds up.  Without the ability to perform unlimited trades, acquisitions like this aren't worth it, but with a great service like BuyAndHold, which we've used for years, you get more financial control for less overall money.

Our penny stock holdings have yet to mature, though for FLST we should say mature again.  After a small spike to around $2.84, NENE has slumped between our purchase prices of $2.25 and $2.50.  Our position of 600 shares of LQMT is being held through the beginning of a stock purchasing program, and our share of 500 shares of FLST, leveled out at .035 cents a share today, is being held after the main profit taking we did at 500@$0.38, original purchase price of $0.10.

To recap our positions:

DDD 4.5
CNI 10.4
TWO 6
NENE 255
LQMT 600
FLST 500

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Disclaimer: We do not endorse buying any stocks.  Do so at your own risk.

Daily Post #2: 10.4, Good Buddy! Sitting Back and Watching (DDD, CNI), Splits Discussion

Well, today's the day and my shares of CNI are in and ready for a split. Turns out I was able to purchase an extra fifth of a share, which will turn into 2/5ths down the road (hence the 10.4 in the title). Having grown up in the 80s, I'm always grateful for the extra bits of bean-counting that have been brought online.  Getting fractional shares during splits never used to happen for me.

Afternoon Action 

I'm already feeling a pang from DDD's relatively small jump today of 1.28/share as of this writing -- now I'm making 4.5 times that instead of 9 times since I traded half my shares toward CNI.  Speaking of pangs, seeing Voxeljet's insane recent price boost reminds me of my brother's laments about seeing BitCoins escalate daily. The stock was around $28 when I first noticed it, and it's zooming around $60 today. CNI is pretty much unchanged, but it's locked in and I'll be happy to see the split happen November 29th.

My fond nickname for NCT and NRZ used to be "Dumb & Dumber", because no matter how the stocks would flail about they'd almost always total $13 (in fact as of this moment they are at $13.01).  Nothing against them -- they're still constant with the dividends regardless of stock price. Lately another similarly nicknamed pairing is LQMT and FLST, which do act independently of each other but haven't done that much yet.  Patience.

I see Zynga's up past $4, ALU continues to crawl up to new highs, SIRI is coming close to where I sold it at $3.97 (ha).   Apple's on the sunny side of $500 again, Google's a third of the way to $1100.  Some regret for not having held OMI that long -- up to $37 from $28, along with dividends.  Yelp edging up again, Pandora a mind-blowing $31.70, up from $9 recently and supposedly giving iTunes Radio a serious run for its money.  WAVX, my friend Andrew's sentimental favorite, treading water at $1.19 -- PCs won't ever have the market share they did -- and perennial nickel-generating stock AWP up .13 to $7.26.  That's over 2 months of dividends worth of difference.  Jack Henry (JKHY) is up $6 since recent discovery of it and dividends were disbursed yesterday.  Groupon (GRPN) is edging back from disastrous management, WWE is climbing to the top rope at $13.32 a share, 5 cents down from a 52-week high.  Skilled Healthcare (SKH) back up from a wobble in the low 4s to $4.94.  Twitter's still in nesting phase in the low 40s, and looking back at TSLA is showing a stalled valuation as scrutiny mounts.  3D printing darling SSYS is continuing its upward trend with +$1.28 for a total valuation of $125.13/share.

Splitsville?

A great banana split.  Courtesy of Cyclonebill from Wikimedia Commons.

 

Those who haven't taken advantage of splits may be wondering why owning an extra share of something is worth it.

There's some controversy about it, for sure.

This view is neutral at best:

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/01/072501.asp

While this one is more in line with my attitudes:

http://www.rightline.net/stocksplits/stock-splits-work.html

That's about it for today.  Thanks for reading and stay tuned to see how CNI vs. DDD works out!


Disclaimer: I do not advocate buying (or not buying) any of the above stocks; please buy at your own discretion.

If my advice helps you make money down the road, I'm gladly accepting tips.

Even $1 will help me grow my portfolio.  Comments are very welcome too!  Thanks for reading!

Daily Post #1: Train-Hopping: From DDD, FB to CNI

With apologies to Harold Lloyd.

I've come to see not just the value of stocks, but stock dividends and splits.  Pinching and scraping fractional shares of DDD together to shore up a 4-share position into six $40 shares, which ultimately became nine shares that climbed to over $75 each, has been one of the best portfolio moves I've made.

I'm thrilled with DDD's groundbreaking technology and stock performance, and pretty happy with FB's recent climb, but it's time for me to spin them off into a company that's about (or should I say aboot) as different as possible: CNI, Canadian National Railway.  Shareholders who own the stock by end of day tomorrow will receive an extra share for each one held by November 29th.  There is already one share of CNI in my portfolio, so I plan on having ten shares of CNI and 4.5 of DDD soon.

Intended portfolio as of Nov. 15:

CNI 5
DDD 4.5
TWO 6
FLST 500
LQMT 600

Without an unlimited-transaction account, transaction fees would have eaten me alive, so if you're thinking of doing the same with an equally small number of shares, I recommend not using a per-transaction company. 

Disclaimer: I do not advocate buying any of the above stocks; please buy at your own discretion.

If you like my advice, I'm gladly accepting tips.

Even $1 will help me grow my portfolio.  Comments are very welcome too!  Thanks for reading!

Portfolio Snapshot #4: Profit Taking, Stock Jumping, and Hanging On (TSLA, CNI, DDD, NCT)

It's been a wild ride, with about a third of my stocks cashed out recently.  I regret exiting instead of reinvesting in cheaper stocks, but it had to happen.

TSLA's been my biggest relative loss recently, but I was able to exit my position yet again with some semblance of profit around $143.  After buying three shares at $95, it could have been a lot worse.  With $135 cashed out after commissions, 500 shares of FLST,  cash from 500 shares of FLST bought with TSLA, and 600 shares of LQMT remaining, there's still a net gain from everything.  It remains to be seen how valuable LQMT's stock buyback program is, but it's enough to keep things at a hold for now.

In light of volatility with TSLA, I've let myself get dinged on commissions, and extra for OTC transactions.  Now that I'm out of TSLA for some time, all I'll be doing is holding the relatively small positions of FLST and LQMT until they pop or fade.  Neither company seems especially troubled to me so I'm just going to hold, likely for the next 2 months.  Even sales at losses will help defray taxes and I'm still ahead unless both companies tank outright.

Commission-per-trade account holdings:

FLST 500
LQMT 600

My unlimited trading account has done much better.  Despite needing to leave some dividend stocks that did me nothing but good behind -- NCT, NRZ, ORI -- this account has held its own and then some in the last few weeks.  2.5 sluggish shares of BEAM were converted to a share of CNI for an upcoming 2-1 split and the remainder put into six shares of TWO, a dividend stock.  Facebook has been treading water in light of Twitter's IPO and it's tempting to swap it out for the new kid, but I'm trying to discipline myself and not keep stock-jumping until I've got at least a 35% gain in a position.

DDD has been doing phenomenally.  Thanks to a 3:2 stock split, patient holding, and a hot stock sector, 3D printing, it's the one stock I've refused to sell to date.  It really is tempting to repeat the success of the previous split and buy more CNI, as anyone who wants the 2-1 split has until November 15th to own shares.  We'll see whether it's better to stay in a new technology or invest in infrastructure...

Unlimited account holdings:

CNI 1
DDD 9
FB 2
TWO 6

Recent sales:

Gains
ORI
NCT
NRZ
BEAM 
EGO
RBS


Unchanged
DX
NTI


Losses
AMD
ALU


Thanks for reading and please check back again during our monthly update!

Portfolio Snapshot #3

I let BRKS go after picking it up as an oversold at 7, selling at 10.  I also sold AWP to pick up 3 shares of TSLA.  When those went to 125 from 92 I sold 2 and bought 600 shares of LQMT and 1400 of FLST at 10 and 4 cents.

Newcastle has spun off into NRZ and despite reservations about buying 2 more shares of DDD to make 4 there was a 3-for-2 split.  The stock is stalling below my ideal sell point of 50.

I bought RBS, EGO and AMD on Jim Cramer's advice.  Wish I had picked up TSLA at 21, but ah well.  AMD is the laggard, while I may hold EGO for one more dollar per share.  RBS slid for a bit before increasing decently.  I may sell half the EGO as I am unsure about gold prices.

Buying FLST was the riskiest move I've made.  I try to hold a stock for a decent amount of time, but my return was insane - 300% - so I sold and reinvested $250 of it into another less volatile oversold stock, SKH.  I still have 500 shares of FLST just in case of a decent upside, but I'm leaving it be at 9 cents.  If it never goes up again, that's fine.  I've made my profit and will either let the stock hit zero or exit at a much smaller profit level this time.

If you follow anything in this post, please don't buy penny stocks.  I was extraordinarily lucky.

FB was sold and rebought for current profits.

ORI has done well, bought from oversold at 10, near 15, and paying dividends as well.  I will be holding this one and may add more soon.

My strategy consists of oversolds, dividends, and fairly safe shorts, in that order.  I hope to eliminate the last strategy as this portfolio matures.

Current shares are as follows:

TSLA 1

BEAM 2.5

DDD 6

FB 3

ORI 5.5

RBS 3

EGO 19

NRZ / NC 9.5 each

SKH 53

AMD 36

LQMT 600

FLST 500

Thanks for reading!

Portfolio Snapshot #2

The market has done very well after fiscal cliff worries were allayed for the new year. DDD has led the increases while BRKS and AWP have recently paid dividends totaling 1.52 and .71. These have been automatically reinvested.

AWP: -3.87 overall after commission, improvement from -6.90 2012 YTD.

BRKS: +10.47 overall after commission, improvement from -3.68 YTD.

DDD: +27.54 overall, BuyandHold purchase, up from +9.57 YTD.

FB: -4.33 overall after commission, almost unchanged since YTD of -3.46.

NCT: +8.70, up since YTD of +5.03.

NYCB: -6.43, up from -11.01 YTD.

SCCO: Virtually unchanged.

SDT: Virtually unchanged.

I initiated a small WIN position but sold back at the same price using BaH. Instead I purchased $55 worth of ORI, which has a net gain of $3.

Portfolio gain (not including BaH $15 monthly fees and including Sharebuilder purchase commissions): $38.40

Percentage gain since July 2012: 4.4%