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!