Been reading “Too Big To Fail” and the biggest nugget I have personally garnered so far (besides that Paulson TOTALLY allowed Lehman to go down in flames much like I always assumed) is that you can not ever trust anything said by the government or media. Now, I already knew that but wow – this really pushes that home. Yikes. It’s not like I ever felt the banks were 100% responsible because everyone had their hands in the cheap money pie, and I have about 4 blog posts in my head about mortgages, and banks and F the government AND idiot and unethical borrowers but we’ll see if I blast those out anytime soon or just let it simmer down inside. But grrrrrr. People that blame the banks and mortgage brokers solely for all the problems in their world need to get a fn clue (after looking in the mirror.)
Ok, cleansing deep breath….turning on my Zen music and finding my Chi (or is that Chew…bacca?! :) )
Another thing the book has done is make me re-evaluate my stock portfolio a bit. I have a 401k account that I check in on monthly but my stock account I watch daily. Not that I am a day trader because I am not. Do not have the time or energy to do that anymore. And most of what I own are companies that I know of due to personally liking them or brand recognition or some such thing. I did take a flyer on 2 small positions at the beginning of the year on companies that were not in the above categories and so far they are doing well. My intention is to keep them for the year though and not long term investing like the rest. I consider myself an investor and not a trader, even though that’s the way more fun side of it :)
I made a couple of small day (really several days) trades earlier this year and did well. But then I bought a teeny 100 shs of Pandora hoping for a quick pop and missed. Lost just over a point before I quickly flushed it but that annoyed me. I knew better. I know Pandora is crap (from an investment perspective – have never tried the service) but I thought it would be fun…like the old days! Was hoping for a 3-5 point in 15-20 minute turnaround to put in my Jimmy Choo fund :) Oh well. Wasn’t a big loss in cash but VERY annoyed by the fact that I did it even knowing 100% in my gut that it was a bad call. Like – totally knew it. Grr. Dummy. So I nicknamed my stock account DUMMY (online you can have a nickname) until I feel less dumb. And I hate feeling dumb.
No, this current market is making me keep my money in the safer stocks for the time being. Not that they can’t go down, but I have a fair degree of certainly they will all come back just fine short of Armageddon…and then I guess I will just need my gold and guns. Companies like MCD, YUM, TIF, AXP, BRK (B), AMZN, AAPL, SBUX, BP, VLO and some others. I also bought some fairly distressed GE and MS a short while back which hasn’t done too much but I think long-term they will also be fine and might even buy more under 20 and 24 respectively.
I do own some BAC and C which both stress me out a bit since they are technically too big to fail and yet totally can. But that’s the gambling side of my account I guess. I’m flat on both of them right now so we will see how I feel if I see much red. Although, I do tend to think they will go up somewhat at least, it will just take some time. That feeling thing. BUT, by the time I finish “Too Big To Fail”, I might change my mind and scream SELL MORTIMER as I can’t push the button fast enough!
I recently bought a healthcare stock – which I normally stay away far away from and also have a couple AG and commodity play stocks. I got rid of my ETF’s (except SLV) as I really prefer to own the underlying securities. ETFs are boring an way too many layers of even more people involved that you can’t trust. Though I do pat myself on my back for selling my USL at almost the very top of WTI prices. Genius oil speculator without even knowing it! I prefer to own the underlying asset in SLV too (and do) but I bought my shares at 17 so I’ll just keep it for now. Plus hoarding physical silver takes up a lot more space than gold so its OK to have both real and paper in that :) unless of course you believe all the conspiracy theories about silver (like the gold conspiracy theories) which honestly, after you read about the banks, are harder to just pushaw away. A good conspiracy theory keeps you on your toes anyway.
Yes, this investor went more Scrooge McDuck than Gordon Gekko during May and now June. Getting kinda ugly out there…and part of me says well, the fastest way to get Obama out of office is to keep it rather ugly out there so who knows….
10:50 am on June 22nd, 2011
stocks always seemed like gambling to me. ;)
but you sure as heck know way more about it than i do.
11:24 am on July 13th, 2011
Timing as usual is everything. Lehman was a victim of being in between a bank worth saving (Bear) and an insurance craphouse that but for being an investment in almost everyone’s retirement account (AIG) that if it was let go would have had way more disasterous implications than what did happen.
When the capital markets froze and deals began to blow up I really thought that it was the end. The crazy part is that almost three years on, not much has changed.