Stock Market

Cashed out a few weeks ago to let the volatility subside.  I was in homebuilders.  STUPID move.  Cashed out way too early.  I set limit orders to buy on a big drop.  going to have to adjsut them up a little.  sticking with homebuilders though.  They've made me a BUNCH of money this year.

I'm thinking we're going over the cliff for like a week.

I have a diverse portfolio.  Of the stocks that I own, 80% are in it for the long-haul.  20% I trade inside of 6 months.  I've sold a bunch before Thanksgiving when they were high and I plan to buy a bunch tomorrow as the uncertainty has driven things down.  I'll then ride it out over the cliff or whatever happens.

One of my favorites has been Hovnanian (HOV).  Homebuilder.  A solid company just waiting for the housing market to recover.  I bought at $1.60 and in just 6 months, she's up to $7.  430% increase?  Not bad!  I'm sure it'll drop over the cliff, but it'll recover soon enough.

Funny this thread came up.  I'm actually doing some math and thinking right now. 

I'm looking to find a little more liquidity in my holdings and am looking to close out a couple of accounts that have been sitting relatively idle for the past 4 years.  The question is whether I exit now and pay the taxes in a few months - or if I liquidate January 2nd then defer taxes for approximately 15 months? 

(plus, pretty sure my tax rate will be higher in 2013 - but not sure if they higher tax rate justifies the 12 months of deferred taxes)

like I said - I'm doing a bunch of math right now and sitting currently on the fence.

my hope is that most of the volatility has already been factored into the market and the next 7 days will be relatively banal.

I'm sitting here wishing I'd sold my apple stock when it hit 700...so I could have reinvested it all right now and gotten more shares.

Now I am just going to sit on it and wait...the stock will go up once we figure out all this stupid cliff nonsense...plus if I managed to deploy one of the next two years I can sell the stock that year and pay WAY less taxes on it...possibly none.

I'm oh so tempted to jump in and go short on the index ETF's because I think things will get ugly in the next few weeks, but if I do I can all but guarantee the Dow will go up 1000 points in about 3 days.  I have a 100% track record of picking the wrong direction of the stock market every time, so I'll be sure and let you guys know if I jump in.  It will be a great opportunity to make money in the opposite direction for you. 

We are not changing anything dramatically:  Slightly underweighting US equities and to a larger extent bonds, and overweighting emerging market equities and bonds, especially high grade corporate bonds.

I am not holding or trading any individual stocks at the moment.  Cash position is about 5% higher than normal.

Hey, anyone know what's going on with the tech sector overall?  it's been diving as of late, but if you look around, tech and computer items are the biggest sellers.  Phones are flying off the shelves, you can't keep tablets in stock, all these items have peripherals that will have to be bought, etc......... but the sector as a whole is really taking it in the shorts.  Can anyone shed any light on the matter?  I'm having a hard time figuring it out???????????

I'm the furthest thing from an expert in the area but I think it's about expectations.  The market had high holiday sales expectations baked into the tech stock prices, so when the numbers come in that aren't quite what they were expecting the stock gets punished.  So, even though sales are huge, they're not huge enough to keep up with the expectations.  Hope that makes sense.

Fund managers locking in their gains for the end of the year?

As AAPL goes so goes the rest of the tech sector. Kind of basic but kind of true these days. As AAPL has hit the skids so has eveything else tech related. On top of that expectations for year end gizmo sales were too high and resulted in disappointment. Tech these days is very app driven. Apps in general have kind of a short life span, fickle end users, and subject to low entry barriers. Tech not my favorite sector these days. 

I know. Cemex has issues for sure. There was just a big cement conference in Miami a couple weeks ago. Outlook for the next 1 to 3 to 5 years was pretty positive all things considered. Problem is accessability. Cemex is easily playable in the US markets where as the other cartel memers are trickier to play if you don't have access to european markets. So its kind of Cemex as in industry proxy. That said its gone from 3 to 10 over the last year. Thinking 7.50ish would be a worthwhile entry somehow if given the chance.

XHB, hmmmmmm......  That's definitely worth a look.

Quite possible we might know a few of the same people.

Sorry I didn't mean to insinuate it was bad in any way.  You're exactly right, it has been solid and dependable.

I bought it at $16 back at the end of 08 I think for the exact same reason you outlined.  It's a solid safe stock with a good dividend.  When I sold it it had stalled out at $34 range and I saw some opportunity for a better return elsewhere, that's all I meant.