W00t! Go me!

[hatman]

Okay, I don't usually like to talk about money and I do try to avoid patting myself on the back. But...

A couple of weeks ago, I looked around and noticed that the stock market was doing pretty well. In particular, the phrase "all-time high" (in reference to the S&P 500 index, in which I have a good chunk of my portfolio invested) caught my attention.

I thought that was cool and was ready to just move on. After all, I've no need of the money at the moment and stock prices are path-independent. All that matters is the price when you buy and the price when you sell. Anything in between makes no difference.

But then I thought of something which should have been painfully obvious: I can sell off some shares now, hold on to the money (or move it somewhere else), and then (if I want) buy back more shares after the price drops. (So when it goes up again, I'll have more than I otherwise would have.) You have to pay taxes on the sale, but if the value is at its peak, it's worth it to take advantage.

So I put in the orders. Sold off some shares of my more volatile funds. Not all, but a reasonable chunk. I'm still shuffling the money around a bit, but soon it'll be in more conservative funds. Bonds, mostly.

That happened in the middle of last week. Sales went through Thursday morning.

Thursday and Friday, the market went up some more. Oh well. What can you do? It's been on an uptrend for a while now. But the important thing is that, sooner or later, the bubble will burst. If I sold a little early, well, at least I still sold while the value was pretty high.

This week... The bubble burst. Value is still pretty high, but there's been a sharp decline:



(That's from Yahoo Finance. I'm not happy with some of the things Yahoo does with privacy, email, and tracking cookies, but they've got some very handy free stock services.)

See that last vertical line, right where the market hits its peak? That's Monday, June 4. I sold my shares on Thursday, May 31. The other funds I sold off do pretty much the same thing.

Bam! Two business days before everyone else, I cashed in. Took a chunk of the money and ran. Two days. W00t!

Comments

[doranwen.livejournal.com]

Lol, yay for making some money on it! The whole idea of the stock market makes me nervous--glad someone's got a handle on it and made something of it. :)

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

Dad's pretty good at it, for a hobbyist. He found some good funds for me (which still make up the bulk of my investments) and helped me figure out what else I wanted to buy.

Mostly, for me, it's a matter of finding the right people to take care of things for me. I buy funds rather than individual stocks (except for a little bit I play around with on the side). The fund managers spend all day figuring out which individual stocks to buy and sell. Tracking stuff. Deciding what is and isn't a good investment. All I have to do is find a fund with a successful history, low management fees, and what seem to me to be good prospects. Then I give them the money and they take it from there.

Done well for me so far.

[kb91.livejournal.com]

Congrats! Now you just have to hope it doesn't rise back up before you buy again. *g*

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a little torn there. I only sold off a fraction of those shares. So I want to see that money grow. But I just sold off the shares, so I like seeing it go down (to prove I made a good, well-timed decision).

For now, like I said, I'm putting the money into more conservative funds. Stuff that should grow, while the rest of the market goes down. I'll probably keep it there for a while. Eventually, if the market looks to be at a low and on an upswing, I may move it back. We'll see. But I'm not a heavy trader. I've bought funds with money as it came in, but I think this is the first time I've actually sold stuff off.

OT!

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

Whoa, email birthday notifications are finally working. Happy birthday! :D

Re: OT!

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :) Happy my birthday to you. ;)

[annabtg.livejournal.com]

Yay! :D

Incidentally - I barely got online this past couple of days at all, so I want to wish you right here and now a belated Happy Birthday :) I wish you all the best. :)

Hugs,
Anna.

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

lol, love the elephant. Where did that come from? And can I name him "Dumbo"?

Thanks for the bday wishes. :)

[annabtg.livejournal.com]

Glad you like him! I don't know where this icon comes from, but I find it inexplicably cute ^__^ And you can name him whatever you want. :)

See ya,
Anna.

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Well a net search turns up a few people trying to claim it (including a YouTube posting - which seems to be broken ATM), but I'm guessing this movie is the true original. Check it out.

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry, meant to also include the YouTube link, for whatever that's worth.

[annabtg.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that! I didn't have Quick Time to watch from the other link.

See ya,
Anna. :)

[beansideirae.livejournal.com]

hmm. i dont really understand this stuff, and probably never will; but glad it's working for ya :) making money is always nice.