March 1, 2011

Updown Performance : February +0.4%

Practice invest


My Updown account was UP 0.4% in February 2011.    The S&P 500 however was up 2.6%


So far in 2011 I'm up 0.5% and the S&P 500 is up 5%.    The index is beating me by 4.5% in just two months.   I'm not doing very good at all so far in 2011.  

One problem is that nearly half of my Updown  assets are in cash.   So when my stock assets go up the overall improvement in my portfolio is weighed down by the cash assets not changing.  If all my assets were invested in stock then I'd have about 1% improvement rather than 0.5%.   Still that doesn't get me too much closer to the S&P 500 performance.

I also haven't been putting much of any time into Updown lately.   I used to spend more time analyzing stocks and finding good bargains.  But I haven't done that much at all lately.   Investing in stocks takes time if you want to do it right. 

Trading activity in Feb. :
I sold off lots of stocks to take in profits :
160 shares of CVX at $99.6  - I paid $64.32 in July 2009  = 54% gain
450 KLAC at $47.9 -  Paid $39.47 in Dec. '10 = 21%
1500 SB at $9.6 - paid $8.03 in April '10 = 19.5%
400 KO @ 64.4  - paid $54.54 in April '10 = 18%
12889 NRF @ 4.97   - paid $3.5 for 5700 shares in Oct 2008 and then paid $5.56 for 7189 more in Sept '09 = for about 7% gain in total

I also bought the following:
2000 MSFT @ $27.94
710 BA @ $70.98

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