It's Nice When Everything Works as it Should.

My large two stock portfolio looks to be in good shape. SCUR finished yesterday at $6.85 giving me a total profit on that stock of $903.00 and CLRK finished at $17.58 giving me a more modest profit of $248.00.

Yesterday the Fed did what the market wanted and the little guy like me that held onto some stock got a little bit of profit out of it. Of course I haven’t realized any profit yet as I haven’t sold either of the two stocks I hold. That’s the main thing to keep in mind when bragging to friends about your investing prowess. Until you sell there is no profit. Now, that is much easier said then done. People are greedy and always listening to the voice inside their head telling them to hang on and squeeze a little more profit out of this stock instead of selling at their target. Then the next think they now, the stock retreats and they end up selling below their original price target when they finally decide to sell. One of my rules is to never beat yourself up for taking a profit. Better to take the profit than a loss. There are thousands of stocks out there, so there will always be others to play.

The trouble is that people get lazy and don’t want to look for the next stock to play. It’s so much easier to ride the one I’ve got now than to put the effort in to find a new one. But I think if you keep a list of stocks that you watch, even when all your money is fully committed, you’ll always have options to play if you are watching specific stocks. You should also keep your list dynamic. If there are stocks that don’t appear to be moving in any particular direction take them off your list. And if you find others that are volatile, then make a point of adding them to your list. By keeping an active and dynamic list you should at least have one or two options to go into once you free up some cash.

Oil appears to be rebounding this morning but I’m not going to be fooled by this bounce. I can’t see this “rebound” lasting and see oil continuing its long term downtrend. Someone also asked me if this is a good time to buy gold. I don’t think there is any reason for the price of gold to rise. I don’t see gold as being a store of value during recessions as it once was, especially since the Federal Reserve tends to think it can manage cycles through monetary policy and good propaganda. The only reason that I think people buy gold as a store of value is during a geopolitical crisis. When something nasty happens, people panic and then run to gold but under normal circumstances, gold should just end up becoming another industrial metal the way silver has.

Since the Fed made everyone happy, and oil and natural gas have backed off, look to see a nice positive day today.