Early Retirement Extreme Forums

That might not be a bad idea for a little while. In retrospect, I have had more regrets about some of the things I have bought than the ones I didn't.

Bought 40 shares of HRS @$35.59.
Bought 25 shares of PEP @$62.09.
http://www.dividendmantra.com/2011/10/r ... uy_18.html

Bought CYS this morning--a REIT yielding 17.7% Certainly risky as they all are, but I am hoping that this continues to perform well in class.

Sold 120 shares of FXY, 1000 shares of PHYS and 1250 shares of TBT today. Sent $5K to Lending Club.

Why did you sell PHYS?

Mostly tax reasons. I had some L/T losses and wanted to offset with gains. I'm also using the proceeds from the FXY and PHYS to pay down a short-term debt from a piece of property I recently acquired from a relative. Otherwise I probably would not have sold them right now. I'm almost entirely invested in FXY, cash and gold right now in the liquid investments that aren't restricted to certain funds.

A month ago I wrote on this thread "I will also buy (if I get the chance) SPY @113.50, HNZ @50.50 and DKS @32. I am considering ignoring my personal rule to avoid tech and buy SAP @ $50."
So as of today, SPY is at $122, HNZ is around $52.50, Dks is above $37, and SAP is just over $60. Do I still own any of these? No, because I'm an idiot. I usually don't regret passing on things, but I let fear get in the way and I didn't stick to my guns. I wish I could learn to tune out the noise and trust myself a little more. My loss (over $5K).
(wow, I never realized how many cliches I could fit into such a short paragraph)

Bought FXY (after the intervention) and TLT earlier today.

I dont know much about investments from practical experience. I understand the purpose of portfolio with regards to balancing out risk and return. However, I am still not convinced; for example if there is a major inflation and the value of cash dissapeares how does that make stocks, bonds and all other investments (except gold, commodities, land and property - which have obvious physical value) safe? Having experienced hyperinflation first hand companies and government guaranteed bonds go bust as a part of the package. As mentioned previously in Australia interest rate on savings is 6-6.5% paid monthly thus I dont see why would I risk it with mutual funds or stocks when both on average in a combined portfolio have around 8% return?

noskich, there's a lot of talk about these scenarios over at the Permanent Portfolio forum (you can google it). There doesn't always seem to be consensus about how each asset will perform (at least on a single axis, most explanations I see use multiple axes such as inflation/deflation, money available/unavailable, prosperity/decline, rising interest rates/falling interest rates, and combinations thereof). Also, some businesses have a lot of capital assets (but maybe no pricing power to keep up with inflation, whereas others may not (but may get labor cheap as pay lags inflation).
In other news, it's not a trade in the sense of this thread, but I sold my TLT and bought some 30-year bonds directly. I don't have a variable portfolio right now, so unfortunately I don't have much to contribute here these days.

Tightened my stop losses last week and subsequently sold some INTC & all of my PNNT. Most of the proceeds are sitting still, but did buy some AGNC earlier this week.

Yesterday I sold some EWZ and PIN (Brazil and India ETFs, respectively), as these are my most volatile holdings. Came out flat between them. I still have some EWZ, but no PIN.
Also sold some DVY for a small gain, as I'm not too enthusiastic about dividend ETFs and although I'm more optimistic about the market than most, I'd prefer less pure beta exposure.
Looking to put more money into some stable individual dividend stocks, maybe MMM, PG, or some utilities.

Currently looking at: MDT, RTN, GD, V, BDX, T, KMI. Already made a move on one of these with half my available capital this month...will make the next move next week. I'll update once both transactions are done.

Sold all my NLY this morning and replaced it with TLT.

@ Dragline - can I inquire to your thinking on that? Both have tiny betas, why trade 14% dividend for 3%- does your analysis lead you to believe NLY will drop 11% or more in the next year? Thanks for the insight

Cheers

I've owned the NLY for about six months now and it seems to be kind of decaying, where the price is going down as the dividends are paid. I still made a little profit on it, but I wanted something that was more negatively correlated with my other holdings, which are mostly Yen and Gold, and also was not correlated with the stock market, which I don't trust right now. I am thinking this whole European mess is likely to hit stocks (and probably other assets) hard in the next year or so as things continue to unravel, which will tend to force the dollar higher short-term.
I've also been looking more into the Permanent Portfolio, which I had not really researched much before seeing the posts here. Its close to the way I was positioning myself already, although I think my biggest modifications would be to avoid stocks until they have a crash and avoid gold when real interest rates are positive (that's not going to happen anytime soon).
EDIT: This reflects my current thinking more eloquently than I could put it (but I agree with Steen on Yen):

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... nalysis%29

I purchased 37 shares of MDT @34.41 per share.
Currently looking at: RTN, GD, LMT, TEVA, BDX and EMR for a potential second purchase this month.
http://www.dividendmantra.com/2011/11/recent-buy.html

Bought 60 shares of ADM at $28.90.
Yield 2.42%
10 year DGR: 12.6% per CCC spreadsheet http://dripinvesting.org/Tools/U.S.Divi ... mpions.xls
Long term play on agriculture, inflation and dividend growth.
Larry

I know there are some fans of MLP's on the board here.
Has anyone looked at KMI? They own the general partner of KMP.

I can't confirm whether KMI is an MLP or not. I thought, as the general partner, that it isn't an MLP? On the other hand, Yahoo lists their dividend payout as 92% which would indicate an MLP.