verse214 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > For those of you claiming to be up 40-50% on your > entire portfolio you better sell some of your crap > quick because in order to have made that much you > had to have been fully invested in equities - > risky ones at that My retirement fund’s flirting with 40% YTD, and it’s had at least 15-30% in cash/bond funds throughout the year. It’s hard to take the other side with current sentiment levels. There’s a lot of money on the sidelines still.
I am up 25%. Studs ABB IBM UEPS HK Dogs BRK JNJ
My personal investments are all Index-based - I’m a big picture guy. I bought a lot late last year when SPX was at around 900, and have been holding until now. So, I’m up overall. However, there was that early-2009 dip that got me a bit worried.
steph96 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > verse214 Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > For those of you claiming to be up 40-50% on > your > > entire portfolio you better sell some of your > crap > > quick because in order to have made that much > you > > had to have been fully invested in equities - > > risky ones at that > > > Not necessarily. I wouldn’t exactly call WFC, > JPM, or MSFT all that risky, but if you got in at > the right time (close to the bottom) like I did, > then a 40% return is easily attainable. I would have thought buying JPM & WFC in early March was risky.
soddy1979 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I would have thought buying JPM & WFC in early > March was risky. Good point. My point was that I wouldn’t consider either one to be that risky now and going forward.
soppisoppi Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > KarenC Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > soppisoppi Wrote: > > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > ----- > > > No investments. > > > > > > Trying to go long KarenC, wouldnt mind riding > > that > > > one … > > > > > > > > > sorry in advance kaz > > > > > > Watch it you - not a fan of those types of > > comments! > > Sorry in retrospect as well kaz Shovel+Hole+Soppisoppi= Digging self deeper in hole.
soddy1979 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > steph96 Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > verse214 Wrote: > > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > ----- > > > For those of you claiming to be up 40-50% on > > your > > > entire portfolio you better sell some of your > > crap > > > quick because in order to have made that much > > you > > > had to have been fully invested in equities - > > > risky ones at that > > > > > > Not necessarily. I wouldn’t exactly call WFC, > > JPM, or MSFT all that risky, but if you got in > at > > the right time (close to the bottom) like I > did, > > then a 40% return is easily attainable. > > I would have thought buying JPM & WFC in early > March was risky. Well, indirectly, most of us are long bank stocks through our jobs and bonuses; if the banks do well, we get paid more money and we don’t get fired. Plus, if your 401k looks like mine, a sizable chunk of it will be in bank stock or options on bank stock anyway.
Read Zvi Body’s interview today. The guy says never invest in stocks.
times were crazy in areas of the mkt other than equities- and a lot has changed so I don’t agree at all that my investments are cr@p now. Of course there was risk at the time- ergo the reward- but we are in a different environment now and I am not referring to a bull market. Take for example CEV- this is a Municipal CEF. YTD is 70% as 2008 year end saw a big downswing in muni valuations. CEF’s have unique leverage features meaning they get forced liquidations which is greatly exacerbated by the fact that there is not too much volume in the underlying to begin with. Being a CEF- it was also trading at a great discount to NAV at the time so it was triple-y bad. I didn’t get in at the perfect time, rather a bit early, but I’m still way ahead (50% on average) and the tax free income is increadible. Since the leverage is priced using fed rates most funds distributions have been rising ever so slightly since interest expense is so cheap. I don’t see the the muni market taking another apocalyptic nosedive anytime soon, so I’ll hold on to my positions. Unlike equities there is little upside left- especially when interest rates shoot up, but this is basically a savings account so I’m fine with my tax free 7% on current mkt value (13 on cost basis) return for the foreseeable future. I also hold some commodity and HY CEV’s that I bought on the same logic. Both have done well. I did get burned on a couple RE ones- was up to (-60%)- but they are at break even now so its a wash.
verse214 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > For those of you claiming to be up 40-50% on your > entire portfolio you better sell some of your crap > quick because in order to have made that much you > had to have been fully invested in equities - > risky ones at that Define risk, please? And I am not looking for the EMH definitions of risk like … risk is the standard deviation, blah blah. Disclaimer: I have not purchased any financial stocks. Purchasing unloved, out of favor, beaten down companies at discount to liquidation, replacement, or conservative long-term earnings power is not a risky proposition as long as you commit yourself to securities that are both safe and cheap. You call it potato…I call it opportunity. If your time horizon is next week, maybe that’s another story. But my time horizon is 3-5 years. See you there.
^ My time horizon is 30 seconds. Oh damn, I’ll be back, my upper intraday Bollinger band was reached.
^ Are you talking about the head and p*enis formation? Or the d*ck in your mouth formation? Those are both bull’ish signals.
Up about 10% since May on mainly ETFs…
Started in 5/2008 with $11,500. As of right now its at $20,500. Not a bad way to make some extra spending money. Big winners recently are FAS, AIG, DVAX and LVS. Mostly playing with Calls and Puts.
I’m up big as well. Are we overbought?
akanska Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I’m enjoying the tax free income 
Classic akanska.
you b*tchs need to buy. dont be p*ssys :)
PE on the S&P is about 120 right now. Historical median is around 15.5. Very hard to see how this is sustainable. Even if the 120 is computed based on trailing earnings, this presumes that earnings will have to grow at around 600-700% this year to converge to historical averages. If you use the PE of 30 that was at the height of the dot-com boom, you need earnings to grow about 300% to get there. Are earnings likely to grow 300%-700% over the next year? Well, some companies have negative earnings, so weird things are conceivable; but they dont’ seem likely. I’m very frightened at what a double-dip is likely to do to the economy, and with a PE this high, I’m nervous that this is what we are going to have. Yes, things are better, and yes, the Greenspan put has become the Geithner put. There may be good long-short pairs out there, but I would have market risk hedged. I’ve been out of the market since May, and boy has it hurt to be out and watch see everything go up like this, but with valuations like this, it has always ended in tears. I did step back in a few weeks back, going long AAPL, short IVV, long GLD. My short got stopped out, and I’ve let my longs run. But I fully expect some kind of correction to come and will tighten my stops soon.
Operating P/E based on 2009 earnings is 16-17 if you look on the S&P website. No idea where you’re getting 120 from.
iheartiheartmath Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Operating P/E based on 2009 earnings is 16-17 if > you look on the S&P website. No idea where you’re > getting 120 from. A bunch of different sources… http://www.bullandbearwise.com/SPEarningsChart.asp http://seekingalpha.com/article/161619-s-p-500-s-pe-ratio-of-139-isn-t-sustainable http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticle/articleid/3480738# http://www.bearishnews.com/post/1299 …but you’re right that there are large disagreements on what the right PE for the market is right now. I’d be interested in what kinds of assumptions or calculation differences lead to disparities on the order of a factor of 10. It may be that the difference between “above the line” and “below the line” expenses are doing this.