Thoughts From the Hard rock Hotel

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We are at the Hard Rock Hotel at Universal Studios. It is Saturday morning and I only have my IPad, so I have not been following the markets that closely. I would generally say I outperformed on Wednesday and Friday.  One big reason was HIMX, a smaller stock that I took a large position in post their earnings. My average basis is 8.94 and on Wednesday they spiked 10% to 10.38. One Friday they pulled back to $10.00, but I am sitting on a very nice short term gain already. HIMX is in my discretionary portfolio, so I can sell when I feel like it. But I think HIMX still has at least 20% upside.

AAPL has gone up a lot the past few days, it does look like an iPad Christmas. I still own some shares, but am having some remorse and selling the majority of my shares at the $500 to $510 range as they closed yesterday at $556.

CS, which thus far has been a very quiet stock in my discretionary portfolio, moved up about 3% on the week.  Any least the direction was right. This is my play on a European recovery. It is a tepid play, buying a Swiss bank instead of a bank in a more troubled spot like Ireland or Spain.

NUS really had a solid week and is now at $127. Recall just two weeks ago I was thinking about capping my upside at $120 via some covered calls.  I have signed up to do options now, but am hesitant.

TCPT had another bad week. I was really tempted to bail on this stock as it felt like they wanted to go to zero. But stepping back, it actually feels to me that a lot of the basic material stocks are currently way oversold. It is not the time to be selling. So I will be patient. My initial plan was to hold through 2015, and I should not let fear guide that position.

It has been a quiet two weeks for me on the transaction front.  I have done nothing except allow a few dividends to reinvest.  I suppose I am still a believer that the market is extended and my preference is to be holding my 27% cash as opposed to putting more in right now.  I do expect that when tapering is made official, thre will likely be a sell off and at that point I may do some buying.

I will try and post my weekly update and my view of the November 30th 2012 tracking portfolio tomorrow evening when I land back in Dear Connecticut.