All Time High

All Time High

Everything is absolutely clicking right now. My portfolio was up 2% today (the fourth straight day it has been up at least 1%).  GTAT up by 7.4% was a big boost, but lots of other stuff was working. I sold my first ever covered calls with GTAT at $2.40 for September 20th at $22. So I have (with multiplier) 3,000 shares, I should get about $7,000 in my brokerage account for the sale. Should GTAT not close above $22 on September 20th, I will just keep the money and the stock. Should it close above $22, I will get $66,000 but lose the stock.

Wrong IPO

I definitely picked the wrong IPO (LMNS) to back with major funds. It is down almost 11% for me and is one of my big failures in 2014. I was tempted by another one (TWOU) at the end of last week at about $13.80. I did not buy it as I was already in too deep on LMNS. I saw where TWOU closed today at $15.61. You cannot win them all.

College Funds

My kids college funds continue to do very very well. They are all in the green. As a reminder, every year I pick between 2 and 4 stocks for their college funds. I buy what I view to be quality companies (blue chippish) with the plan of not selling anything until they go to school - ultimate buy and hold, but with what I try to make my best ideas of the year.

2009 tranche is up 178%
2010 tranche is up 93.8%
2011 tranche is up 56.4%
2012a tranche is up 170.1%
2012b tranche is up 127.9%
2013a tranche is up 107.0%
2013b tranche is up 4.8%
2014a tranche is up 0.9%.

Pretty funny. If I had those same results with my own money, I would have 54% more money today than I have. Oh well, I have done ok (in the grand scheme) and the kids should have plenty for college. But the point of this illustration, is that buy and hold is not dead - so long as you are thoughtful about where you put your money: by that I mean real investing.