The Last Thing I Wanted, The First Thing This Morning

The Last Thing I Wanted, The First Thing This Morning

When you read an investment method in a book, such as The Little Book That Beats The Markets, there are always a few theoretical items you have to smooth over when you deal with real money.

Take my April 3rd 2017 tranche.  I officially closed it on April 2nd 2018, the one year anniversary date and I bought 5 new stocks yesterday.  So if you look at the table on April 3rd 2017 tranche I published yesterday, declaring it closed - the ending prices are close of market on Monday night.  That is the way I always show my tranches when I close them.

But in reality, I do not and cannot sell the stocks at that price.  I try and always sell my losers the following morning (April 3rd in this event) and then I sell my winners the next day (April 4th).  Generally, this is so trivial, it does not matter so I do not show the small lag in numbers.

But I wake up this morning and see the Dow futures are down 2.2%... so this time it may have a more material impact.  Now I sold OMC yesterday already.  I rolled GILD over.  THe market was up yesterday.  So even if my other 3 stocks drop 2.2% this morning before I sell them, it will not be a 2.2% hit to me.  My napkin math shows it would be a 1% drop to the tranche.  Oh well, as Willie Nelson sang,

"The last thing I wanted
The first thing this morning,
 Was to have you walk out on me..."

For the record, here is my newest tranche and the prices I got:

4/3/2018	Start	Current	Dividend	Pct Gain	R3K Gain
AMGN	$166.46	$168.22	$0.00	1.1%	0.9%
VIAB	$29.20	$29.42	$0.00	0.8%	0.9%
GILD	$72.71	$73.75	$0.00	1.4%	0.9%
TUP	$47.32	$47.01	$0.00	-0.7%	0.9%
EGOV	$13.29	$13.40	$0.00	0.9%	0.9%
Totals				0.7%	0.9%