It’s Been Awhile…

Damn, I have really been slackin’ on posting this month. I have a lot of respect for bloggers who post everyday. It can be quite hard to find the time, energy, and inspiration to do this day in and day out, especially after a long day at the “day job”. That being said, I do have a lot of ideas running around in my head, and a lot of hopefully good posts in the works. So if you happen upon this infant fetus of a blog, I hope you return!

I just wanted to take a quick look back at the latest developments in my personal “portfolio” of stocks. The last stock I purchased, ASIAInfo holdings, has shot up over 20% since my purchase after an announcement on Dec. 6 that it is acquiring Linkage Technologies. It feels pretty darn good when a stock you very recently purchased shares of jumps like that. My Sell Rules say to sell when a stock has risen 20% from my buy point UNLESS it has risen more than 20% in less than 3 weeks. Since that is the case, I will consider holding on to it for a long term capital gain while continuing to watch the price/volume action.

The other issue I recently purchased is IAMGOLD (IAG). IAG has not faired that well since my purchase. It gained about 12% in 2 weeks, then reversed and nearly triggered my 8% stop loss. But IAG appears to be working on a new base, so I am still optimistic that I can come out on top with it.

And finally, back in October I posted about Visa reporting a $1 billion stock buyback program. Since that announcement, Visa has gained over 14%! 

Even with these recent gains, I still by no means consider myself a proficient investor. Overall I have only in the last couple weeks overcome my losses, now only up about $200 on my total investments. To be succesfull I need to continue learning, and assessing my trades.