Last transaction of the year!

Well, stocks have stayed up! That's a good thing for my yearly numbers. 17.0% return for 2010. Its likely to end up a little lower as people do a little, or possibly a lot, more profit taking on the last trading day of the year. So for my last payday of the year, 100% of my 401k contribution will go into the stable value fund, which will at last get me just slightly below 90% invested in stocks. I think a pullback soon is likely, so this will be a good place to be.

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Santa Rally Out of Control!

I can't believe the Santa rally is going up again! Well, I'm still over 90% in stocks, so assuming the rally holds to the end of the day I'm going to make another 1% move out of stocks today.

You might be wondering about excessive trading. Good question. As I understand it, I'm ok as long as I'm going the same direction. Excessive trading in my plan applies to "round trips" in any particular fund of over $1000. Let's hope I've got that right. :-)

Year-to-date rate of return after today's close: 16.6%

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More Rebalance Today

This is a little bit unusual, but I decided to move money out of stocks just two business days after the last time. They have inched up slightly today, and its the end of the year so I think there will be profit-taking over the next 2 weeks and I will do the same. I'm still over 90% in stocks and I think I'll shoot for slightly below 90% by year end if the stocks stay up, and especially if they go up more.

The exceptions: I kept my pacific index fund the same because Asian stocks went down a bit, and also kept my company stock the same because I intend to increase my percentage there (maybe up to 10%) over the next year because it pays dividends.

Year-to-date return: 15.7%

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Today is the day to sell!

At last! I've been wanting to take some profits for the last few days but needed to wait until today because I bought some stock on November 16 when the S&P 500 got down to 1178 and I always wait at least one month to change direction to avoid any excessive trading problems, and because its just a good idea. At the moment the S&P 500 is 1240 (after hours update: it closed at 1242.87), nearly the highest number for the year. Time to take profits. But as I never do anything sudden, I am only moving 1% (as always) of my total portfolio out of stocks and into stable value. Because stocks have been climbing so much in the last 2 or 3 months, this still leaves me slightly over 90% in stocks. This means that if stocks go up even more, I still stand to profit (and will sell some more) and if stocks go down considerably, I've got a cash reserve to use for more buying.

Year-to-date return: 15.6%

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Up Up Up!!!

Stocks are going up some more and its making this contrarian more "sellish" (I'm never truly "bearish"). Therefore when payday comes in a couple of days my full contribution will go into the Stable Value Fund. I'll still be over 90% invested in stocks (currently about 94%). Later in the week I will almost certainly sell off slightly, probably 1% of my portfolio shifted from stock funds to stable value. The only reason I don't do it today is that I did some buying (also 1%) on the 16th of November, so I want to wait at least one month to reverse direction.
Year-to-date rate of return at end of today: 15.5%

First time here?