I have never bought Amazon stock. Jeff Bezos could be a much better person to his employees and that is usually enough for me not to buy into a company.
But I have been softening my stance on Amazon. I even started being an Amazon Influencer. Why? Welp, money. Turns out I need money. Whether it’s from being an affiliate for Amazon or investing in the company, I am ready to sell out. I need cash. I give in.
Watching this Mark Roussin video pushed me over the line tonight:
Amazon looks too ripe and I don’t want to miss out. So when I get up in the morning, unless the price goes up like crazy before I buy some, I will purchase a little bit of Jeff’s company.
I have been away from posting here and on the newsletter.
It has been hard to motivate and post because I had to sell everything (again). Cashed out.
In the real world, I have been barely squeaking by. I needed cash so bad I could only leave myself with $21 in my Public account.
I missed out on so much NVIDIA profit. I had a lot of NVIDIA-related investments too…okay well, not a lot to the outside world, but to me. $600 worth if you include NVDY. But I sold it and then it went on another run like NVDA does.
Bitterness sets in.
But I am coming back now because I want to document what I hope is a comeback. What can I do from here? With $22 dollars in my Public account? Can I build it back and leave it alone (not rob from it)?
Here are my holdings as I post this:
KO and GIS are forever stocks for me. NVDY was intended to be an income generator (until I had to sell most of it) and I plan to build that back – as long as the NVIDIA Train keeps chugging.
LLAP and HLTH were sorta of penny stocks I bought because I only had a couple of bucks and wanted to buy SOMETHING, just to feel like I was staying involved.
It Begins Again
Starting tomorrow I will have a little cash to put in and a little more knowledge than I had two years ago when I started paying attention to the market. Hope you join me.
I plan to post every Monday at least if not before. Hope you join me and you can learn something along with me or at least be entertained.
You just say, “Fuck it” and start selling everything.
Don’t wait until the perfect time. Don’t get sentimental. Just cut them loose.
Okay, well, I did wait till there was an ‘up day’ and started selling everything. But it was one day after I had decided I needed to sell it all, timing happen to be good.
I truly only started paying attention to trading a year ago, and I got my ass kicked. “Lucky” for me I am broke, so I didn’t have a lot of money to lose, but I lost money.
When you’re broke, losing money sucks even harder.
Sorry, daughter, I can’t buy you that new shirt for school, daddy bought Apple at the wrong time.
So, I was kind of pissed off at the whole thing and sold everything but five stocks. From 55 to five in two days of purging.
Then I pivoted my investing strategy.
Since I suck and I am an idiot, but still want to keep investing, I put my ego aside and went all in with ETF stocks.
Let someone else figure out what’s good, because I sure as hell don’t know what the hell I am doing (even though I thought I did).
Update: Since pivoting to a small about of ETF choices (with one ‘moon shot’ stock), I have been up the past two days of trading. Very very slightly up, but up.
Normally, I only have the occasional day that I am up. So, I might be making progress.
I will continue to post here and send out newsletters from here, and keep you updated so maybe you can learn from my good and bad choices, or at least be entertained.
This is not the 69 Mustang that I used to have. This one is in WAY better shape than mine was
Welp, no. You should not buy because you think Mustangs are cool.
Like with every stock purchase you make, do your research and blah blah blah. And do it like a robot. Basically don’t let your heart get involved with your stock purchases.
Controlling your emotions is a big deal in investing:
But I did. I bought with emotion. I totally went with my heart when I bought some Ford stock last year after opening up my Public account.
Buying Ford stock hasn’t done much for me except give me a few cents of dividend cash. But I still have it because it makes me happy.
Before You Go
In went through my head as I wrote this post “Wait. Investing. Cars. Investing in cars. There MUST be a book!” Yep, there is a book:
If you want to read up on how to control your emotions, try “Master Your Reality” and “The Emotional Investor” and you might not buy stock in your first car, like me.
Trimming stocks is a lot like trimming peach trees (duh, Mikey, that’s why they call it trimming)
This week I will be looking to sell off some stocks. But if I do, I’ll likely be taking loses – the Market sucks in August, as trading historians say.
I am looking to sell because I am spread too far out. Too many little baby holdings.
As I write this I am in on over 50 stocks and Uncle Warren says that is too many, so that is too many.
This brings me to the Trader Term Of The Day:
Trimming
Now, there are not a lot of real good definitive definitions of trimming when it comes to stocks, out there. But I know what you’re thinking, it’s kind of obvious:
Trimming your stocks means you’re selling off some of your gains (or losses) so you can get some cash out for something else, or to improve the health of your holding.
It’s so tough though. Every stock, no matter how little it is or how little I have invested, I believe in for one reason or another.
I don’t want to dump any of them. I want to keep them all. But I need to listen to people that know what they’re talking about. Warren Buffett knows what the hell he is talking about.
If he says you should be around 20, you should be around 20.
One of these that I trim, will hit at some point.
Just last week, a company I believed in had a big bump from an earnings report.
I had trimmed this one off many weeks ago so I could get some cash out. Bummer.
It sucks but we gotta treat this like a business, and trimming stocks seems like good business. And Focusing your portfolio seems like it too. Just not as fun, though.
We’ll end with Warren talking about why you shouldn’t be owning a bunch of stocks:
Not me. Just some dude in a stock photo (Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash)
I am starting to really love that buzz, ya know?! That buzz from when you have a little cash to play with and are searching for the right place in the market to put it.
This isn’t always the case. Many days I have only .22 cents to invest with (really). And other days the stock market just isn’t very happening, or it’s simply closed (how DARE it).
So what to do? Here are a few things I have been doing and maybe you can find one that will help:
Read. Read up on all the investment blogs and newsletters. You probably have some investing book you bought a year ago you have barely opened, or some classic Warren Buffet book you’ve been meaning to buy.
Comment. Whatever trading app you use that has a social element (Public is good for this), comment on other users posts – make some financial friends. Trader Twitter and YouTube are good for this too.
Sell some stocks. Now you have some cash again. This is probably bad advice, don’t use it – truth be told though, I do this.
Podcast listen. There are plenty of investing podcasts out there. Start finding some and take notes along the way.
Take notes. Always have a notebook around and right down investment ideas you have and good info you come across.
Trim. Take a look at what you have and see if you could benefit from trimming some stocks. Maybe it’s time to sell or trim something off and take that cash and put it elsewhere.
YouTube. Like podcasting, there are a ton of investor YouTubers. I am new to this genre, so I am still figuring out the people I would trust enough to listen to every day – when I get a list going I will post about it here.
From recent viewing experience, even if you don’t have a playlist of YouTube traders yet, you can always watch a Buffet video:
Thanks for being here and good luck with your trading this week! 💵
