Jiesen tries to take over the world

[jiesen]

how to REALLY make some money

An interesting tidbit about Buffett and USG:

http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?action=m&board=7080974&tid=brka&sid=7080974&mid=314492

This a.m. USG announces it has reached settlements on its asbestos issues with everybody involved and will be out of bankrupcy soon. Berkshire gets a $100M fee for "backstopping" USG's $1.8B "rights offering." BRK's 6.5M shares of USG are also up $9/share to $89/sh so far in pre-market. Buffett bought USG for ~$15/sh a few years ago. So it's now worth close to $600M. Just your typical six-bagger.

As the usual amazing Buffett twist, WEB bought his entire position in USG for about $100M. Now, a few years later, Berkshire gets a $100M FEE from USG this morning for backstopping its rights offering.

[jiesen]

sold USG for a 3.6% gain

just sold at 94.4. Was hoping to get a good $5 or $6 out of it by the end of the week, but with $3 profit already in hand, why risk holding it overnight if I don't have to? I'll be happy with this, and not whine tomorrow when it's over $100.

Thanks again, Spike. I'm going to ponder this trade tonight to figure out exactly what was going through my head when I did it...

[jiesen]

thanks for the TA input, Spike! And for bringing this to my attention in the first place. Win or lose on this one, I'm going to learn something- that's for sure.

[spikefader]

USG man, what a pop today huh. That was Creme of the Crop Superstock ya know - just closed it Friday and missed that 20% pop today lol

I saw it makes a c long and then a little triangle breakout and it looked set to continue booming on the daily and weeklies. I actually got very aggressive with my long entry and got caught in a bulltrap Doh! Then the 'c' failure and my -4% stop, so I figured shoo, that ain't a good sign - so did the old spikefade play looking for intraday pivot of 79.65. Not sure if I'll close it there or not yet, but that'll give me green POTW which I need lol

Good luck with it long dude. If you're lookin' to add, I'd suggest 86.00 price support, then 79.65, then yesterday's low. Under there, I wouldn't be holding a long for it myself.

[jiesen]

Bought USG today

Took a 2% position in USG at 91.1- saw Spike take it long in the POTW. The asbestos settlement should keep this running for at least a couple more days, so I figure I'll try to use Spike's TA to scalp a few bucks off of the run. Of course the minute I buy it, I see he's flipped over to the short side. oh well! the news still says this stock goes up this week. But I won't argue with the chart either on this one, and if it drops to 85 I'm out.

[jiesen]

selling the market today

I'm moving about a 2% position out of mutual funds into bonds today. I believe from this point, a 5% return is likely to do better than the overall market- at least in the short run. We could easily see another large correction (I'm pretty sure that one will occur before the NAS gets to 2500), and if we do see a 10% correction this year, I'll put the money back to work again. Until then, I'll be happy with my 5% on this chunk of change.

[jiesen]

I found some pretty good reading, in case anyone's bored. It's good to take your eye off the ball for a minute sometimes, and look at the bigger picture:

http://www.oid.com/public/html/excerpts/CenturyMgmt2004/CenturyMgmtExcerpt2004.pdf

[Websman]

I gave up on mutual funds when I found out that I could do much better on my own. I guess I'm a control freak.

[jiesen]

OK, I'm gonna try to use this thread to (aside from taking over the world) disclose my equity trades to you guys, seeing how everyone else seems to be doing it...

I appreciate any comments, jabs or whatever else smack-talk you may have to say about my moves. It all helps me out- since I'm here trying to learn how to be a better investor, and the more information the better...

I'm selling the market today (<1% of port) by closing out an underperforming mutual fund.

To give perspective, here's an *approximate* breakdown of my positions:
25% cash&bonds
25% mutual funds
25% $$MM stocks
25% other stocks
other stocks include:
10% each in LJPC and XING
>1% each in MRK MSFT DRUG.OB SSRI
<1% each in MSPD CNXT
that's it.

I include in my $$MM stocks RRGB and WSB in addition to the stocks $$MM currently holds... Also, I have increased (at least doubled) positions in PRX BEL OFG GGI and NUS

A year later, and it's time to reflect on my portfolio again, to see how it's been working out (or not). This year has not been very spectacular for me. Though I'm not up at all, I'm not down much either (down perhaps 5% overall). Both of my major holdings this year (XING and LJPC) took major hits, and I all but closed out my XING near its low at around $6. I've continued to buy LJPC(D) automatically (as I do bonds and mutual funds) through my retirement plan (guess where I work) so while it's down over 50% for the year, most of what I've bought this year is still worth 15% more than I paid for it (I get a 15% discount to market). While the returns from these two positions alone would be enough to make me cry, these poor returns were nearly balanced out by decent returns from the rest of my portfolio: $$MM stocks returned around 15-20%, mutual funds ranged from about 6-12% and cash/bonds paid 2-4%. So, my portfolio ended up looking much like it did last year, with:

(approximately)
25% cash&bonds
25% mutual funds
25% $$MM stocks
25% other stocks
other stocks include:
15% in LJPC
1-2% each in XING MSFT AMLN GFCI.PK SSRI
<1% in DRUG.OB MSPD AFT

Also, in the 25% $$MM stocks, I still count my overweight positions in PRX BEL OFG and NUS (GGI was sold, as was RRGB) and still own a small position in WSB. I have also picked up small positions in ARLP and ACRG.OB (a $$MM top 5 stock) along the way, and still expect more than 100% out of each of those.

[jiesen]

just sold those shares for 0.94. didn't expect it to hit that quick, but had a limit order in place just in case. I might stalk it again in the low .80's but doubt it will come back far enough for me.

man, what was I thinking letting those $0.83 AFT shares go at 0.94? Coulda had another $0.40 out of it. Doh!

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=AFT&t=5d

[jiesen]

bought an additional 1% position in GFCI today (total is still under 2%)

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/051219/20051219005440.html?.v=1

see? Grifco's CEO also thought it was undervalued at 0.2! Now I'm up over 50% (on that purchase) in a week.

[jiesen]

holy crap, look at LJPC go!

[spikefader]

[jiesen]

bought an additional 1% position in GFCI today (total is still under 2%)

[jiesen]

just sold those shares for 0.94. didn't expect it to hit that quick, but had a limit order in place just in case. I might stalk it again in the low .80's but doubt it will come back far enough for me.