What I Am Buying Today.

[rayray]

I've been adding to AAPL

[ken-do-nim]

(03-27-2024, 05:22 AM)rayray Wrote: I've been adding to AAPL

I hope they wow us all with a new Gen AI phone feature.

[poneyboy]

added BMY, NVO, MRK, ADM, and ZTS

New positions in TSLA, SEDG, DKNG

Trimmed XOM, FANG and VLO

I think a rotation is going to happen very soon. All those over valued tech names get ready for the dump lol

[Mr1share]

Went 80% cash today and sold nearly everything but 8 names. Added to QYLD, JEPI, and DGRW

I'm limited my exposure to stocks for the next year or so, and we wait for the next big drop. Learned from experience. Don't give it all back. I'm up nearly 80% in 2 years lol. No need to be greedy. This market is way too pumped right now lol

[stockguru]

(03-28-2024, 01:29 PM)Mr1share Wrote: Went 80% cash today and sold nearly everything but 8 names.  Added to QYLD, JEPI, and DGRW

I'm limited my exposure to stocks for the next year or so, and we wait for the next big drop. Learned from experience. Don't give it all back. I'm up nearly 80% in 2 years lol. No need to be greedy. This market is way too pumped right now lol

Smart man. I have been trimming as well. I’m kind of doing same playing monthly dividend names and 5% CD’s. This market is becoming way over valued right now! Not many bargains to be had!

[ken-do-nim]

(03-28-2024, 03:51 PM)stockguru Wrote:

(03-28-2024, 01:29 PM)Mr1share Wrote: Went 80% cash today and sold nearly everything but 8 names.  Added to QYLD, JEPI, and DGRW

I'm limited my exposure to stocks for the next year or so, and we wait for the next big drop. Learned from experience. Don't give it all back. I'm up nearly 80% in 2 years lol. No need to be greedy. This market is way too pumped right now lol

Smart man. I have been trimming as well. I’m kind of doing same playing monthly dividend names and 5% CD’s. This market is becoming way over valued right now! Not many bargains to be had!

I hear what you're saying about too fast a runup, but if the Fed really does issue 1 or more rate cuts this year, there's virtually no chance the market corrects any time soon.

[rayray]

(03-28-2024, 04:59 PM)ken-do-nim Wrote:

(03-28-2024, 03:51 PM)stockguru Wrote:

(03-28-2024, 01:29 PM)Mr1share Wrote: Went 80% cash today and sold nearly everything but 8 names.  Added to QYLD, JEPI, and DGRW

I'm limited my exposure to stocks for the next year or so, and we wait for the next big drop. Learned from experience. Don't give it all back. I'm up nearly 80% in 2 years lol. No need to be greedy. This market is way too pumped right now lol

Smart man. I have been trimming as well. I’m kind of doing same playing monthly dividend names and 5% CD’s. This market is becoming way over valued right now! Not many bargains to be had!

I hear what you're saying about too fast a runup, but if the Fed really does issue 1 or more rate cuts this year, there's virtually no chance the market corrects any time soon.

“Far more money has been lost by investors in preparing for corrections, or anticipating corrections, than has been lost in the corrections themselves.”

Peter Lynch


I've been through the Dotcom Bust, the Great Recession, 2018, 2020 and whatever happened in 2022. Good solid investments have a very good chance of recovering. Trimming is good, having an "x" amount of cash is good but sitting on the sidelines and deciding when to jump back in can be a tough one.

I'm fully invested for the most part--However I do have over 100k sitting in a high yield MMA. But look at it this way, I've had 100k plus sitting making 5% but missed out on phenomenal gains! If that 100k was spread out across my top 10 it would be worth a lot more than 100k.

[stockguru]

(03-28-2024, 04:59 PM)ken-do-nim Wrote:

(03-28-2024, 03:51 PM)stockguru Wrote:

(03-28-2024, 01:29 PM)Mr1share Wrote: Went 80% cash today and sold nearly everything but 8 names.  Added to QYLD, JEPI, and DGRW

I'm limited my exposure to stocks for the next year or so, and we wait for the next big drop. Learned from experience. Don't give it all back. I'm up nearly 80% in 2 years lol. No need to be greedy. This market is way too pumped right now lol

Smart man. I have been trimming as well. I’m kind of doing same playing monthly dividend names and 5% CD’s. This market is becoming way over valued right now! Not many bargains to be had!

I hear what you're saying about too fast a runup, but if the Fed really does issue 1 or more rate cuts this year, there's virtually no chance the market corrects any time soon.

All that’s already priced into the market. You watch and see what happens. I have that feeling in my stomach that the market is about to take a dump soon. All these greedy bastards and pumpers will be in a rude awakening lol . Buy higher, expect higher. Is that the game we are playing now haha! I will wait it out, and wait for better opportunities.

[ken-do-nim]

(03-28-2024, 06:05 PM)rayray Wrote:

(03-28-2024, 04:59 PM)ken-do-nim Wrote:

(03-28-2024, 03:51 PM)stockguru Wrote:

(03-28-2024, 01:29 PM)Mr1share Wrote: Went 80% cash today and sold nearly everything but 8 names.  Added to QYLD, JEPI, and DGRW

I'm limited my exposure to stocks for the next year or so, and we wait for the next big drop. Learned from experience. Don't give it all back. I'm up nearly 80% in 2 years lol. No need to be greedy. This market is way too pumped right now lol

Smart man. I have been trimming as well. I’m kind of doing same playing monthly dividend names and 5% CD’s. This market is becoming way over valued right now! Not many bargains to be had!

I hear what you're saying about too fast a runup, but if the Fed really does issue 1 or more rate cuts this year, there's virtually no chance the market corrects any time soon.

“Far more money has been lost by investors in preparing for corrections, or anticipating corrections, than has been lost in the corrections themselves.”

Peter Lynch


I've been through the Dotcom Bust, the Great Recession, 2018, 2020 and whatever happened in 2022. Good solid investments have a very good chance of recovering. Trimming is good, having an "x" amount of cash is good but sitting on the sidelines and deciding when to jump back in can be a tough one.

I'm fully invested for the most part--However I do have over 100k sitting in a high yield MMA. But look at it this way, I've had 100k plus sitting making 5% but missed out on phenomenal gains! If that 100k was spread out across my top 10 it would be worth a lot more than 100k.

That's an amazing quote.

I have, uh, $12k in an emergency fund :  I don't think it's humanly possible for me to sit on more cash than that.  I love buying stocks too much.

At any rate, tech and AI are only my secondary play.  My primary investments are in home builder stocks.  It was nice on Thursday for all of mine to hit their all-time highs, so maybe they are overpriced too, but I still think we are in the goldilocks scenario for home building because existing homes up for sale are still so low, coupled with the fact that home builders underbuilt for the last 16 years because they got burned so bad in the Great Recession. The ideal scenario for me is mortgage rates hitting 6%, or the upper 5s. That way, demand will surge, but existing home sales still won't provide much competition. My plan is to get out of home builders once mortgage rates reach 5%. That's when the flood of existing homes comes to the market, as all those people with 3 and 4 percent mortgages decide that's good enough and they can't wait any longer to move/upgrade/downsize.

[rayray]

(03-29-2024, 06:18 AM)ken-do-nim Wrote:

(03-28-2024, 06:05 PM)rayray Wrote:

(03-28-2024, 04:59 PM)ken-do-nim Wrote:

(03-28-2024, 03:51 PM)stockguru Wrote:

(03-28-2024, 01:29 PM)Mr1share Wrote: Went 80% cash today and sold nearly everything but 8 names.  Added to QYLD, JEPI, and DGRW

I'm limited my exposure to stocks for the next year or so, and we wait for the next big drop. Learned from experience. Don't give it all back. I'm up nearly 80% in 2 years lol. No need to be greedy. This market is way too pumped right now lol

Smart man. I have been trimming as well. I’m kind of doing same playing monthly dividend names and 5% CD’s. This market is becoming way over valued right now! Not many bargains to be had!

I hear what you're saying about too fast a runup, but if the Fed really does issue 1 or more rate cuts this year, there's virtually no chance the market corrects any time soon.

“Far more money has been lost by investors in preparing for corrections, or anticipating corrections, than has been lost in the corrections themselves.”

Peter Lynch


I've been through the Dotcom Bust, the Great Recession, 2018, 2020 and whatever happened in 2022. Good solid investments have a very good chance of recovering. Trimming is good, having an "x" amount of cash is good but sitting on the sidelines and deciding when to jump back in can be a tough one.

I'm fully invested for the most part--However I do have over 100k sitting in a high yield MMA. But look at it this way, I've had 100k plus sitting making 5% but missed out on phenomenal gains! If that 100k was spread out across my top 10 it would be worth a lot more than 100k.

That's an amazing quote.

I have, uh, $12k in an emergency fund :  I don't think it's humanly possible for me to sit on more cash than that.  I love buying stocks too much.

At any rate, tech and AI are only my secondary play.  My primary investments are in home builder stocks.  It was nice on Thursday for all of mine to hit their all-time highs, so maybe they are overpriced too, but I still think we are in the goldilocks scenario for home building because existing homes up for sale are still so low, coupled with the fact that home builders underbuilt for the last 16 years because they got burned so bad in the Great Recession.  The ideal scenario for me is mortgage rates hitting 6%, or the upper 5s.  That way, demand will surge, but existing home sales still won't provide much competition.  My plan is to get out of home builders once mortgage rates reach 5%.  That's when the flood of existing homes comes to the market, as all those people with 3 and 4 percent mortgages decide that's good enough and they can't wait any longer to move/upgrade/downsize.

I keep my emergency fund away from my investment accounts, I wouldn't be able to control myself either. The bulk of the cash sits in my kplan because I don't micromanage it, it just does it's thing and that's it. The individual equity accounts are mostly fully vested, through new deposits/contributions and dividends--I'm on target to make 29-31k this year in dividends. All of it basically gets invested as it comes in.

Another thing that is at risk when sitting on the sidelines is missing the 10 best trading days of the year.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/chart-t...he-market/

https://fmpwa.com/the-cost-of-missing-th...ck-market/

Missing the 10 best market days of any given year is very bad for one's portfolio, now of course, getting hit with the 10 worst days is really gut wrenching too! The problem is that some of the best days come right after the worst days! So, what does that tell the investor? Timing the market is very very difficult. And cashing out, sitting on the sidelines is what one is trying to do--time the market. Aside from some lucky investors, timing the market is almost impossible.

I've been in the market for a long time now, most of my career. The DotCom Bust, the "Lost Decade", the Great Recession, the anti-oil/gas years, DEI years, Green Agenda years, Covid Year, 2022 was the worst! There have been so many bad times in the marlet if I was afraid to be in the market I'd never be in it! I'd always be on the sidelines, waiting and waiting and waiting.

What I do during the bad times is keep contributing and adjust portfolio, dumping weaker stocks or slower growers for better companies. No one wants to lose 50% plus of their portfolio but if in the market for any number of years, decades, it's going to happen. It's happened to me, maybe more than once.

Over many years being in the market one hopes their portfolio has grown to a decent amount to either fully fund or supplement with pensions/social security their retirement years. And that's the goal of being a average investor.

Another term that we all hear is "Building Wealth". I'll be honest, I don't know what that means, because to me "Wealth" means A LOT OF MONEY, and to me "Wealth" is millions of dollars--I don't think that's a reasonable outlook, or goal because one can become easily discouraged as an investor. Because if one aims high, well, that investor might take unnecessary risks that don't have to be made. Time in the market hides/corrects a lot of mistakes, time in the market is everything. When starting out the goal (for me anyways) was to get to $500 then $1000 then $1500 then $2500, $5000, $10000 then so on, it just keeps going.

As the portfolio grows so do you as an investor, you change as you age, but your investing patterns/style change too, hopefully for the better. Time in the market, that experience with the proper tools ought to make one a better, smarter investor. When I look at myself as an investor, I get made at my past, usually it's for not being aggressive enough, not once did I ever look at my past and said, "My gawd I'm glad I was on the sidelines" because I'm not sure that's a possibility, for me anyways? I would have messed it up somehow, and badly to boot.

Do I think it's smart to trim and adjust so-called overvalued stocks for less favorable? I guess so. But I've seen winners keep on winning and losers keep on loosing for very long periods, so, not sure how well that works TBH. But it's viable, it will make one more diversified, to spread out one's portfolio and that's good. Trimming and keeping an "x" amount in cash is also good, when the shit does hit the fan it doesn't take much to invest and see those gains, so that's nice. Lot's of choices, personally, I believe as one's portfolio grows it's best to trim, keep that 5% to 20% in cash at any given moment and invest accordingly. 

If years or decades away from retirement, then that 50% drop, along with new contributions will not matter, the investor will get through it just fine. However, an understanding of what's going to happen and getting through it will require a cast iron stomach.

[ken-do-nim]

Great post Ray! Hats off to your $30k/year in dividends and I know that, like myself, you aren't chasing high yielders; it's more of a side effect of buying good companies.

I already had my experience last year in missing big market days; won't do that again.

I agree 2022 was the worst. I'm still looking up at some of my 2021 numbers with binoculars, mainly because my company stock was $140 then and now is $65. But I only overall passed my Sep 2021 net worth this month.

When I think of building wealth, I think of building a portfolio that will never diminish with age and I will be able to pass it on as an inheritance. Call it the portfolio tipping point. For many people, they compute what age they expect to live to, what kind of retired lifestyle they intend to lead, and determine how much they can safely draw down per year so that when they reach their expected death age, they zero out. For that reason, most people's net worth peaks when they are around age 60, and then goes slowly down as they hit the drawdown phase. But for everyone on this forum, I expect we can completely ignore the "how old do you think you will get" math, and build a portfolio that we can safely draw 4, 5, 6 or even 7% down a year, and it will still grow despite that. And a lot of that drawdown will be from dividends that are reliable, so we can avoid the trimming decisions. My mother, for instance, lives by trimming her retirement accounts. When the market is up, she sells. When the market is down, she reduces expenses. I don't want to live like that. Nice, reliable dividends with raises that keep up with inflation.

[Mr1share]

Everyone has there own opinion.

I'm still in the market, I just prefer safety and a guaranteed 5% each month over growth and overvalued investments lol. Give me my 27k a month in dividends and I can live on that.

But at some point all these pumped names will come back to reality, it always happens. I will stick with names like URI, WSO, and ITW, which will outperform most names.