Shutdown Shopping?

[Shawnjeffrey]

I hadn't planned to buy anything during this shutdown period, I was expecting to hold off til the new year to contribute to my roth instead. A lot of the usual suspects(KO, MCD, PG, et al) are getting hard to ignore that these prices though.

[Kerim]

(10-02-2013, 09:15 AM)Shawnjeffrey Wrote: I hadn't planned to buy anything during this shutdown period, I was expecting to hold off til the new year to contribute to my roth instead. A lot of the usual suspects(KO, MCD, PG, et al) are getting hard to ignore that these prices though.

Yep. Especially KO, for me. It is just about at the 3.00 percent yield mark, which it hasn't seen in about 3 years.

[Horace Cugle]

I'm a little late to this discussion but I'll throw in my 2 cents worth.

I'm going to sit tight for now because it kinda feels like we're in "no man's land", and there's several things on the horizon that might cause some problems. We'll see how earnings season goes but I'll bet it's more of the same....beat on the earnings but stagnant or declining revenue.

I have 16% cash and wouldn't mind 25% but I don't want to take any profits right here. A couple of new buys I made in July - August (TGT, WEC) haven't done well either. I plan to add to these so no biggie but I should have had a little more patience. So I'm making myself stand in the corner for a while.

The only new stocks I'm looking at seriously are AMGN, BAX, CLX, O and POM. I'm not feeling it for KO either, but I have my eye on it.

[Kerim]

I think your instincts are sound, Horace. I've already spent all of the money I intended to spend in 2013 on DG stocks, and have been planning to sit on the sidelines the rest of the year just watching the action and building up some more cash. BUT, I find it really hard to resist buying more good stocks at reasonable prices. I guess it is a good vice to have, relatively speaking. At least I am not blowing it all at the [place where people gamble]!

Here's my updated shopping list:

AFL / WFC (I've been thinking about increasing my exposure to financials a bit)
PSX (LOVED the dividend raise, and if you are emphasizing dividend growth over initial yield, this may be a home run)
TGT (Eager to average down)
PM (Just can't stop buying this one)
KO (Want to accumulate some more of this while the premium is slightly reduced)

Not sure I'll pull any triggers soon. But as I said, I may not be able to help myself!

EDIT: Sorry about all the weird posts in this thread earlier today. I've deleted them now -- explanation here.

[EricL]

I still think we are going to have a 10% pullback before the end of the year but I am fully invested at the current time and don't plan on doing any selling to raise cash. Will continue to buy stocks where I see value as new cash is deposited into the account.

[Horace Cugle]

Well let's hope so because my instincts haven't been worth much lately. But my portfolio is only down 2.1% from it's all-time reached on 9/18 so I can't complain. Besides it's all about the growing dividends and I stay away from junk or things I don't understand.

I tried to add some shares of companies that were approaching a dividend increase, PSX, MSFT, PM, LMT all worked out with nice raises.

---

I tend to agree Eric. There are a lot of stocks that had a great first half of the year and not so good second half. Flat or declining prices might cause some tax loss selling. We'll see, might get very interesting.

[Ok Red]

These guys and their game of chicken are making things interesting. The end of QE1 and QE2 both resulted in 15% market drops (and great buying opportunities). Now we have Yellen up for Fed Chair - QE may never end, much like Japan - while at the same time the chance of default or prioritized payments will make the Lehman crises look like tiddlywinks. Talk about a conundrum!

[TomK]

Strong move up today on rumors of a deal that will simply kick the can down the road a paltry 6 weeks. So is the shutdown dip coming to a close, or are we headed right back down when the deal is either scuttled or understood for what it is? My hunch is that it is not over yet.

[fiveoh]

(10-10-2013, 12:04 PM)TomK Wrote: Strong move up today on rumors of a deal that will simply kick the can down the road a paltry 6 weeks. So is the shutdown dip coming to a close, or are we headed right back down when the deal is either scuttled or understood for what it is? My hunch is that it is not over yet.

I haven't seen anything about ending the shutdown... just a deal to extend the debt ceiling deadline for 6 weeks. I could be wrong.