Microsoft

[gravy train]

Mr Softee wins HUGE contract with the FEDS. Who's buying? I own a measly 25 shares which I bought at around 100 bucks. I may buy more.

PS: MSFT closed at 140 before contract announcement.

[cathy63]

We have 150 shares with an avg cost basis of ~52.50, so we've already done quite well with this stock. It'll be interesting to see what happens Monday since the big concern after last week's earnings announcement was the slow growth of Azure cloud services.

On the one hand, an up-to-$10B award on the JEDI contract will put those concerns to rest; but on the other hand, there will be court challenges and I think DoD will find it very difficult to justify awarding this contract to a single platform that's not Amazon AWS based on capability and pricing. If they'd done some kind of partial award that included Oracle and IBM, they'd have a much better shot at defending it.

[OldShooter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gravy train Mr Softee wins HUGE contract with the FEDS. Who's buying? I own a measly 25 shares which I bought at around 100 bucks. I may buy more. PS: MSFT closed at 140 before contract announcement.

Are you the only one with this information? I doubt it. While I will not stand up and salute the Efficient Market Hypothesis completely it is nevertheless true that the information you have was digested by the market within seconds of its announcement. It is true in theory that all of us little investors have the same information as the big guys, that is only in the steady state. The big guys still get and act on new information before we possibly can.

I do own the stock. It is in my total US market fund.

[Golden sunsets]

We own about 1000 shares, bought at around $30 eons ago. It sure has taken a long time for it to pop. Glad we held on. It's one of the few individual equities we own, having switched to index funds 15 years ago or so.


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[OldShooter]

Well, having "done well" with the stock really depends on the holding period.

If for @Golden_sunsets, if an "eon" is about 15 years then his/her return about matches the S&P's total return. If an eon is longer, things are not so good. As the eon gets shorter, she/he is looking better. (https://dqydj.com/sp-500-historical-return-calculator/)

The other consideration is risk. I think anyone would agree that holding a basket of stocks for a long period is safer than betting on just one or on just a few. Here is a William Bernstein quotation that I have posted here before:

"Do you think that by choosing a portfolio of only a few stocks that you hope will score big, you are maximizing your chances of becoming wealthy?

“Indeed you are, but you are also maximizing the chances of a retirement of cat food cuisine”

Re holding on until the stock pops, that seems to be pretty well wired into us as humans. We hate losses so we tend to think "I'll hang on until the stock recovers to the price where I bought it." Richard Thaler's "Misbehaving" is readable, entertaining, and gave me a lot to think about regarding my own behavior. I recommend it.

[Running_Man]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldShooter Well, having "done well" with the stock really depends on the holding period. If for @Golden_sunsets, if an "eon" is about 15 years then his/her return about matches the S&P's total return. If an eon is longer, things are not so good. As the eon gets shorter, she/he is looking better. (https://dqydj.com/sp-500-historical-return-calculator/) The other consideration is risk. I think anyone would agree that holding a basket of stocks for a long period is safer than betting on just one or on just a few. Here is a William Bernstein quotation that I have posted here before: "Do you think that by choosing a portfolio of only a few stocks that you hope will score big, you are maximizing your chances of becoming wealthy? “Indeed you are, but you are also maximizing the chances of a retirement of cat food cuisine” Re holding on until the stock pops, that seems to be pretty well wired into us as humans. We hate losses so we tend to think "I'll hang on until the stock recovers to the price where I bought it." Richard Thaler's "Misbehaving" is readable, entertaining, and gave me a lot to think about regarding my own behavior. I recommend it.

Anyone who bought MSFT at any time in the last 20 years is today most likely at least 2X ahead of the S&P500.

But why would anyone have bought and where would have been a good point? From this recommendation on July 11 2012 the S&P 500 with dividends reinvested is up 155% Microsoft 470%
http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...ml#post1211767
And by the way "O" Realty is up 172%.

Researching and buying individual stocks is no more difficult in making a decision than any corporation has to make on a major capital project. Risk management is similar, idea being you should understand what you are buying, the returns you expect, a way to measure for the successes you want and ability to change course if the investment is not working out the way you expected. Is not not difficult, but does consume time.

I utilize financial statements to judge the return I am receiving, just as a corporation would judge the success or failure of a capital project. When an investment occurs or does not occur because it will be good or bad for the stock price, you know that project is being undertaken for the wrong reason. You get to understand these by listening to conference calls and making judgement of the leaders responsible for investing your money.

Scoring Big has nothing to do with my investing, it is understanding what I am investing in and plotting an investment thesis.

[Golden sunsets]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Running_Man Anyone who bought MSFT at any time in the last 20 years is today most likely at least 2X ahead of the S&P500. But why would anyone have bought and where would have been a good point? From this recommendation on July 11 2012 the S&P 500 with dividends reinvested is up 155% Microsoft 470%.

Thanks for pointing this out. We are up over 450%. Old shooter appeared to be lecturing me, but I declined to take the bate.


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