Anyone Diving in Today??

[Lisa99]

The 'nice' thing about a correction like this is you may not have to do anything to arrive at your new allocation...

The lazy man's way!! I would say I like it....but not so much

 

[nbw888]

Bought some GPL and SVM today. DXD Jan '12 calls are doing well. I plan on purchasing specific stocks all the way down....

 

[RetirementColdHardTruth]

Yea, I see it as a buying opportunity. However, I will be dropping in with $10k over the next 10 days. If it keeps on going down I may consider adding another $10k to the pot. This strategy worked really well for me on the way down during the last crash! Buy hey over 4% down in a day sounds like a SALE to me!!!

 

[FUEGO]

Sold a little VXX that I have been holding for a while (volatility index). Bought some small cap international (SCZ). Missed the absolute bottom but got close enough. Buying opportunity (not saying it is the bottom, just 10-15% cheaper than it was in the last six months).

 

[Beryl]

I have a small "Vegas Fund" that I moved to cash last Monday. I think I'll buy some ETFs tomorrow. I guess that is what it was designed for.

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Like several have mentioned, I was thinking about taking my AA down from 50:50 to 45:55. So I'll just cruise along this time and let it happen automatically.

We are sure getting a lot of practice in riding out recessions and bear markets. After this it should all be child's play .

 

[copyright1997reloaded]

Did my first non-trivial buying since Sept 2010. Bought 5k total stock market index, 5k small cap, a small amount of SPY in my son's trust fund, 200 FNFG a few days ago and 400 FNFG today, and 200 PBR right around market close. Overall, a nibble in terms of overall asset allocations. Today was NASTY and I can foresee being given the "opportunity" to covert more cash to stock. My asset allocation was about 56% equity, 44% fixed/cash (with a heavy emphasis on Short term cash/CD's and inflation adjusted bonds on the fixed/cash portion).

Longer term, even though I am retired, I was planning on somewhat increasing the equity allocation as I think currency debasement continues to be the most likely way politicians will attempt to "fix" the current debt mess. To me, this means that continuing to skew to investments with some level of inflation protection is the way to go...(e.g. resource rich/oil/gas companies, gold/etc companies, agricultural, inflation protected securities, some tech taking market share and/or having pricing power either directly or via lowered component costs, countries/regions that are resource rich or which I expect to have a relatively shallow recession....and so on.)

 

[W2R]

Like several have mentioned, I was thinking about taking my AA down from 50:50 to 45:55. So I'll just cruise along this time and let it happen automatically.

We are sure getting a lot of practice in riding out recessions and bear markets. After this it should all be child's play .

Yes, we are getting pretty good at this!

My comfort zone is 45:55 (equities:fixed).

In May I thought I would try a little experiment and go from 45:55 to 50:50. I was miserable with that more daring AA throughout June, and the experiment really drove home that while 45:55 is comfortable for me, it is not overly conservative for me either.

So, I sold enough at that little peak on July 7th to get back to 45:55, and gained about $75 (essentially nothing) and a lot of experience. This was all within the TSP, so this little experiment will cause no tax worries. I am SO glad that I was back in my comfort zone for today's crash.

 

[GregLee]

Yea, I see it as a buying opportunity. However, I will be dropping in with $10k over the next 10 days. If it keeps on going down I may consider adding another $10k to the pot.

Here, too. I started a mutual common stock fund account with $10k today, and if the market doesn't rise in a few weeks, I'll add $10-20k.

 

[grumpy]

Added to positions in eight dividend paying stocks at deep discounted prices: ABT, ADP, JNJ, FTE, PAYX, PG, WMT, WM. Will buy more tomorrow if the prices drop more or stay down.

 

[JPatrick]

With apologies to cat lovers, tomorrow ought to at least "dead cat bounce."
How high the feline flys, may depend on the jobs report.
It's actually Monday I worry about.
In any case, I'll no doubt take another dose of DVY.

 

[haha]

With apologies to cat lovers, tomorrow ought to at least "dead cat bounce."
How high the feline flys, may depend on the jobs report.
It's actually Monday I worry about.
In any case, I'll no doubt take another dose of DVY.

This is not a prediction, but it remains true that once the public changes course they tend to presist in that new course for a while.

It might be instructive to review the threads right here on this board after the market had started down in late fall of 2007. Lot's of announcements of "blue plate specials" that turned out to be not so special, at least when the offer price is compared to what it might be 12 or 18 months later.

Without QE (1), we might still be looking for a bottom. And although I have no doubts BigBen would make QE(3,4,5...i), the current political situation may make it hard for him to do, or make the results different if it were done.

It is tempting to bite at a "bargain", but many quality stocks were cheaper as recently as last August , even after the setback of the last few days.

Ha

 

[Surewhitey]

I've been aggressively buying...

July 29th - NLY, 220 @ $15.97 & 600 @ $16.51 Now @ $17.93 & 15% divy on top.
Aug 1 - ABT, 200 @ $50.48 and VSVIX 2000 @ $16.13 (small value fund)
Aug 2 - VFINX, 142 @ $115.63 (s&p index fund)

8 days down is my signal to buy in...NLY was a gift that day...just like all the mREITS.

My TGT, CTL, TOT & PNRA has been suckin' wind though...still up appx. 5% for the year vs. 0 to down for Nas & Dow.

Shows what I know...added to my PNRA and bought some CMG today...

 

[ziggy29]

Without QE (1), we might still be looking for a bottom. And although I have no doubts BigBen would make QE(3,4,5...i), the current political situation may make it hard for him to do, or make the results different if it were done.

We really did back ourselves into a corner by not getting serious about the debt when we could most afford it -- when the economy was strong, tax revenues were more robust and 95% of the people had jobs.

Had we done those things, maybe we wouldn't feel the urgency to push toward austerity at the worst possible economic time to do so. But we are now faced with two very unpleasant options; tax hikes and spending cuts in a terrible economy (the worst time to do either) or continue to pile up a debt which is bordering on completely out of control.

I suspect Ben's helicopter would be flying a lot more if we could have generated some surpluses (or even balanced budgets) in stronger economic times. But the sheer size of the debt today is causing it to be grounded more than it would otherwise be.

 

[Brat]

Sitting here listening to Cramer and my mind wandered back to a discussion I had years ago on an airplane. The guy worked for Realty Income Corp. He spoke highly of the company and their leadership, their criteria for investment. Does anyone have an opinion about O today?

 

[clifp]

Sitting here listening to Cramer and my mind wandered back to a discussion I had years ago on an airplane. The guy worked for Realty Income Corp. He spoke highly of the company and their leadership, their criteria for investment. Does anyone have an opinion about O today?

O is a core holding of mine, although I did sell a large chunk in the low 30s when my covered calls got exercised. I have written puts for the stock at 30 and I will not be at all upset if they get exercised in Dec.

To me it is one of the ultimate dividend stocks, in that management is really focused on how can I make money for our long-term shareholders. You can't read their wonderful annual reports and not get a feeling that these guys understand the importance of dividends. Now I freely admit that I've bought into the story of the company and that colors my evaluation of the stock price. So I'm probably paying at at least 10% more than its worth due to management/story, but still at $30/share it yielding 6% and has long long history of raising dividends.

 

[clifp]

I have to say today was a quite a shock. I didn't even realize the market was done until 30 minutes before a volunteer activity. So I missed all of the excitement, I remember the days of 6 figure losses in my portfolio, so since I missed that today I don't feel horribly bad.

I shorted a couple of stocks a couple of weeks ago including Neflix which suffered a gratifying $14 loss today. I also had open order for puts, most all of which got executed. Most of these don't expire until Dec or Jan. if the market is still down at the time I won't be upset to pick up Cisco at $12 Microsoft @24, Abbott Labs or $48. I am less thrilled with Pfizer at $16 and GE @$17. I also bought small positions in the Schwab broad market and international index funds since they are commission free.

The only position which bothers me is I had put Aug 34 put outstanding for USO the oil ETF, and the price of USO dropped to 33.74.

 

[Nords]

Sitting here listening to Cramer...

Well, I think we're beginning to zero in on the problem.

Does anyone have an opinion about O today?

Here's a good starting point:
Dividend Growth Investor: Realty Income (O) Dividend Stock Analysis

 

[veremchuka]

It was all I could do to resist exchanging some Stable Value for S&P 500 in my 401k today. Watching CNBC from 3 to 4 was like watching a horror movie, the speed and magnitude of the decline was breathe taking. We were at -350 on the DJIA at 11:45 from -250 just a few minutes earlier but that last hour made that look tame.

I figured Friday will be down again so I held off but it was hard, at 3:58 I was still trying to decide.

I exchanged some on 7/29 which now looks like a huge mistake and again on 8/3 as that looked like a good point but after today I question that. I'm not so sure another exchange before 1150 makes sense now. Maybe 1100?

This is looking scary again. The problem is you have no idea just how low this will go, a good entry point now may be a terrible one in a week if we drop another 10%. My exchanges have been just 5% so they aren't big but do 3 or 4 and that starts to really shift AA.

 

[clifp]

Well, I think we're beginning to zero in on the problem.


Here's a good starting point:
Dividend Growth Investor: Realty Income (O) Dividend Stock Analysis

A decent analysis. It is worth noting that the payout ratio from FFO dropped from almost 95% to a more sustainable 90% ratio in the latest quarter.


Also I highly recommend that you check out the Realty Income website which is probably more investor friendly than any I've seen. The 2010 Annual report is only ok, but several of the past years have been fun and very educational.

 

[misanman]

To me it is one of the ultimate dividend stocks, in that management is really focused on how can I make money for our long-term shareholders. You can't read their wonderful annual reports and not get a feeling that these guys understand the importance of dividends... So I'm probably paying at at least 10% more than its worth due to management/story, but still at $30/share it yielding 6% and has long long history of raising dividends.

Sorry for a dumb question but I saw that they announced a dividend of $.144875 payable August 15th. I don't see how this squares with the reference to a 6% dividend yield. What am I missing?

Thx

 

[TN_INVEST]

Sorry for a dumb question but I saw that they announced a dividend of $.144875 payable August 15th. I don't see how this squares with the reference to a 6% dividend yield. What am I missing?

Thx

.144 per month = about $1.73 per year

For a $31 stock, that equates to approximately 5.5% (of course this changes as the stock price changes)

 

[okapi]

Took a liitle out of VFSUX today and put it into my VWIAX holding.Boring,not very daring,but it felt good.

 

[foxfirev5]

I am patiently waiting for the S&P to drop to around 1120. That's where it was on 3/3/10 when I rebalanced into a more conservative AA. The only problem was that I did it in a Key West bar and my napkin calculations were a little off.

 

[clifp]

.144 per month = about $1.73 per year

For a $31 stock, that equates to approximately 5.5% (of course this changes as the stock price changes)

I was suggesting a buy price of $30, and reinvesting the monthly dividends (compounding) which makes the yield at $30 5.92%. O closed today at $30.01