Sharebuilder Experiment -- An Expected Failure?
My Sharebuilder account is down about $134 right now, and I doubt it'll enter an uptrend anytime soon.
The biggest burner is one stock pick - COMV - that I bought a measly 4 shares at for $29 a piece. Those shares are now worth about $10 a piece.
Meanwhile, GLD, the "gold ETF," which was actually doing very well a few weeks ago, is now "correcting" itself, and I'm down $30 on that investment. $30 isn't bad, but I have a feeling that it will be a while before GLD hits $100 a share again. I think it will, one day, given that every so many years the economy looks bleak and people start to pour money into gold. I don't know if it will ever go beyond that. I don't know how long it will take to get there again. I don't know how much money I'll "lose" in the meantime. I see people saying GLD could be worth $70 a share or less. That'd be a "big" loss. I own about $500 worth - 5 shares. So a $30 drop per share would be a $150 loss.
I guess that's not that bad. If I want to hang on to GLD as a backup. It's supposed to be "insurance" in a portfolio. Of course, most people say it should be in metal form, not paper. But GLD is kind of like owning the metal, right? It's investing in the bullion anyway.
I wonder if I should have sold GLD when it was up to $100 a share. I would have made a nice little profit of $47 at its highest... which would have been better than losing $300. Much better.
I'm happy to hold on to all of my investments for many years. I'm trying to invest and then "forget" about my investments, even though I follow how they're doing, but as soon as I put my money into that account I pretend it's play money so I don't have to worry about it. Maybe that's an awful investing strategy?
Regardless, I stopped investing in GLD. The $500 is enough of my portfolio at the moment to devote to that.
Meanwhile, I've started diversifying a bit more. Away from GLD and away from individual stocks. Right now my Sharebuilder portfolio is:
GLD: $507.10 (5.8 shares)
BMXX: $251.83 (money market)
EWZ: $244.33 (3.08 shares)
MCD: $194.83 (3.41 shares)
PDB: $163.46 (6.2695 shares)
KOL: $109.10 (2.88 shares)
WFMI: $106.01 (3.069 shares)
EPI: $105.73 (4.48 shares)
XLF: $69.65 (2.65 shares)
COMV: $43.48 (4 shares)
3 comments:
I'd still suggest keeping up
investing in whichever stock you
think is the best deal at the time.
When things look worst is by
definition the best time to buy. And don't give up on gold yet, though
you did 'buy high'. You (and I) have
spent quite a short time in the
market through sharebuilder....We
need to let time work FOR us.
Have you considered investing in stock index ETF's like SPY? You might also want to diversify into broader international exposure, rather than chasing the next hot thing.
Dividend: Most of my stock savings is in my Vanguard accounts which are stock index funds. The sharebuilder account is meant to learn more about the stock market. I think it's fairly diversified, esp internationally, as I have shares of a Brazil ETF, a Coal ETF (which has lots of Asia companies in it), and now a Clean Energy Index, which also touches a lot of Asia. Plus, I have an India ETF. I'm not sure what other countries I should have in my port - I guess I could use some of Europe since they seem to be doing so well.
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