My First Sale

What a run this market has been on!  It was exactly one month ago yesterday that I made my first purchase of SIRI, buying 100 shares at $3.01.  This stock started inching up to the selling point I had established.  I saw the stock stalling out at the $3.50 level, so I arranged a sale at $3.49.

The stock opened at $3.48 on Tuesday morning, so I had high hopes that the transaction would go through.  It took a good hour and a half after the market opened, but the stock reached that level and the stock was sold.  After fees, this stock earned me $38.08.  Not a staggering, retirement-earning amount by any means, but considering that I invested $301 for only a month and earned a return of 7.9%, I'd call that a victory.  After all, growth is what I'm after.

SIRI did surprise me when it continued its march higher throughout the day, reaching all the way up to $3.59.  That was an extra $10 I did miss out on, so perhaps that was a lesson to be learned that I should give a stock a chance to tick up a bit more, but I am quite content taking my profit and not risking losing the gains I made.  It did do what I thought it might and has since dropped back down to $3.45, justifying my thinking.

Now I have even more money to invest in a new company, so where am I going to throw it at?  Some I've been considering include CSCO, CAT, MKC, and DAL.  The only problem is that all of these have driven upward since I became interested and followed them, to levels that I feel are a bit pricey compared to where I think I might be able to get them if I'm patient.  I'm already a firm believer in that sometimes the best trade you can make is the one you don't take at all.  Just because I have the money in my account doesn't mean I want to buy something right away.  It just worked out last month that I bought both stocks almost right after I made my initial deposits.  A good analogy is let's say you find a shirt you like at a store in the mall.  You want to buy it until you look at the price tag and it makes you cringe.  Odds are it will be marked down or on sale at some point, so why not wait until then and get it for a fraction of the price.

As for my shares of RDN, they continued skyrocketing until they peaked just a couple days ago.  They reached $14.34 on Tuesday before settling, and eventually falling to $13.27 per share at close today.  I'm not worried, though, as this is a long term stock pick for me and I'm confident in it one day reaching $20 a share.

After one month, I am already up to over $775, and that's after RDN took its tumble these last few days, bringing my total gain so far to 20.3%.  I keep telling myself over and over again that I can't expect to achieve that every month, as the market won't continue to be as bullish as it has been.  But considering how long I have until that day comes that I might retire, maybe I can have a few more months like this between now and then, and have more money to play with!