AFTER PARKING MOST OF MY NEST EGG IN VERY CONSERVATIVE INVESTMENT ACCOUNTS THERE WASN'T MUCH TO WRITE ABOUT. TPCI IS BACK WITH SOME THOUGHTS AND IDEAS, OTHER THAN INVESTMENT IDEAS, TO SHARE WITH CANADIAN BOOMERS, RETIREES AND SNOWBIRDS.


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Friday, November 19, 2010

1035 Days Ago

January 18, 2008.  Three things happened that day;
  1. I broke my long standing rule to never sell anything at a loss and bailed on HudBay (HBM) as documented in my post HudBay Minerals - My BIG Mistake.  
  2. I promised myself that I'd learn as much as possible about the markets and get the loss back...and not just get it back but get it back into my trading account which is a small portion of my overall portfolio.
  3. I made up my mind to never again recommend a stock to family or friends as I had with HudBay.  Fortunately none of them followed up on my recommendation, because, as a group, they are very passive investors who don't have trading accounts.
I bought HudBay on July 11, 2007 at $27.35 and sold on January 18, 2008 at $15.69.  A huge loss at the time.  Not chicken feed today.  Since then, HudBay has been down as low as $2.90. Had I held, this would have wiped out my trading account.

Fast forward to yesterday, 1035 days later.  It's all back!  Yup, as of yesterday's close, my entire HudBay loss has been recovered.

So, how did it happen?  Since selling HudBay I've bought and sold 43 times in my trading account.  Not all different stocks as I've been in and out of a few more than once.  For example, I bought and sold the Gold ETF (XGD) and the Energy ETF (XED) several times. Buying on dips and selling on gains of the underlying commodities.

I got real lucky a couple of times with takeovers.  I bought Fording Coal Trust (FDG.UN) just days before a hostile takeover offer from Teck Cominco (TCK-A).  Same thing with Canadian Hydro Developers (KHD).  Bought them a week or so before the TransAlta (TA) offer. In both cases I sold as the stock ran up rather than wait for the final takeover in order to take the profit and move on.

Very recently I lucked out again with Western Coal (WTN). Bought it on November 9 at $8.05 and along came Walter Energy (WLT:NY) with an offer of $11.50. Not too shabby for nine days.

Of course, my biggest single gain was my recent double with Scorpio Mining (SPM) as reported in my post Thank You Mr. Brieger!!!

All-in-all, I've beat the TSX by a wide margin over the past 34 months and most of my picks began with BNN and then followed up with research which been mentioned on these pages.  It's been a ride.  Along the way I learned a lot, practiced more patience than I'm used to and had fun doing it.

Good Luck & Happy Investing!

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