I sold some LGIH at $70.10 to raise cash. (near the all-time high)
I sold some UBNT at $66.80 to raise cash. (also near the all-time high)
I bought some SQ at $39.27, and some more at $37.63.
I bought some ANET at $229.60.
I bought less Splunk at $78.80.
I bought a little of some other stuff.
I used all the cash I had raised.
I followed what I’ve recommended in the Knowledgebase to do at times like this (when they are all down so there isn’t a company-specific reason). I sold companies that didn’t drop to buy stocks that were off 5% to 12%. We’ll see how it comes out. I may have been early.
So far, I have bought nothing. I sold my trading positions in SHOP and SQ, SHOP for a gain, SQ for a loss.
I am watching ANET, NVDA, and SQ to buy. My current top four positions are NVDA, SQ, LGIH and ANET. LGIH was already reduced by 2/3rd’s so I am holding. I do not intend to add to SQ above $30, and more at $25. If it holds above that, I miss out. ANET target is $210. NVDA looks good now at $198, but $190 is where I would get greedy.
This is profit taking and rotation. I have a few ups today. Casey’s General Stores (CASY) is up almost 3.5%. This is the quick serve and gasoline store that has suffered from weak agriculture sector and low gasoline prices. Pays a dividend. ULTA is up 2.7%–has been pressured by Amazon fears. Michael Koors, the affordable luxury fashion chain is up 1.3%. SBUX is up 1%. These are all consumer facing brick and mortar so I think this is just money sloshing around, profit taking out of high flying e-commerce and SAAS companies and looking for a home. I don’t have enough of these to make it worthwhile to trim. I have lots of cash anyway.
Not fun having your top 8 positions down 6%, 8%, 2%, 4%, 4%, 5%, 5%, and 3%. But it is what I have expected at any time and I look to see how many days or weeks it has been since these were trading at today’s levels. Not very many.
I am not going to dig deeply into my cash pile unless/until the broader market tanks. So far, this is just noise, IMO.
I looked into them for some time and much more cursorily follow them today. I believe Saul held for some time. Anyway, I became disenfranchised with the fact management set very lofty SSS goals in their three categories. This wasn’t necessarily “guidance” but everyone took it as so including me. They continually failed to meet those “goals.” Management should have been more honest and forthcoming about true targets as opposed to fictitious goals.
The stock has really languished since I’ve followed it and that feels like it has been for some time now. I live in the Midwest and used to travel in Casey’s country quite a bit. The stores are popular and they are in a great niche. They make great margins on their prepared food and people seem to love it, especially the pizza. Their focus on small communities most of them less than 5,000 people is a great idea and they do it well.
They built another distribution center in Terra Haute, IN to help expand to the East and Southeast where there are many, many small towns. This does seem like a great idea, but I’m not sure it has done much to the bottom line lately. They are continuing to expand and have lots of opportunity to do so.
I haven’t checked back into the stock lately and now may be a good time to do so. The big problem with Casey’s is simply it being a gas station. Long term electric has the chance to win out though I think it will take many years for EVs to infiltrate the smaller communities. You never know though and the market is a forwarding looking beast. The company does have a cushion under it to a degree due to real estate holdings.
Not sure this helped at all, but figured I’d throw it out there.
I looked into them for some time and much more cursorily follow them today. I believe Saul held for some time. Anyway, I became disenfranchised with the fact management set very lofty SSS goals in their three categories. This wasn’t necessarily “guidance” but everyone took it as so including me. They continually failed to meet those “goals.” Management should have been more honest and forthcoming about true targets as opposed to fictitious goals.
The stock has really languished since I’ve followed it and that feels like it has been for some time now. I live in the Midwest and used to travel in Casey’s country quite a bit. The stores are popular and they are in a great niche. They make great margins on their prepared food and people seem to love it, especially the pizza. Their focus on small communities most of them less than 5,000 people is a great idea and they do it well.
They built another distribution center in Terra Haute, IN to help expand to the East and Southeast where there are many, many small towns. This does seem like a great idea, but I’m not sure it has done much to the bottom line lately. They are continuing to expand and have lots of opportunity to do so.
I haven’t checked back into the stock lately and now may be a good time to do so. The big problem with Casey’s is simply it being a gas station. Long term electric has the chance to win out though I think it will take many years for EVs to infiltrate the smaller communities. You never know though and the market is a forwarding looking beast. The company does have a cushion under it to a degree due to real estate holdings.
Not sure this helped at all, but figured I’d throw it out there.
Best regards
A.J.
That was helpful.
I would not worry about the gas. Gasoline has low margins, at least for the next few years the dwell time on electric will be longer.
I bought some SQ at $39.27, and some more at $37.63. I bought some ANET at $229.60…
Makes me feel kind of good, like maybe I’m learning…
I just got a large cash infusion yesterday by selling my BWLD that was just bought out (it was my largest position at one time, was still top 5). Today (before seeing Saul’s note), I bought SQ, ANET, SHOP, and NVDA. Didn’t put it all in those, but that’s were the first investments went.
None of my sell limit orders hit, so now I’m out of cash until they do. I have to say
that feels a lot better than sitting on 40% cash.
It’s the end of the month and closing in on the holidays and end of the year. The money
monsters are just sweeping up and getting ready to report to their lemmings and justify
their fees and demand a raise for next year. This may last awhile but it shouldn’t surprise
anyone here much. You can’t go up and up month after month and expect it to keep going
forever without a break.
So we could consider this the start of a well-earned break. I hear the first round’s on Saul.
Or was it Chris?
Or Bear
Or … Hey, where’s everybody going?
Dan