I started by funding the Datek account with $6000 on 1998-01-29. The next chapter records, what has happened since then.
Portfolio
The items are listed in the order I bought them.
Now you can see the current value of the portfolio, thanks to a script wich fetches the (delayed) stock prices from Yahoo.
- JAVA (was SUNW)
On 1998-02-05 I bought 20 shares of Sun Microsystems at 47 9/16. I wanted to invest in tech stocks. I'm not a fan of Wintel computers. It was the time when it was announced, that Microsoft would invest in Apple. SGI didn't look good, and there were rumours, that it would go Windows NT soon. So Sun was the only company left. After I bought them they first dipped, but afterwards they rised and on 1999-01-12 had doubled their value. So according to my rule, I sold half of them. On 1999-04-09 there was a 2:1 split, so I had again 20 shares of SUNW. The next doubling took a bit less than the first, and on 1999-09-29 I selled again 10 shares at 95 1/8. The 1999-12-08 split got me up to 20 shares again. On 2000-02-10 I could again 10 at 95 1/8. The split on 2000-12-07 brought me back to 20 shares. Since then they dropped heavily.
SUNW: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- COMS
My second acquisition on 1998-03-16, were 30 shares of 3Com at 34 15/16. I wanted to buy a company which makes components for the Internet. Cisco would have been the obvious choice, but somehow I don't like to go with the big (monopolies) of a market. So I choose 3Com, also because I like the Palm PDA. At first it turned out to be a bad choice. The share dropped quite heavily after I bought them. It started to climb upwards at the end of 1999 just to fall even deeper. A new runup started about a year later, this time going up enough to hit 69 7/8 on 2000-02-15, making me sell 15 shares of them. From there it went just downhill.
COMS: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- Q (was QWST)
QWest is a company, which owns a large network, and is steadily expanding. They expanded to Europe by buying EUnet International. On 1998-06-01 I bought 30 shares at 32 1/8. They rose even faster than SUNW and I could sell half of them on 1999-02-04. On 1999-05-25 there was a 2:1 split, so I again own 30 shares of Q. Unfortunatly I missed the peak at 64 on 2000-03-20 and since then the stock moved mostly downwards.
Q: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- XLNX
Xilinx manufactures mainly programmable logic and gate arrays. I think, that one day FPGAs might become an interesting alternative to conventional CPUs. So on 1998-06-01 I bought 30 shares at 34 3/8. Even though FPGAs haven't replaced CPUs yet, Xilinx rose even stronger than Q and I sold half of my shares on 1999-01-05 at 68 3/4. I still owned 15 shares of XLNX. They have become again 30 when shares split 1:2 on 1999-03-12. After seven more months they had doubled again. On 1999-08-13 my limit order to sell 15 XLNX @ 68 3/4 was actually executed at 71. On 1999-12-28 there was a 1:2 split increasing my number of shares back to 30. By 2000-02-16 it had doubled again so I could once more sell 15 at 68 3/4. It first climbed a bit more but then lost quite a lot.
XLNX: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- WOSI
A untypical investment for me. Reading a newspaper I came across a short article about this company and decided, I'll try to go with it. On 1998-06-29 I bought 300 shares at 3. They almost never got above that price during the next half year, and are typically at about 2 1/2. The fall continued, and the price fell even below one dollar during some periods. In September 2000 a special meeting of stockholders was held which decided to let World of Science become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Natural Wonders and pay USD 1.15 for each share of WOSI. On 2000-09-15 I got USD 345 for what I had payed USD 909.99 realizing a loss of USD 564.99.
- MIPS
MIPS produces RISC processors. They were owned by SGI, but became an own company during 1998. I had the chance to buy 70 shares at 15 some weeks after their IPO on 1998-08-25. The price at that time was very close to the IPO price. Since then they are rising very fast and I could sell half of them on 1998-12-11. On 1999-03-30 they had doubled again, so I could sell another 17 shares at 60, leaving me with 18 shares in my portfolio. On 2000-06-27 owners of class A MIPS stock got also some class B shares for free, in my case it was 15. Latere these were merged thus now I have 33 shares. Anyway mid 2007 the combined value is less than a third of what the original shares were worth before the gift.
MIPS: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- VWPT (was MCRE)
Metacreations is the company which produces programs like Kai's PhotoSoap. I thouht, their products may have a good future and that by having a special look and feel, could be attractive to customers. Also their shares seemed pretty cheap and on 1999-01-14 I bought 130 shares at 7 7/8. For almost a year they were worth less than what I paid for them, and started to rise only at beginning of 2000. But then they rose pretty fast and on 2000-02-04 I could sell 65 shares at 15 3/4, and just about a month later, on 2000-03-10 I could sell 33 more at 31 1/2. Somehow the company has become Viewpoint Corp. and sold all the business which was the reason I bought them for. My mistake I got not rid of them.
VWPT: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- AAPL
On 1999-01-25 I finally dedcided to go for Apple anyhow (see my remark under SUNW) and bought 25 shares at 40. Had I decided initially to go with them, I could have gotten them for just 15. Nevertheless I'm still happy with how they developed. 1999 is a good year for Apple and on 1999-09-20 the shares rose up to 80, and I sold 13 of them. BTW, I've bought also one of their new PowerBooks in June. On 2000-06-21 they split 2:1 so I now have 24 shares.
On 2000-10-07 I decided to do something I hadn't done before. The month before Apple stock had fallen from 53 to 26 in one day. I thought this was unjustified. So I decided I would do two things. For one I would buy additional 50 stocks at 20 if it would reach this point. That happened on 2000-10-11. And because I had now invested a total of $2000 into Apple (ok, got $1000 back on 1999-09-20) I decided that I would double the amounts at which I buy future shares and at which I sell shares. From now on I will buy $2000 worth of a stock, and sell when they reach $4000. This happened for the first time on 2004-11-02 when I could sell 37 share a 54 each. In march 2005 they split and I had again 74 shares. On 2005-09-20 they had already climbed so much I could enter another order to sell 37 shares at 54 each. Its success story continued and on 2007-05-15 I sold another 19 shares at 108 each.
AAPL: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- APLX
Applix is a company which makes an office package for Linux. It is for me an indirect investment in Linux, which might have a future. On 1999-02-19 I bought 180 shares at 5 5/8. During the first months APLX didn't develop very well, but in August they started a steady rise. On 1999-08-27 I could sell half of my shares at 11 1/4. On the same day they went over 18 in after hours trade, so that I placed a new order to sell further 45 shares at 22 1/2 the same day, just in case the rise would continue during the next days. The next Monday 1999-08-30 this order was executed, as the price had doubled just over the weekend. This is the most dramatic increase in share price I've seen on any of the stocks I own. Since then they stayed well below my selling limit.
APLX: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- CORL (was COSFF)
Even though Applix didn't develop well in its first month, I decided to buy Corel, so that I' have another company interested in Linux. When CORL was at aroung 4 3/4 I decided, that buying at 4 could be a good price, and entered a limit buy order, which would last 30 days. I hoped to get them, when they would dip that low. Well on 1999-03-16 CORL not only dipped down to 4, they fell right through down to 2 point something, after Corel announced bad earnings. The order was obviously executed at 4 which at the end of the day seemed a rather high and not a cheap price. But it was probably an overreaction. CORL later recovered, and reached the double of my buying price on 1999-09-20. On that day they rose very fast, so when I noticed that it would be time to sell half according my rule, they had already passed 8, and I got 8 3/4 for the 120 shares I sold. The next double was reached on 1999-11-29, a day on which CORL went up almost 50%, and my limit order to sell 60 CORL at 16 was executed. Linux frenzy continued in December, and on 1999-12-08, between the Andover.net and the VA Linux IPOs, it reached my next limit of 32. Of course after such a rise, it had to fall again. Then on 2003-09-08 Corel was bought by Vector Capital, and shareholders got 1.05 per share. My 30 shares got me 31.50 minus 20 reorganisation fees. So I lost 988.50 which subtracted from the gains I had give me a net gain of 1951.41.
- ORCL
I bought 42 shares at 24 on 1999-05-13. I did this after following discussion on the misc.invest.stocks newsgroup. The arguments raised were, that the stock is currently rather cheap. and that Oracle will profit from the Internet, because most Webserver applications will need a database. In contrast to when I bought 3Com, this one is a buy into an "almost" monopoly, as Oracle dominates the database market. On 1999-10-29 I sold half of them at 48. They doubled within less then two months allowing me to sell 11 shares at 96 on 1999-12-20. There was a 2:1 split on 2000-01-19 so I now have 20 shares of ORCL. A further 2:1 split on 2000-10-13 brought them to 40.
ORCL: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- EMC
I first noticed several posts in the misc.invest.stocks newgroup mentioning EMC as a good investment. Then, when once chatting with a friend about my investments I told him, that I always have difficulties picking up a new stock, whenever I get money out of another sell. He just sayed "Buy EMC, they have fine products". So on 1999-08-18 I put a limit order to buy 16 EMC at 59 which got executed the next day at a price of 58 3/4. On 2000-01-03 I noticed EMC nearing the point where it would cost twice what I paid for, so I entered a limit order to sell 8 shares at 117 1/2. This was executed on 2000-01-03 at a price of 119 3/8. On 2000-06-02 they had a 2:1 split, so I'm back to 16 shares.
EMC: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- BEOS
I first heard about Be and its BeBox in fall 1995, just a few days after having bought my SGI Indy. In my eyes the BeBox would have been a good successor to my Amiga, I had before. But it turned out, that Be was more interested in their OS, than in hardware, and that might be the right choice. Several people in misc.invest.stocks believe, that we are again at a point, where the usage of computers will change. The PC allowed the computer to move into the homes of "technically skilled" people, who did't mind a little struggle with technology, if it gives them access to a computer at home. The next wave will be devices/set top boxes/network computers who will give access to computer based services to everybody, without the need to struggle with technology. Be has started to enlarge the target for their OS to these device market and that could benefit them. On 1999-09-28 I bought 150 shares for 6 1/2. They went down to approximatly half that value, then suddenly jumped 70% in one day, to regain almost the value at which I bought them. I suspected this jump, probably caused by the finding that Microsoft is a monopoly, could continue, so I entered a limit order to sell at 13. It was executed the next day, when BEOS more than doubled in one day. So since 1999-11-09 I have only 75 shares. I immediatly entered another limit sell for 26, just in case the incredible rise would continue. Instead BEOS first went down for about a month, to then suddenly take another jump upwards. I renewed the order to sell 37 shares for 26. It was executed on 1999-12-15. Ultimatly Be was a failures. It went bankrupt and on 2004-05-25 shareholders were paid 0.58 for each of their shares, earning me 22.04. Overall I gained 953.99.
- AMD (was ATYT)
ATI manufactures graphic chips for PCs and MacIntosh computers, e.g. my PowerBook has one of their chips inside. On 1999-11-09 I bought 104 shares at 9 1/2. By 2000-02-23 they had already doubled and I sold 52 shares for 19 each. They were acquired by AMD and thus nn 2006-10-26 I received 49 shares of AMD in exchange of my ATI shares.
AMD: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- SGI
Two years ago I didn't want to buy them, because they started producing NT servers. Now they're into Linux, which makes me like them more. So I decided to buy 112 shares at 9. This happened on 1999-12-01. By mid 2007 those stocks are worth nothing.
SGI: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- FDX
FDX might profit from e-commerce, as all those stuff ordered online must be delivered by somebody. So on 1999-11-10 I entered an oder to buy 25 as soon as they would fall below 40, which they did on 1999-12-07. On 2004-06-12 I noticed them coming near to their double value and I entered an order to sell 13 shares for 80. This order was executed on 2004-06-23.
FDX: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- MPPP
First pure Internet stock. I saw MPPP in a misc.invest.stocks posting, which after closer look turned out to be a list of "Dangerous stocks". The reason I risk this anyway, is that the company currently sells below IPO price, and I somehow think, that what they are doing might have a future. On 1999-12-13 I bought 28 shares at 35 1/2. Bryan Caspar's prediction, that this stock is bad, held up. On 2001-09-26 MP3 went to Vivendi which paid the stockholders USD 5 per share. I paid USD 1003.99 got USD 140 and thus lost USD 863.99. So I think it's a good idea to avoid in the future stocks considered bad by Bryan.
- SWY
Diversification. Safeway is a supermarket chain. Bought 32 shares at 30 3/4 on 1999-12-13. While it later peaked at almost 61 it barely missed the point at which I would have sold and from there on lost a lot thus mid 2007 its worth as much as when I bought it.
SWY: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- BKS
Diversification. BKS sells books. The pre-Internet Amazon:-) I bought 48 shares at 21 on 1999-12-20. On 2005-09-20 I entered an order to sell 24 at 42 though I do not expect to reach this value before expiration. After reentering the order two more times on 2005-12-06 I finally could sell 24 shares at 42.
BKS: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- TR
Continuing with diversification. Tootsie Rolls make candies. Bought 32 shares at 31 1/2 on 1999-12-27. By mid 2007 their worth even a bit less.
TR: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- WBVN
Webvan is an online grocery store. About a year ago I heard of someone using Peapod, that she was very happy with that service, so I wanted to buy them. The limit order I placed was a bit too low, and so it never executed. Instead of setting an higher order I just didn't buy. Recently I talked with a friend who lives in the USA and he told me that his wife and himself use Webvan, and are very happy with them. So on 2000-01-10 I bought 56 shares at 17. Neither Webvan or Peapod could really build a viable business. As of Mid 2004 one doesn't exist anymore, the other is worth just pennies.
WBVN: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- ALU (was LU)
Lucent is a company producing and developing for the telecomunications sector. At the beginning of 2000 they had suddenly fallen back to the price they had beginning of 1999. So I thought this would be a chance to get it cheap, and I bought 20 shares at 50 on 2000-01-18. On 2006-12-01 they were changed into 3 Alcatel-Lucent shares still worth less then my original investment.
ALU: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- PZZA
Papa John's Pizza was hit hard by bad news, harder than the situation of the company would justify, thus the price is low. From Usenet postings I got the impression, that customers like Papa John's. These are good reasons for me to buy some shares to widen my non-tech investment. On 2000-01-24 I got 40 shares for 25. On 2005-09-20 I noticed, that the shares were near the 50 mark, so I entered an order to sell 20 at that price. Fortunatly this order was executed on 2005-09-30 allowing me to get my investment back.
PZZA: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- XRX
I somehow like the company, because they are good in research, though they sometimes are not able to turn that into business. I hope this changes in the future, and anyway they are really cheap, so I better buy now. On 2000-01-16 after market close I entered an order for 48 shares at the last ask price of 22 1/4, in the hope, I would get them. To my surprise the order was executed the next day for just 21 11/16. I had bought in time to see the fall down to almost 4. By mid 2007 they had recovered most of what was lost.
XRX: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- AKLM
A game producer. Cheap. Might get some boost, whit the Playstation 2. Computergames are an industry of the future, so the long-term prospect should be good too. On 2000-02-23 I bought 240 shares for 4 1/2 each. Mid of 2007 they are still worth pennies.
AKLM: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- PG
I need to diversify more, and when PG took a heavy fall beginning of March 2000, I suspect they went below what they are really worth. So on 2000-03-10 I bought 18 shares at 57. On 2004-05-27 I saw that the price was near the double, and so I entered an order to sell 9 shares at 114. This order was cancelled probably on the day of its 2:1 split on 2004-06-21. Thus I entered a new order to sell 18 shares at 57 on 2004-07-09. It took some more reentering the order until on 2005-01-20 finally the shares were sold.
PG: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- COBT
In the past I read about Cobalt Networks Inc. only in conjunction with Linux, and ignored it as I'm not interested in Linux plays right now. Some days ago I became aware of what they actually do, low cost/low maintenace Web/FTP/Mail servers. I think the need for such devices is big, and their products also look very nice. So I see a great potential for this company, if they do it right, and I bought 16 shares for 65 7/8 on 2000-03-23. On 2000-12-07 they were converted 1:1 inot Sun shares, after Sun had acquired Cobalt. To close the account for, I have to consider them as sold at the price the SUNW stocks I got, which is 44.25. Thus on Cobalt I lost 301.99
COBT: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- WCOM
MCI Worldcom is a telecom company. With telecomunication becoming more and more important, the should have a future. Also it is said, that they are very cheap at the moment. This could be true, as their P/E is just above 27, and an EPS growth of around 30% is expected for next year (was 43% this year) according to what I found on the Yahoo pages. So I bought 25 shares at 40 on 2000-05-18. They believed too much in the Internet and now - Mid of 2007 - are worth nothing.
WCOM: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- MIPS
SGI spun off MIPS and every SGI shareholder got some MIPS shares. I got 15 shares on 2000-06-27 when they were worth 33 each for a total of 495.
MIPSB Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- PALM
3COM spun off PALM and every 3COM shareholder got some PALM shares. I got 22 shares on 2000-07-28 when they were worth 33.875 each for a total of 745.25. Palm sunk so much that 2002-10-15 there was a 20:1 reverse split. I was left with one share woth 12.50. By Mid of 2004 this one share was worth 34. On 2006-03-14 there was a 2:1 split which makes me now own 2 shares who in total are worht just 30 in mid 2007.
PLMO: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- AV
Lucent spun off Avaya Inc. and Lucent shareholder got some AV shares. I got 1 share on 2000-10-05 when it was worth 14.25. On 2007-10-26 the share was "forced-sold" for 17.50 but with a mandatory fee of 20.00 so this ift ultimatly cost me 2.50. Oh well.
AV: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- MCWEQ.PK (was MCWEQ was MCIT)
Worldcom spun off MCI Group and Worldcom shareholder got some MCI Group shares. I got 1 share on 2001-06-13 when it was worth 16.10. Today it is worth nothing.
MCWEQ.PK: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- AGRb
Lucent spun off Agere Systems Inc. and Lucent shareholder got some AGRb shares. I got 5 share on 2002-06-06 when they were worth 3.05 each for a total of 15.25. On 2005-05-31 there was a 1:10 reverse split. As I had less than 10 shares I was paid in cash 6.15 minus 20.00 reorganisation fee means I lost 13.85.
AGRb: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- GME
On 2004-11-15 Barnes and Nobel spun off its Gamestop division and I got 20 free shares worth 21.71 each. On 2007-03-19 there was a 2:1 split giving me 40 shares. On 2007-07-29 I entered an order to sell 20 shares at 50.
GME: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- CSCO
On 2004-12-13 I bought the "monopolist" and got 52 shares at 19.50 each. By mid 2007 they had risen by 60%.
CSCO: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- NOK
I had in the past wanted to buy Nokia but at that time they had just had a steep rise in stock price, so I stayed away. But in October 2005 I thought I could risk it and on 2005-10-20 got 60 shares at 16.09 each. On 2007-07-29 I entered an order to sell 30 for 32.5 each.
NOK: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- ERJ
Airline business is something I'm worried to enter. But somehow I thought, that smaller aircraft manufacturer might be profitable as their planes could be interesting for both discount airlines as well as for big airlines which need them to carry the passengers from remote destinations to their hubs. So on 2006-05-31 I risked to buy 30 Embraer shares for 33.00 each. This is also my first investment in a south american company. By Mid 2007 they had risen by 30%.
ERJ: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- MC
At that thime I was thinking to buy a digital camera and the one I liked most was a Panasonic Lumix. Thinking that I had also a Panasonic camcorder which I was happy with I thought I should own some stocks of Matsuhita and bought 48 shares at 20.75 on 2006-08-28. By mid 2007 I hadn't bought the camera yet, and the stock had lost almost 20%.
MC: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- PKX
I can't remember what brought me to the idea of buying korean steel producer Posco. Anyway it was a good decision as the 16 share I bought for 60.00 on 2006-09-11 climbed quite rapidly giving me the opportunity to sell sell 8 shares for 122.00 each less then a year later on 2007-06-13.
MC: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- SNDK
Flash memories are used more and more, and so a buy like this was long overdue. On 2007-01-08 I bought 44 shares at 43.43 each honoring also my "decision" of buying in 2000 instead of 1000 dollar chunks.
SNDK: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
Stocks I didn't buy
- FONR
When I've got cash, i've got a problem... what to buy, and so I'm likely to buy things, without thinking about it. I read about FONR in misc.stock.invest, and the arguments brought up made it sound good for me. So I placed on order to buy 600 at 1 5/8 on 1999-12-01. Further discussion on FONR I followed on misc.stock.invest and the FONR board on Yahoo, made me believe, that while the company has good, advanced products, it seems to be bad at delivering announced products in time and in general not beeing very good in the non-technical aspects of its business. So just four days later I canceled my order, which wasn't executed yet.
FONR: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
- ASGN
I found this one on Bryan Caspar's Good Stocks list. Since he was so good at predicting MPPP to be bad I hoped this prediction would hold too. I entered an order to buy 26 ASGN @ 38 on 2000-03-09. This order was cancelled automatically, when ASGN split, at which point it had already risen to approx. 50. So I never got them, though it would have for me a welcome little step in direction biotech/pharmaceutical stocks, as the company provides, besides others, temporary scientific professionals to companies operating in that sector. I didn't have the guts to enter the biotech sector directly. In retrospect it was good it did not happen, as the price fell from then until summer 2003.
ASGN: Company Profile, Detailed quotes and Research from Yahoo.
Yearly results
Overview
This table replaces the individual reports of each year.
| Date | Dow Jones IA | S&P 500 | Nasdaq | Me | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Value | gain in year | gain since 1998 | yearly average gain since 1998 | Value | gain in year | gain since 1998 | yearly average gain since 1998 | Value | gain in year | gain since 1998 | yearly average gain since 1998 | Value | gain in year | gain since 1998 | yearly average gain since 1998 | |
| 2004-12-31 | 10783.01 | 3.1% | 36.4% | 4.5% | 1211.92 | 9.0% | 24.9% | 3.2% | 2175.44 | 8.6% | 38.5% | 4.8% | 19899.92 | 28.2% | 231.7% | 18.7% |
| 2003-12-31 | 10453.90 | 25.3% | 32.2% | 4.8% | 1111.92 | 26.4% | 14.6% | 2.3% | 2003.37 | 50.0% | 27.6% | 4.1% | 15523.30 | 32.9% | 158.7% | 17.2% |
| 2002-12-31 | 8341.63 | -11.6% | 5.5% | 1.1% | 879.82 | -23.4% | -9.3% | -1.9% | 1335.51 | -31.5% | -15.0% | -3.2% | 11682.59 | -32.0% | 94.7% | 14.3% |
| 2001-12-31 | 9436.00 | -12.5% | 19.3% | 4.5% | 1148.08 | -13.0% | 18.3% | 4.3% | 1950.40 | -21.1% | 24.2% | 5.6% | 17176.32 | -11.2% | 186.3% | 30.1% |
| 2000-12-31 | 10788.00 | -6.2% | 36.4% | 10.9% | 1320.28 | -10.1% | 36.1% | 10.8% | 2470.52 | -39.3% | 57.3% | 16.3% | 19344.80 | -21.3% | 222.4% | 47.7% |
| 1999-12-31 | 11497.10 | 25.2% | 45.4% | 20.6% | 1469.25 | 19.5% | 51.4% | 23.0% | 4069.31 | 85.6% | 159.1% | 61.0% | 24593.85 | 152.2% | 309.9% | 102.5% |
| 1998-12-31 | 9181.40 | 16.1% | 16.1% | 16.1% | 1229.23 | 26.7% | 26.7% | 26.7% | 2192.69 | 39.6% | 39.6% | 39.6% | 9751.37 | 62.5% | 62.5% | 62.5% |
| 1998-01-01 | 7908.30 | n/a | n/a | n/a | 970.43 | n/a | n/a | n/a | 1570.35 | n/a | n/a | n/a | 6000.00 | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Results after the third year
While this year only Nasdaq performed worse than myself, I'm overall still better off than the indices. Makes me wonder how this will develop.
Because my portfolio is now rather large, I took the opportunity of AAPL hard fall in october to add more stocks to it and modify my buy and sell amounts, i.e. buy $2000 instead of $1000 chunks of shares, and sell half when the value reaches $4000 instead of $2000. This will mean, that in 2001 I will most likely not have any chance to sell anything, because it would mean for most stocks I have that the would need to at least triple the value. Because I also do neither intend to put more cash into my Datek account this will also mean, that I won't have the $2000 necessary for any new buy.
Thus 2001 will become a pure hold year. This is good for me, because I'm too lazy to do the necessary watching of the market anyway, and I also like to concentrate more on my swiss investments through my Consors account.
Results after the second year
I have compared my strategy of selling half of the shares whenever a stock doubles value with pure buy and hold. I supsected I could have done better that way, seeing that e.g. my SUNW would be worth $6000 hadn't I sold any. As I did, the ones I kept are worth $1500 to which I can add the $2000 I got selling SUNW shares for a total of just $3500.
The result were other than what I expected. Had I pursued pure buy and hold since the beginning, then my portfolio containing the six stocks I bought initially would be worth only about $18000. This indicates, that stocks I bought with the money I got from selling part of my owning performed better than the ones I had sold to get the money.
Results after the first year
My investment is really long-term. That's the reason, why I still keep shares of companies which haven't performed well, or even lost value in 1998. Also, as I did never much research a company, my problem is rather to know what to buy when I have spare money. I might sell some stock, if I suddenly find another company very attractive and therefore need the money.
All in all, the first year was a good one. I'm very happy with that.
