anthony's Account Talk

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Changed allocation to 50/50 in C and I Funds. Holding into December.

Also picked up some stocks today. Orders placed for FORM, and bought Jan 2012 option calls on ATVI (because even if you have no skills whatsoever at Call of Duty and your air guitar skills are a source of wifely ridicule, you can still make money off the stuff ...)

R&R is done ... back to Iraq tomorrow. See you in the funny papers!
 
anthony said:
Changed allocation to 50/50 in C and I Funds. Holding into December.

Also picked up some stocks today. Orders placed for FORM, and bought Jan 2012 option calls on ATVI (because even if you have no skills whatsoever at Call of Duty and your air guitar skills are a source of wifely ridicule, you can still make money off the stuff ...)

R&R is done ... back to Iraq tomorrow. See you in the funny papers!
Click to expand...

Good luck Anthony, take care of yourself.
 
Thanks to all for the wishes. I'll have regular internet access through the MWR system, so I'll be lurking and posting now and then.
 
Modified the allocation slightly going into the end of Dec/early Jan. 40C/50S/10I. I'll hold that through end of the year probably. Going to see how this plays out in the short term and trying to watch very carefully for signs of breakdown.

I will probably scale back slightly in my regular brokerage account soon. Not so much doubting the market entirely. Partially its a belief in possible weakness ahead for 2010. But partially its also capital preservation because I'm getting ready to purchase a home sometime early this year. Seems like as good a time as any.

May also scale back one of the Roths to use in the down payment. I'm still not sure if I'm going conventional or VA for the loan. This would (hopefully) be our last home purchase and we'd retire in it, so I have a long term outlook, not three years and PCS. In some number crunching the cost over the life of the loan seemed very similar between VA and Conventional, so I may just go VA to preserve the cash I would have used for down payment for additional investments instead. If I did conventional I'd probably have to use one of our Roths to make the down payment.

I HATE selling stock that has upside potential!
 
We look forward to hearing all about the home purchase when you get back stateside again, Anthony. Take care of yourself and Merry Christmas!
 
Alevin & Novice, thank you for your kind words.

All is going well out here. I got to inspect the "burbling black river of billions of barrels" this morning out near the Iranian border. Fascinating seeing oil just pouring out of the ground. There used to be some 35 wells out here pumping millions of barrels of crude. Now there is one working well and they have to use trucks to get it to Baghdad because the pipeline is in so much disrepair. The rest goes unused, gets cyphoned off by Iranians and Kurds, or it just flows out of the ground in rivers as described.

Stocks related, just a little trading today. I bought covered calls on LOGI ($17.50 March 2010 calls). Also did some profit taking by selling TNA from the wife's Roth as planned for the possible home purchase. Probably still some upside for TNA, but I'm playing it safe for now.
 
Santa showed up early! Promotion list just came out and I'm selected for major! You know what that means ... more money for investing! (if my wife hasn't spent it yet).

Merry Christmas to all from the land of oil and sand!
 
anthony said:
Santa showed up early! Promotion list just came out and I'm selected for major! You know what that means ... more money for investing! (if my wife hasn't spent it yet).

Merry Christmas to all from the land of oil and sand!
Click to expand...

Your TSP account is a great place to hide da cash. Paying yourself first. And, the wife (or, maybe you are the family spender - I know I am:cheesy:) can't get too angry about a Draconic Horde of Gold in your later years:laugh:
 
anthony said:
Santa showed up early! Promotion list just came out and I'm selected for major! You know what that means ... more money for investing! (if my wife hasn't spent it yet).

Merry Christmas to all from the land of oil and sand!
Click to expand...

Congratulations on making major. Nice step up.

Merry Christmas to you and your family.

Keep your head down and stay safe.
 
Thank you all for the kind words. Good luck this year in the markets and in life.

Little bit of trading today to catch up on two TraderFred ETF signals.

Related to that, after this last year and the busy nature of deployments, I'm thinking of selling off my 20 or so stocks. It has become very difficult to research and follow them as closely as one should follow individual companies. I'm thinking of switching to strictly ETFs outside of the TSP Funds.

The bad side to that is there is probably a lot more upside potential on individual stocks. I'm holding several that are well over 100% gain and I just don't think I'd see that out of ETF trading.

Hmmmm ...
 
I was reading an article in "Smart Money" (the WSJ mag.). It said there was some obscure 2003 law that eliminates capital gains tax on stocks sold this year by taxpayers under $65,000 income. With my tax-free pay for a little less than half of this year, I made the $65K cut.

Has anybody heard about this law about capital gains? It would definitely affect my decision to hold or sell several stocks at the end of the year. Right now I'm holding out, but I may take some off the table now if it means dodging the tax man. I would probably sell them in the next 6 months anyway.

Thanks!
 
The problem is the tax rules will not be extended by Obama. If you are in the 15% bracket the tax on capital gains is 5%. If you were in the 10% bracket your tax would be 0%.
 
Today was a buying opportunity.

No change in the TSP allocation (40C/50S/10I), but I went in pretty heavy in wifey Roth and regular brokerage close to the close.

Wifey Roth is now about 80% in an S&P500/Small Caps Mix with a nip of EWW. Brokerage is about 90% in equities with S&P500/Small Caps Mix of ETFs and still holding long on some covered calls and call options on individual stocks.
 
Another profile change also. This past week we moved with our Iraqi soldiers from Diyala back to Fallujah. This really kind a stinks. Not because its Iraq; that's no big deal. It stinks because I've got about 21 months between two deployments in the place we just relocated to. I was really enjoying the change of scenery close to Iran on this tour. Oh well, at least I still have my TSPTalk access ... woooooo!
 
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