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Home > Archive: July, 2011

Archive for July, 2011

I'll take "Flash Crash" for 100 Alex

July 30th, 2011 at 12:35 am

With all the uncertainty in the market, last week I decided it was the time to put some money in my Roth IRA for this year and see if I could get something on the cheap. Yeah, I know, the market could crater, but if it does it probably won't matter where my money is. And with the mortgage paid, its not like I will be thrown out on the street if I make a bad bet. So this Monday $2500 was put in.

In my efforts to be a more economical investor I have stopped using market orders, and instead have started using limit purchase orders, and Tuesday I put in two of them. One for an industrial company I heard good things about, and one for a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust). 100 shares each, which took all but $20 of my free cash. For each I put in for a price I felt was really, really low, but plausable if the market had a major hissy fit.

Today I got home and found to my surprise one of the two executed today. Apparently there was a mini "flash crash" in the REIT market, and my selected stock just got low enough for one minute to execute my purchase order. Its back up to almost where it ended yesterday, so I got the stock at a 6% discount. And at this lower price my effective dividend rate is over 17% (assuming no decreases in dividends, which could happen of course). And long term, it could still go lower, so this euphoria may be short lived. Still... 17% return in a Roth with no tax hit, can you say Yahtzee?!!

I had a shock looking at my Roth acct. tonight

July 2nd, 2011 at 03:46 am

I decided to make a quick check of my ROTH IRA accounts for an end of the month checkup, and at first I didn't notice it because it was sooooo far off, it just didn't register. Finally I noticed my account was a few thousand off what it should be. One stock I owned had dropped dramatically (say 40%!) in one day, and I had no idea what happened. (BTW, it is MRO) At first I thought it was a glitch, but I quickly saw it wasn't. After some research I found out they spun off part of the business and I should be getting some stock of the new company. So far my account isn't showing the new stock, so I added in what I should get for the new company, and my overall account went up slightly.

Man, I just don't need shocks to my system like that.