What a Day!
I didn’t feel well today, but my broad market portfolio did better than me. I probably could not have picked a worse day to do my reshaping, but here are the results:
Sales:
- Aspen Holdings
- Flagstone Reinsurance
- Redwood Trust
- Mylan Labs
- Lafarge SA
Purchases:
- Reinsurance Group of America (old friend, cheap price)
- Honda Motors
Rebalancing Buys:
- Valero
- ConocoPhillips
- Vishay Intertechnology
Rebalancing Sale:
- Deerfield Capital
I’m not done. My moves today raised cash from 5% to 10%, and trimmed positions from 36 to 33. I have room for two more ideas, and am working on where to place cash. My timing of buys and sells today was good — not that that is a key competency of mine by any means.
Aside from the sale of the reinsurers, which were just cheap placeholders, the other positions were not as relatively cheap as they once were. RGA and Honda are quality companies selling at bargain prices. If I had more names like those, I would buy them all day long.
Away from my broad market portfolio, I raised my equity exposure in my mutual funds fractionally today. Time to rebalance.
PS — I can’t remember another day quite like this, where the late negative to positive move was so pronounced.
Full disclosure: long DFR RGA HMC VLO COP VSH
January 24th, 20084:41 pm at
Hi David,
I would rethink the Honda purchase - money is flowing out of the exporters, and into beneficiaries of yen appreciation in Japan.
If you’re buying ADRs, maybe you make out ok, but in general, the better place to be is domestic small caps in Japan, utilities and REITs.
Not as smart as you by any means, but I thought I’d pitch in with my 2c. At these levels, its a trap (like GPI).