Happy New Year to you too Tom. Fortunately I was just living in sin, so it didn't cost me too much. However, I did have to liquidate stocks 6 months ago to complete a real estate transaction. My fair weather real estate partner got nailed by the IRS for creative tax returns. For a couple months the IRS was my partner and they took the rents and made the mortgage payments. He finally worked out a settlement, which included me buying out his half of our 12 units in Austin Texas. Once that got straightened out, I bought a 67 Camaro convertible that I've started to restore. I bought it in Vegas and the morning that the seller dropped it off at the transport company it got stolen. Talk about a helpless feeling, especially after being scrutinized and having my rental account frozen by the IRS. It was found 3 days later 10 miles in Henderson, out of gas and about $500 in damage (which was my deductible of course). But at least the police found it. The thieves never got in the trunk fortunately, because there was over $1000 worth of Rockford Fosgate, Precision Power, and Soundstream stereo amps and subwoofers (it's like a rolling boombox). So, I'm not a liquid as I use to be, but I'm still using AIM on my company 401k which is trucking right along. I've had 2 buys in the last two months on my company stock (PCG), but we've got some regulatory hurdles and rate cases to overcome before I'll ever get a sell on it. Oh well, I still have 14 years before I can take early retirement, so I'm just taking it in stride. I've been looking to do a Vealie someday on the portion of my 401k in the S&P fund, but obviously all it does is go up. So I'm trying to parlay my measly 10k on the side in this volatility, before I start resume AIMing. Wish me luck. Best Regards Scott |