Thanks, hdl. It's good you have a wide range of investments as that should help in the long run. I'm a strong believer in letting your winners run but taking enough profits along the way to both reduce your downside and also free up $ for new investments. Just to clarify, when I trade, I lean toward small/micro caps and high risk plays in individual stocks, which I balance (somewhat) with fairly conservative mutual funds holdings that I rarely trade.
Currently, I am overweight in the semi industry but have enough diversification in international and mid+small cap growth+value funds to offset the risk. I have a basket of semis that I believe should do well over the next few years. They don't have the best fundamentals right now but I think the market is discounting their future ability to generate solid eps growth. Currently, my largest positions (dollar wise) are in SYXI, CREE, WIND, VECO, EMKR and SWKS (with smaller positions in about 10 other semi stocks that complete the basket). Each has a solid niche market. The key is in waiting for the stock to fall substantially before adding! I've recently added to both SYXI and EMKR. However, EMKR is VERY speculative, it's chart looks awful and after further review for the past month, I've been considering moving this money into SYXI or another sector. I try not to hold onto losers for very long and I'll cut my loses when I find a more attractive situation. EMKR's future profits may be too far out to continue holding onto it and it's the only one of the group I'm holding at a loss. If I had to recommend one, I still think SYXI is the most worthy of a speculative position at the current price.
I think oil+gas is looking a little bit like a temporary bubble due and I would consider taking profits at this stage, especially if you haven't done so yet. I won't be surprised to see oil prices come back into the mid 30s, as I think that's pretty close to where they should be on a fundamental level. I think we are seeing the large traders keeping crude oil prices high, much like the energy traders did to California during the NatGas spike a few years ago. I certainly wouldn't add APC to a long term portfolio here, not without a major drop in price first. Trading it, that's another story. I think you can make good money flipping APC if you have the time and the inclination.
Again, thanks for your post!
best of luck,
mh |
