Holding a 10 % position in a stock and selling off shares as it appreciates, while maintaining the same percentage position in the portfolio, is a wise and prudent thing to do. It is not what I do, but it is wise and prudent nevertheless. To have a big hunk of your assets in one stock takes a certain kind of grace under pressure and enormous fortitude. Not everyone is eqipped psychogically to do that. We all have to cope with such outside influences as our spouses, market static, as well as with our own individual frustrations, fears, impatience, and concerns regarding lack of knowledge. That decision is highly personal and subjective and I, too, go through it all the time. We question our judgements nearly every day and to some degree suffer investment myopia from being to close to daily and weekly events that often impact our hopes and our confidence in our judgements.
Stay as close as you can, read as much as you can, don't get too swayed by the pablum some Wall Street analysts put out, and in the final analysis make your own judgements. This could be a darling stock that could easily capture the imagination of the investing public, including the large institutional investors. In a couple of years it is expected that several more millions of users will be conducting their banking by computer. Many of them, like many of us, will have an awareness of Checkfree. I am not predicting it, I am pointing out that this stock could go much higher than anyone expects or than it may deserve. That is the stuff that Wall Street is made of. However, if the size of the position gets too big and you really get nervous then sell off some to the point where you can sleep at night. Otherwise you will sell when the market makes you sell and not when You want to sell. I always keep reminding myself that Pete Kight has not sold any of his stock. We don't know how big or how fast the company's earnings earnings will develop. Will they go up like a hockey stick once Genesis is completely on line this June and the promtional efforts of all these major customers we read about, kick in towards the Fall of this year. That's what we will find out over the next couple of years and that's what we should be in it for. The opportunity could be enormous but you have to have the stomach and the guts for it. Trading activity between now and July is just static. Interesting, but just static. Peole who worry about moving averages and the like, have grasshopper mentalities and are not likely to make the big money in the market. Most of them probably have already just been faked out. We started buying Checkfree at 21 and bought all the way down to $10 and then back up again. Looking back, we are delighted we had the courage of our convictions. We all know there is added risk to this approach, but so be it. I recently ran into a friend who has stock their portfolio since the 1930's, and I marvel at that. But somele do people actually do invest that way. Not so many as when I started investing back in 1954.
To make a long story short, I will repeat what I said here many months ago. The big risk is that we all will sell our checkfree too soon, including me. I have a very large position in the company, and the larger the position, the more the pressure.
Don't know if this helps, or makes any sense. But in the meantime, let's continue to share the common interest and live our investment together on this thread.
As to what to look for over the coming months, The MSFT/FD competition is not to be made light of, but we don't have to fall down and hold our heads either. Right now we have a commanding lead and partnering wit IBM and all the other major banks and financial institutions aint all bad. I would like to have Chase Bank, Wells Fargo, Nations Banc, etc. etc. etc. out there as salesmen selling my product. Citibank is the wild card right now and with their own working bill presentment capability that reputedly is costing that bank a fortune. They have not climbed aboard the Integrion bandwagon, despite the fact that they recently became an Integrion member. We are going to read about a lot of customer wins and losses, and we won't quite know what they mean. But as the optimist said optimistically, with all this manure, there must be a pony under here somewhere!
PS Some of us who talk other stocks and miscellaneous trading activity, might consider doing it by private E-Mail so as not to intrude on others who really don't want to wast time tuning into that kind of gossip. |
