Robbie -
Yes, I was talking to my wife about that. My first CPQ investment was 10000 shares for less than $300,000 in 1991 - we got that from sale of a house, and decided to rent for a while and invest the money. I sold most of that in 94 which cost me a little, but got back in early in 95 for 20000 shares, using about 2/3 of the proceeds from my original CPQ sale (the rest went into a down payment on my present house and into MSFT). I sold about 10% of my CPQ in December 97 and put it into DELL (15000 shares) - DELL split twice since then (I sold 10% of that holding when DELL went to 91 pre-split).
Pretty much my whole portfolio came from that one original CPQ investment. I know there are a lot of folks on the DELL thread who have a similar story with their stock. But it is pretty amazing when a basic gear head can go from a comfortable but definitely middle-class financial situation to where I am now with a couple of lucky calls and a little bit of patience.
Of course, the other thing I did was not change my lifestyle very much, which allowed me to leave the money in the stock. Sometimes I think about the money we put into the down-payment, which if I had kept the stock, would have paid for the whole house. Still a guy's got to live.
I hope and believe that every prudent investor who stuck it out with CPQ will be well rewarded, and that we will continue to see great appreciation in this stock and the tech sector in general. My sincere appreciation and congratulations to all the wonderful posters on this thread, it is truly a fine community. |
