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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul Senior who wrote (32419)	10/10/2008 4:30:51 PM
From: SI Bob	Respond to of 78717

I'm way underwater on it too, but have collected dividends on it for 3 or 4 quarters, so it's somewhat mitigated. Right now I'm faced with a bit of a tough choice. I could get rid of [t]GE[/t] and [t]JPM[/t] for profits representing a few years of the dividends I bought them for. But I'm leaning toward hanging onto those profits and just letting dividends increase them while (hopefully) the share prices continue to improve. At least right now the fact that I went pretty deeply into margin in the trading account isn't adding too much to my anxiety. [t]ACAS[/t] is a tough one to get a read on. That market keeps vacillating between liking it and hating it. It never has loved it. But if the dividend stays intact, I don't much care what the market thinks of it.

To: Paul Senior who wrote (32419)	10/20/2008 3:29:35 PM
From: SI Bob	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78717

I'm at one of those "nice problem to have" crossroads. Everything I bought recently because I felt they were on-sale dividend payers ([t]ACAS[/t], [t]GE[/t], [t]JPM[/t], and [t]SRE[/t]) is up enough that I could effectively pocket a year or more of dividends right now by selling them. This time I'm not doing it, though, as I've always had seller's remorse (for good reason) when I've done so in the past. I'll just take the dividends, thank-you-very-much, and use the proceeds for any speculation I want to do later.

To: Paul Senior who wrote (32419)	11/10/2008 4:47:00 PM
From: Paul Senior	Respond to of 78717

Not a good day for us who are holding stocks in business development companies. ACAS: "Shares of American Capital Ltd. fell to an all-time low Monday after the investment firm reported a quarterly loss, suspended its dividend and said it would retain capital gains from its investments instead of distributing them to shareholders." ALD: Allied Capital also reported a loss. "American Capital said it will retain its 2008 net long-term capital gains and added it will review its dividend policy after each quarterly result." ------------------ Too late, I've decided today to take my losses and my lumps and sharply reduce my exposure to bdc's. An inflection point for me - either buy more or sell, and I decided to sell. I'm down to stub positions in ALD and ACAS as of tonight. Bdc stocks may come back if or as the economy improves and the bdc's prospects improve or dividends resume. For now, the dividend cuts seem more significant to me than the value that might be in the companies (based on the companies sharply reduced market caps). So many people are looking to those stocks for income that the reduction of it or the threat of such will tarnish the companies for a long time. I've also sold half of PNNT, and all PCAP, GLAD and GAIN today. Still holding all shares in others - ARCC, CODI, HTGC, TCAP, TICC, et al.