July 2010 Trading

July was yet another slow month. Good upward movement until the last few days of the month, but gave back a lot at the end. Good progress was made, but still very little turnover.

Only one sale:

• Telecomunicacoes de Sao Paulo - I was happy to close out this position. Although I received my desired gains, this always seemed a bit riskier than my usual holding

My current holdings and unrealized gains/losses are as follows. Note that I also included the gain/loss from both June and July to demonstrate the generally positive progress over the last month.

• Exxon Mobil - Down 10.7% (June 30: Down 14.7%) - Ex-Div in Aug, Div in Sept
• Exelon Corp - Down 7.1% (June 30: Down 15.7%) - Ex-Div in Aug, Div in Sept
• FirstEnergy Corp - Down 0.4% (June 30: Down 6.9%) - Ex-Div in Aug, Div in Sept
• Telecommunications Systems - Down 26.4% (June 30: Down 31.5%) - July was looking like a very good month for TCS until they took a big hit after a disappointing earnings announcement this week.
• National Grid PLC - Down 9.0% (June 30: Down 17.4%) - Ex-Div in July, Div in Aug
• Total SA - Up 6.4% (June 30: Down 6.2%)
• Sempra Energy - Up 5.7% (June 30: Down 0.6%)
• Harsco Corp - Down 10.0% (June 30: Down 8.7%) - Also a victim of bad news, the only holding to move downward over the last month. Ex-Div in July, Div in Aug
• Nokia - Up 1.1% (June 30: Down 13.4%)

Dividends were collected on the following:

• Sempra Energy