December 2010 Trading

Best realized gains for any month to date!  Sold some large, long term holdings as well as collected a number of dividends.  December represents only the fifth month where I have returns over 2% of available funds, but this is noteworthy because my available funds are more than doubled since the last time I hit this threshold in March 2010.

Invested at slightly less than 50% at this moment, so looking to use these excess funds to buy more aggressively and dabble with index funds. 

Sales this month:

• Harsco Corporation - Sold out of my Roth holdings for a nice 30% gain after holding for three months.  Later sold out of all other positions that I'd been holding for about six months.  These yielded a more modest 13% gain, but the holdings were three times larger than Roth, so the absolute gains were significant.
• Exxon Mobil Corporation - Held for almost a year.  7.6% return plus dividends.

Current holdings and unrealized gains/losses are as follows.

• Exelon Corporation - Down 4.5% (-9.7% in Nov, -9.3% in Oct, -5.4% in Sept, -9.6% in Aug, -7.1 in July and -15.7 in June). 
• FirstEnergy Corp. - Up 0.3% (-4.8% in Nov, -2.7% in Oct, +1.8% in Sept, -3.5% in Aug, -0.4 in July and -6.9 in June).
• TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. - Up 5.0% (+4.1% in Nov, +21.9% in Oct, -12.1% in Sept, -30.7% in Aug, -26.4 in July and -31.5 in June).
• EnCana Corporation (USA) - Up 5.4% (+0.3% in Nov, +2.2% in Oct, +9.4% in Sept, -0.6% in Aug).
• Lockheed Martin Corporation - Up 1.0% (-1.7% in Nov, +2.0% in Oct, +2.0 in Sept, -1.3% in Aug).
• National Grid plc (ADR) - Down 0.5% (-1.4% in Nov, +6.4% in Oct, -4.2% in Sept, -5.5% in Aug, -9.0 in July and -17.4 in June).
• Kellog Company - Up 3.7% (Even in Nov, +2.0% in Oct).
• ConAgra Foods, Inc - Up 7.0% (+1.8% in Nov)

The following dividends were collected:

• FirstEnergy Corp.
• Exxon Mobil Corporation
• Exelon Corporation
• Kellog Company
• Lockheed Martin Corporation
• EnCana Corporation (USA)