May 2011 Trading

May has been the best month ever!  I established several new high water marks, best gains for a month, best gains for a quarter and highest rolling 6 month average gain.  And I also passed 6% earnings for the 2011 calendar year.  So even if I don't earn another penny this year, I cleared the bar at over 6%.

May has been the worst month ever!  Unrealized losses have reach near record heights and for a long period of time, seven of my nine holdings were in the hole.  While I have been this far underwater before, this seems a bit more dire than in the past.  Most of the losses are attributed to a single stock (Life Partner Holdings, Inc.) and it seems quite possible that it could go to zero and I could lose my entire investment.  Realizing such losses could put a significant dent in my 2011 gains. 

After selling some stocks, I'm now down to about 59% invested.  I only collected one dividend this month although several holdings went ex-div.

Sales this month:

• FirstEnergy - 13% gain, some shares have been held for over a year, so it's nice to finally close out this position with a nice profit.  In fact, In absolute term, this was one of my largest gains to date.
•  Intel Corp - 15% gain,  rather large holding acquired over two months, dipped on bad news allowing multiple buy ins, then nice run-up based on improving analyst reports culminating with announcement about new 3-D chip and I sold the next day.
• SYSCO Corp, 12% gain, sold on good earnings news.  Held for only two months but also collected on dividend.

Current holdings and unrealized gains/losses are as follows.  As noted above, LPHI represents a significant risk to the portfolio.  Nokia also delivered a bad earnings report, so this is perhaps also a bit risky.  Although there are other stocks in the red, I'm general confident that they will recover and/or hold their dividend payout.

The following dividends were collected:

• General Mills, Inc - went ex-div immediately before I sold near the end of April.