July 2011 Trading

July brought lots of excitement.  The political situation with the debt ceiling led to lots of political volatility.  At one point, the value of my holdings skyrocketed to a new all-time high only to dive again after a change in the political winds.  However, the end of the month found me advancing over June levels.

I sold a few holdings and decreased unrealized losses from June levels.  I also increased my percent invested from 80% to 82.5%, so those percentage losses are smaller still in terms of percentage loss.  So things are turning in a positive direction although the markets continue to be troubled by the debt ceiling issue.

Sales this month:

• iShares S&P 500 Index Fund - Sold more than half of my holdings in this index fund gaining 5% in the process, then bought back in to most of this position as the price dropped later in the month.
• SPDR S&P 500 Index Fund - I sold out of a small percentage of these shares.  I had a sell order at a certain prices, but only a few shares sold as the price peaked at this level leaving much of the order unsold. 
• Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. - I flipped a small position in this stock over three days late in the month.  As noted in earlier posts, I'm trying to back off of small-caps, but this stock presented a very attractive price and I had to jump on it in a small way.  Three days later it had gained 5%, so I liquidated.  Small potatoes, but it yielded a few bucks.
  
  
  
  

Current holdings and unrealized gains/losses are as follows.  This currently looks quite negative, but it looked much better at several points during the month. I'm very excited to see Exelon in the black for the first time in over a year. Note new holdings of Harris and Navios Maritime.  Navios is another relatively small cap that I might normally avoid, but it is a small holding. 

The following dividends were collected.

• SPDR S&P 500 Index Fund