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Wednesday Quickies

January 28th, 2009 at 02:45 pm

Wells Fargo
I didn't mention this before, but a little while back, I bought Wells Fargo stock when they were at their 52-week low. Despite the spike in trading activity, there was no support and the trade failed miserably.

Today, Wells' earnings report is coming out and I was expecting a lot more bleeding. Preliminary report suggests that they are looking at a 20% loss in earnings. So, what do I find when I looked up the ticker? The stock went up overnight by nearly 20%!

Can somebody please tell me what in the world is going on here? This makes no sense to me. But you know what happens when a stock spikes up on bad news that makes no sense to me. That's right, SELL!

Sadly, I'm still going to lose money on this trade, but the good news is, I won't lose too much. Which comes to another point I've been pondering.

Stock trading hiatus
I am seriously considering getting out of stock trading for a while. It's not so much that I don't want to trade stocks anymore, but just knowing that the money I am trading with is mid-term money for a house some day.

Due to the nature of this money and my personal housing situation, it would be wisest to put it all in a bond fund or some kind of income/cash investment. I just haven't because I really, really wanted to learn more about the stock market and trading stocks in general.

But at this point, I have. I may not be good at it, but it's still a good learning experience. And it doesn't mean I can't come back to it later. By yeah, the point is I may need to re-think this because I don't think I am putting this money where it really belongs. I know that if this was a question that came up in the forums, I would have advised against stock trading.

So, yeah, I'm looking at a different path for this money.... Maybe bonds.

The new boss
I learned something more about the new contractor and their 401(k). First of all, it turns out that they're a Fortune 100 company that has been around for more than a century. I checked their ticker and they are currently an $8 billion company. They lost a lot of value in 2008, but the trend is consistent with the Dow so I don't think it's them.

Anyway, they had an after-work meet-and-greet where we got to know the people and they even fed us delicious barbeque ribs and chicken! So free dinner last night. And for what appears to be a conservative company, the management seem like really cool people.

The 401(k) is a fairly typical $0.40 per dollar match, at 6% of gross. But here's the really cool part: The company that's handling the 401(k) is Fidelity! Fidelity! I'm going to be with Fidelity!

Well, I mean, I don't know for sure that I am re-hired just yet. The official announcement won't be until Friday, but I am quite confident that they're going to keep us incumbent employees.

But yeah, I really don't like my current 401(k) and I'll be looking forward to rolling that money into Vanguard as well. Even though Fidelity is great and I could roll it there, I still prefer Vanguard. It's not so much that I think one is better than the other, but it's just a matter of personal preference here.

Wow, so these quickies are not as quick as I thought.

6 Responses to “Wednesday Quickies”

  1. merch Says:
    1233163661

    The sector rose after reports surfaced late Tuesday that President Obama and his team are closing in on a "bad bank" plan.

    BOught some STT Jan 2011 20.0000 calls on Monday and closed the position today. As the plan comes out, I think there will be great disappointment and financial stock will fall again.

    As for trading, sounds good to me. Maybe play with 5%?

  2. Broken Arrow Says:
    1233166640

    Thanks for chiming in Merch.

    My stock trading balance is $10k right now. This is important because, as I found out earlier today, in order to buy any bonds through Scottrade, they won't do without without a minimum of $10k, and then increments of $1k after that....

    So, if I were to buy, say Walmart bonds through Scottrade, I'd have to commit the entire balance.

  3. pretty cheap jewelry Says:
    1233167406

    Back at the end of last year we looked at info on Wells Fargo (where we do the bulk of our business) and were very pleased to see they were a stand out in good practices regarding home loans, and so forth. We're sticking with them.

  4. Broken Arrow Says:
    1233171100

    Yeah, Wells Fargo is a very good bank. One of the best actually. That's why I was trading around with it. The stock is highly volatile right now, though I don't think most of it has to do with them so much as being in the banking sector right now.

  5. homebody Says:
    1233188141

    DH is totally p***ed I did not want him to buy BofA at 2 something, up over $7.00 today. I dunno, I am still nervous.

  6. boomeyers Says:
    1233189837

    I think Wells Fargo is trying to keep from getting taken over still, isn't it? Perhaps the stock went up because they are anticipating a takeover?

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