Blog

January 06 2018

| finance |

2017 was obviously a great year for stocks with the S&P gaining over 20%. And in my last post in May, I referred to the gains stocks were seeing early in 2017 on speculation of changes (rather than actual changes). With the GOP tax reform, it looks like there was, in fact, some change (for better or worse) and, thus, those gains are probably establishing a new normal for most of those stocks.

Fortunately, that did not help DFRG, which I selected shortly after the May post as my short candidate. The trade was very profitable on a percentage basis, but I only wagered a small amount so the absolute gain was modest.

Apart from that, the other big move for me was in the marijuana space, but mostly recently (likely related to CA legalizing it Jan 2018). The stocks spent most of the year flat or with small gains, but have skyrocketed to significant highs (!) in the last few weeks. There are a lot of stocks purported to be in this space, some legit, some not. The ones I chose are: ABBV, ACBFF, INSY, and MJNA. Despite the recent gains, I don't intend to sell as I really feel this space is a long-term winner. That being said, I will need to periodically re-evaluate these stocks to make sure they are still legitimate winners and not just benefiting by association.

Enough of the wins, what mistakes? Well, selling PETS back in May was short-sighted. It's gone up another 33% since I sold. Oh, well.

Stocks I like now: O, GE

Stocks I'm watching: TEAM, TWTR


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