So, Biden has now officially won. Yay. I think everyone in the U.S. has had a dramatic reaction, one way or another. For me, it was just a sense of relief, kind of like you’re running a long race and you finally get to the finish line and realize it’s over and you can just exhale and go, pheww. That’s more or less how it felt. I don’t care one way or another for Biden, but just seeing this picture — a genuinely happy guy and his wife, bringing back some dignity to the office and our country hopefully. It does make me happy.
Now, the remaining days until the crazy guy actually leaves or gets kicked out of the White House will be, I think, like nothing we’ve ever seen before. I’m talking pardons, executive orders, even more bombastic talk, delusional rants, tantrums, everything. That’s what we’ve come to expect at this point, right? Trump lives off of controversy and just wants attention. But what if it’s not? Maybe once he realizes the game is up, he’ll just slink over and head out. Who knows.
Anyways, I always keep tabs on articles on Yahoo Finance and I saw this one that was talking about good buys in the energy sector, like oil and gas companies. I don’t know anything about these, so I started gobbling up all the articles, one after another, and eventually I realized, man there’s a good opportunity here. Some of these stocks have great dividend history, are dirt cheap right now, and have good historical values (meaning they will go back up after time).
I whittled down my list to a few options and eventually settled on PAGP (Plains GP Holdings) and PSX (Phillips 66). Never heard of them? Right, me neither. But they were listed in this article titled These High-Yielding Oil Stocks Think They’re Ridiculously Cheap. What caught my eye? You guessed it — cheap! I love cheap. And high-yielding as well. This has been my strategy du jour (mmm…that sounds good, I’ll have that): buy stocks that have been going down and are cheap, have good value history and have good dividends. Of course I have other patterns I look for, but these are the big ones.
I didn’t know anything about either of these stocks, but they fit the bill. So, I put in my order with Fidelity and set it and forgot it. This morning, though, I checked my orders and realized I had put them in wrong!! I almost panicked, but then remembered I’m 7 hours ahead of New York, so I had time. I fixed my order and then figured let’s see how the Dow Futures are doing.
And then my mind exploded. It was up 1500+ points, like 6%! Oh no…I checked PAGP and it was up 5% and PSX was up 8%! Normally that would be great, but I hadn’t bought the darn things yet!! So it felt like they were actually down 5% and 8% to me, since my purchasing power was going down. As soon as the opening bell rang, I kept refreshing and refreshing my Orders page to make sure my order went through and to see what price I got.
At close on Friday, PAGP was $6.70 / share. Fidelity put in my order 4 minutes after the bell on Monday at $7.40 / share. A premium of almost 11%. PSX has gone up even more, about 15% around the same time. Thankfully I had switched my order in time and only bought PAGP.
You don’t know how mad I was!! Just on a whim, I had decided to research the stocks on Friday night after reading that Yahoo article and out of pure luck I had my choices ready. I could just as easily have read the article the night before and put in my order then and I would have avoided this “loss”.
It feels like a loss, even though it really isn’t. Shortly after I went out for a run to flush out as much of this negative energy as I could and it helped as always. I also reflected on what happened four years ago when Trump won and the stock market also shot up. I was ticked back then as well and just said I’m going to wait it out until the market goes back down. But it never did. It just kept going up and up. I waited a couple years before I gave up and just bought back in. So I figure this time it’s going to be more of the same. Just jump in regardless, don’t wait.
My strategy for now is to hold on to these suckers as long as I can. Assuming they retain their dividends, that will give me a good buffer against any catastrophes (i.e. company goes under). And if all goes well, I get the dividends AND the stocks go up in value. It’s a win win. I’m always optimistic and positive with these types of things. For some reason, the risk doesn’t bother me too much. I am annoyed, though, at my Teradata stock. It needs some spark to bring it back to life. I still have a bunch of it and I’m waiting to sell as soon as it gets to a respectable price. No dividends and low value right now! No bueno.
The bottom line is that greed again is rearing its head. I instantly felt I lost 10% of my investment already today, even though as we speak, PAGP is at $7.70 / share. So it’s already gone up 4% from the “inflated” price I bought it at. That makes me feel slightly better. Now…as for those other sneaky stocks I’ve had my eyes on since the March dip: CCL (up 44%) and RCL (up 35%). They’re just pure bananas. There’s no predicting or timing involved with these crazy guys, so I’ve given up on them. That also makes me feel slightly better about my choice.
I know I won’t be giving this a second thought in a few months, and I’m pretty confident I’ll be happy with my choice long-term, even though it still stings a little bit right now. Greed can be good and bad — it compels you to take action, but it can also kick you in the butt if you’re not careful.
Viva el Falafel 