BLOG STOCK CHALLENGE

On 3November2008 I began my blog stock challenge by purchasing Microsoft and General Electric (because they were involved with smart grids and wind power), Lockheed Martin (OTEC), Boeing (potential hydrogen jetliner) and UYM (next generation materials).  This was the day before Barack Obama was first elected president, and I thought, hmmm, if he won, he would reduce defense spending and these investments in sustainable resources would be crippled.  I went on to purchase Ford because they were into future vehicles, so those companies formed my portfolio for Planet Earth and Humanity.

Well, the military-industrial complex came through, and my stocks zoomed up.  I am today at 315% of what I initially invested.  In comparison, my portfolios in E-Trade and Ameritrade, which I began a little more than a decade ago, are at 261% and 311%, respectively.

All these portfolios are driven by only one or two stocks:

  PE and H          Ford (827%)

  Ameritrade        Sirius (889%)* and Ford (728%)

  E-Trade            Amazon (1544%)

*  The story of Sirius XM Radio is interesting.  I had first purchased Ford in 2008, so in March of 2009 I heard that  General Motors was either going to compromise Ford or go bankrupt.  To cut my possible losses, I bought an equivalent amount of GM.  The company went bankrupt.  Oh well.  Then, two weeks later, GM had a different stock symbol, but I still owned it, and it actually went up by 20%, so I sold.  Using these "free" funds I thought I would then look for some other challenged stocks at the edge of also going bankrupt, and selected Sirius, Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac.  Well, after a few ups and mostly downs, over the past year, all three have flourished:  SIRI (889%), FNMA (187%) and FMCC (158%).  These stocks, of course, are not in my blog stock challenge.

The moral of the above story about stock success is to buy when the market is way down, plus, a lot of luck.   Among my embarrassing recent purchases, which were driven purely by impulse (a big no-no) were Facebook (-43%) on day one and Lightbridge Corp (-81%).    Why Lightbridge?  I had a HuffPo entitled There is Something About Thorium, and thought, wow, this will replace Uranium and Plutonium someday.  I could still be right.  Anyway, about a year ago I had dinner with Kirk Sorensen, the voice of thorium, and he told me he would have advised me not to buy.  Watch Kirk's TED talk on thorium.

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For those planning to visit Japan this week, Tropical Depression Yagi will dump rain on Tokyo around midweek.  However, it is now only at 30 MPH and will not attain hurricane strength: