Stealth Wealth

Over the past few weeks I’ve felt like I need to liquidate some of my holdings and have some more cash for now.  I’ve struggled trying to figure which of company I wanted to pull the trigger on and let go.

• Middleby - this was my largest gainer… well only gainer with over 22% gain in 6 months.  It was my hardest to let go because this is the company I’m pretty sure will continue to grow.  Everytime they announce earnings the price goes up.  Selling this makes me feel like I’m firing my best employee.
• Coldwater Creek - my biggest loser.  I debated just cutting my losses and moving on…but I’ve done that before and regretted “cutting my losses” when I see the company back up 6 months later.  I’m pretty confident the new CEO is going to start running a tighter ship and earnings will follow.  I need to be patient with this one.
• My employer’s stock - I really wanted to sell my holdings here because I already have so much exposure to the company in my ESPP (Employee Stock Purchase Plan).  I even went as far as setting a sell limit up on sharebuilder for $16(about a $75 loss), and the quote was $16.03 at that moment.  I was pretty sure I was just going to take the loss and get it over with at that time.  Well quotes are delayed and some shares traded during the 15 minute delay which is rare.  It has since then dropped down to around $15 and I’m still holding.  I don’t want to sell this low.  I get about a 4% dividend so it’s not too bad.

In the end I sold Middleby for a profit of $227.98, which is a 22.80% gain.  I now have $2803.31 in my money market account, but over $1k at the moment is going to pay off my credit card in January.  It’s interest free until them so I’ll make a few bucks by waiting until January.