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August 19, 2003

First Individual Stock Sale

Well, I am certainly not going to post such things regularly but I decided this one deserves it as I for the first time sold an individual stock today. I bought Netflix (NFLX) on June 13 at $19.88 per share (500 shares) and today sold it for $25.70 per share for an after-commissions profit of $2870 (or 28.9%). I probably should have sold it earlier at 27-28 but unwisely didn't. Also, my selling of it doesn't indicate lack of confidence in the company (which I love) but rather that I think in the short term it is more likely to go down than go up. In fact, I am hopeful it will do so and then I will rebuy it. If it keeps going up, so it goes. Given a stock hits its peak/minimum only a few days a year, I will almost always be wrong in choosing the perfect time to buy/sell but my hope is of course I am just right enough to make money and beat the market. If not, I'll get out and just go for an Index Fund.

Alternatively, I may find I would be better off doing more of the Buffett/Motley Fool style of buy-to-hold rather than trying to play the market fluctuations at all. Again, hopefully I'll see how it goes but there is obviously a ton of money to be made (or lost) in the massive fluctuations, much more than in just holding a stock unless it is absolutely skyrocketing. Comments welcome. I am definitely a total beginner at this and just hope some of my game skills are applicable to the market as I think they should be.

Posted by aarondf at August 19, 2003 04:57 PM

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