Profit Taking!

Well then, it's been a heck of a month. I haven't been as good with the blog as I'd like but I have been busy :) So lets dig into what's been going on in G. world from a sales point of view.

Sales

Garmin (GRMN)

I went with a new strategy I'm developing for runaway stocks. For those that don't remember, I purchased Garmin in two batches. One with a price point of $46.84 and another at $51.04. Garmin had an amazing run up to $105.85. Even I, an avid Garmin fan, felt that price was too high. I decided to implement my 12% rule which stated I would sell half of my holdings in Garmin if it dropped 12% from it's peak. This quickly occurred in the following days and I ended up selling half of my portfolio at $92.32, taking a 97% profit. Garmin of course is back up around $101 right now but I'm happy with the sale. Garmin with my two purchases, became my largest portfolio holding. Having it double, made it astronomical in relation to the rest of my holdings.
I distinctly remember the dot com bust and have always followed a strategy where I do no selling as my stocks appreciate, but which make sure some profit taking is done if a decline starts to come. Garmin is still an amazing company and I plan to leave my last half in there for the long haul (i.e. it's going to get a lot more swing room before I even think of selling).


Armor Holdings (AH)

I purchased armor holdings back in September of 2006 as a play on the current administrations war strategy. Overall it seemed to be going well with a good rise in stock price. Armor holdings was purchased by BAE systems. It was purchased for $88 a share, which compared to my $52.72 purchase price gave me a nice clean 64% return on my money. I had mixed feeling on this takeover, the return on investment was nice but I had high hopes for this company and was kind of ticked off the sale came at such a time that I'll be paying short term gains on the sale. Oh well, can't complain about a 64% return over the course of 11 months.


Hartford Financial Services (HIG)

I've never actually blogged about HIG but I had a small stake in it from an 8/17/2004 purchase. I purchased it at $60.62, sold it at $86.65. It had a great run up to $106 at one point but ended up coming back down. I didn't have a whole lot of feelings either way with this company so decided to sell into a rally one day. With dividends, I got a 52% return on my money with this one.


Well there you have it, my sales over the last month. The market has been very volatile but overall I've been really happy with my portfolio. The next post of course will be what I did with all of my new found money!