Friday, February 3, 2017

Locking in Profits

In recent months I have seen lots of my stocks break out of their usual ranges. One such stock was CSX, a railroad company.

I had bought CSX way back around 2007, it has been a reasonable dividend payer and I reinvested my dividends and the stock moved up and down in a range from $19 at the time of purchase to the mid $30's for most of the time.

In a recent burst of activity however the stock reached $47 and so I took the opportunity this week to sell some of my holding to recoup my initial investment.

I sold just over half of my holding leaving me with stock in my portfolio. Taking the recent profit means that I returned  a little more cash to my pocket than my initial investment of $1,000

It is always nice to take a profit like this and is a good way to increase ones portfolio.

With the profits I added to my retail exchange traded fund investment, XRT.

 I see a volatile future to the markets and I have reduced most of my individual  stock investment in retailers as individuals to zero. To add some depth to a risky area of my portfolio I decided to invest in a ETF which covers the retail sector instead. Risking less volatility in the long run.

In the interest of openess I hold stock in CSX and XRT. This post is not intended as financial advice it is just a diary of my own investment strategy and you should seek advice from a professional investment planner if you are uncertain as to investment strategy.