With that said, I am going to take profits when offered and give up some upside if we do in fact continue upward. The reason is, this market is going up on nothing but hope. The cold facts are going to be ugly (but hey good news Wells Fargo is offering a 4.875% 30 year mortgage - can't wait to see a 3.875% mortgage - why not free mortgages? Maybe in 2010)
Life Partner Holdings pre-announced earlier this week to the upside, and the stock is up from mid $30s to just under $38 in 4 sessions. I am going to exit much of this position and hope to buy on a pullback - just trading; this is not a buy and hold market so don't get lulled into thinking so by the "good vibes". Technicals seem to not matter for this thinly traded stock so I have no good reason to sell "here" other than "hey it's up 23% in 4 days". We were buyers in the mid $32s on Dec 10th so in a week we'll take the 17%. (that would annualize to 884% return). Once more, this stock is completely random so I cannot make a technical case for buying or selling like I do with other stocks; I just ignore the chart and buy when it falls 9% on 50,000 shares which it seems to do once every few weeks, and then sell into the ensuing rally - always keeping a core position. If the stock breaks north of $40 this would most likely indicate a new leg up and we'd probably jump back in; but preferably we'd like to buy back down in the lower $30s.
Our core position will now go down to a 0.7% stake, down from 2.2%, with sales in the $37.80s.
We continue to get moves that used to take 4-6 weeks that now happen in 4-6 days, so we'll take them when offered. I'm not worried about squeezing every ounce of blood out of the stone; just catching the meat of multiple trades and continue booking gains.
Long Life Partners Holdings in fund; no personal position
