Archive for December, 2009
New Year’s Eve: Known for its night of revelry as much as its yearly ball drop. Millions tonight will put down their finished champagne glasses and quickly pick up their favorite product from Anheuser-Busch. But few know that this is not the only connection Busch has to this night.
79 years ago today, on New Year’s Eve 1930, the newspaper headlines blazed with news of a kidnapping. The unfortunate boy to be taken was Adolphus Busch-Orthwein, the great grandson of the founder of the famous brewery. As his family sat in their limo in traffic, their child was snatched straight from the vehicle. The kidnapper was named Charles Abernathy. Fortunately, the boy was returned 26 days later.
As you toast to new beginnings this night, remember this kidnapping and be thankful for the loved ones in your life, be they at your side or far away.
Busy, busy. The stock market isn’t moving a lot, but the stocks we have are moving. We’re watching our online trading account pretty close right now. Quick update on what we’ve done this morning:
Bought AT&T (T) – at 28.34 a share
Sold Heinz (HNZ) at 43.25
Sell orders in for Hasbro (H) 32.34, (PNNT) – 9.05, PM – 49.90
Watching Verizon (VZ) – possible buy
Since we’ve been doing online trading with a Scottrade account we are always on the lookout for information about the stock markets and articles pertaining to retirement. I found what I thought was an interesting article on Yahoo Finance. For those who are keeping up with our online trading of dividend paying stocks, you’ll find this interesting.
10 for the Money
by Vito J. Racanelli
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Special Report on Retirement: Folks approaching retirement should consider buying high-quality, dividend-paying stocks to bulk up their portfolios. Click here for the article’s top 10 picks.
Stock market isn’t doing much today. Though we are keeping busy on our Scottrade account.
We sold BlackRock Kelso Capital Corp (BKCC) at 8.77 a share. We didn’t make a huge profit on the sell, but did good with the dividend. This trade was a success.
Kayne Anderson MLP Investment Co (KYN) bought at 25.98 today. It will pay a .48 dividend with an EX date of 1/04/2010.
HJ Heinz Co (HNZ) we have a sell order in for 43.25. Had an EX date of 12/18 for .42 a share and we paid 43.18. Most of our profit is from the dividend payment, which was the plan.
PennantPark Investment Corp (PNNT) we have a sell order in for 9.05. (PNNT) had an EX date of 12/22 for .25 a share and we paid 9.00 a share for it. Another one we bought for the dividend.
That is where we are as of noon today with our Scottrade account.
What do you do during the week between Christmas and New Year’s?
Maybe take some Christmas decorations down. You might have to work and you might go shopping. You might have the kids and grandkids stay for a while. On TV, instead of watching Christmas specials, you begin to watch all the “Top 20 of
I don’t know about you, but I’ve got the “in-between-holiday” blues.
Many people in the U.S. celebrate the new year by eating black-eyed peas. These legumes are usually accompanied by either hog jowls or ham. Black-eyed peas and other legumes have been considered good luck in many cultures. The hog, and thus its meat, is considered lucky because it symbolizes prosperity. Cabbage is another good luck vegetable that is eaten on New Year’s Day by many. Cabbage leaves are considered a sign of prosperity, being representative of paper currency.
Watching GBCI and ERIE for a possible buy. Watching stocks bought last week for a possible sell. The Asian and European Markets are both up and US market futures are up. Should be an exciting day on Wall Street today. Markets will be opening in a few minutes, I have my streaming quotes for Scottrade open and ready to watch the opening. Good luck if you are buying or selling any stocks today.
This evening I’ve started looking at the dividend paying stocks that have EX dates of Dec. 31. I’ve read many places that if you are buying the stock to get the dividend to buy it a few days before the EX date, just to be sure you are on the stock records on the EX date. I’ve noticed that on the EX date the stock is usually higher priced than it is a few days before. So for Monday, I am only looking at Dec. 31, and possibly Dec 30. I am using the chart at The Street.Com Dividend Paying Stocks to get a list of possible stocks of interest, then I will then check on Scottrade’s site for further research.
The highest paying dividend is .48 a share at Erie Indemnity Company (ERIE). There was a jump upwards in the price at the end of the trading day on Dec.24th, and ERIE closed at $40.18. Looks like a good one and will be worth watching tomorrow. Glacier Bancorp Inc (GBCI) is paying a dividend of .13 and it closed last week at $13.81. Monday morning these are the two stocks I’m going to be watching.
I’m watching Yahoo Finance to see how the Asian markets close, and how the European markets perform when they open. And, as always, keeping an eye out for any good day trades.
Yesterday we met our son and daughter-in-law half way between their home and ours to pick up our grandchildren. They get to visit with us for part of their Christmas break from school. Our granddaughter is 4 years old, and our grandsons are 12 and 15. This is a fun time for us having them here. Last night I watched Barbie movies that I had gotten on sale from Amazon. My granddaughter and I had a good time watching them. The boys played video games with their uncle. The kids like having a pajama day, where we stay in our pajamas all day and be lazy. Today is pajama day!
Today (10:29 ET) the Dow is up 48, the NASDAQ up 11, and the S&P up almost 5. The Dow hit a new 2009 intraday high as well. The market does close early today at 1:00 PM ET.
Heinz (HNZ) broke $43 briefly and reached $43.07. We’ll continue to hold. Hasbro (HAS) had a strong run about 10:00, but has since dropped below yesterday’s close. It is doubtful that it will get back to our sell price today, so the new sell order will not be executed today.
The CNBC station had a couple of their experts on this morning. (We usually have CNBC on during the day.) These two guys were making their predictions for 2010. The first guy was real bearish, predicting a 10 to 20% correction starting at the end of January, after the earnings reports the first two weeks of January. The second guy was a little more optimistic, but did echo the assessment of a correction in the first quarter. He pointed to the historical pattern of the “up” markets during the first year of a new Administration, with the second year showing a correction due to the investors realizing that the new bills will have to be paid for. Hmmmm. This administration sure has added a lot of spending…
