Last I reported a price for Neenah Paper (NP), on July 7, it was selling at $31.09. This looked good considering I sold it on June 30 for $31.17.
It is now trading at $33.50, which is pretty close to the highest it got while I held it. This was a Motley Fool "Hidden Gem" -- they recommend holding those stocks for at least three years, so I definitely broke the rules on that one. I sold it because I wanted to put the money into a stock that was going to give me a little bit more action in the short term, which is, in hindsight, kind of lame. Of the three stocks I bought shortly after selling NP, the Sears (SHLD) has done very nicely (up more than 8%), but the other two have far underperformed NP's recent move. So how successful a strategy my NP sale was depends on which of these stocks I consider its successor, which is purely a bookkeeping matter. I'll keep watching NP; perhaps it's worth getting back into soon.
The good news is that I have decided to have at least the ability to hold Hidden Gems for at least a year by buying only one of them every two months. That's still shorter than they really recommend, but many of their picks do show good movement in the first year. At least I'll be able to give each a good chance to move before I sell it. I will be able to hold them longer as I add more chunks.
Lennar Corp (LEN) is at $67.81; I sold at $64.56 on July 7. Toll Brothers (TOL) has done quite a bit better, so of the two homebuilders I had in my portfolio, Lennar was definitely the one to sell. (You may recall I was uncomfortable having two "chunks" in a speculative play, so wanted to keep just one.) Thus far it looks like I made the right call there, though as with NP, LEN may have done better than what I replaced it with, depending on what you consider that to be.
Posted by kindall at July 20, 2005 11:31 PM