January was a good month for the Roth: from around $7,150, I added $4,000 in new contributions and then saw about $850 in gains, or a good 7.5%. The last day of January saw the account taking a $150 plunge, but I made nearly all of that back today. Naturally, I don't expect to make 7.5% a month for the entirety of 2006 (wouldn't that be lovely), but it sure is a nice start.
The lowlights include Blackboard (BBBB), which has fallen from around $30 to around $26 since January 1. I'm continuing to hold this one, for now, since I'm still up 30% on it -- hope I don't end up regretting it like I did with Toll Brothers (TOL) last summer, which had made me 30% on paper until I continued to hold it and gave back much of the gain. (Cramer recommended BBBB today, though, and it reports earnings in a couple weeks, so maybe we'll see a bit of action.) I'm down a little bit on Paccar (PCAR), but it's the only stock I own that I'm currently underwater on. (I was under on Cheesecake Factory, CAKE, yesterday, but it gained a buck-oh-two today and pushed me back into the black. Woot!)
I also got a dividend payment for the Tech SPDR (XLK) I sold, a whopping $6.37. That'll almost pay for my next trade.
My big winners in January include Haliburton (HAL) and Corning (GLW), both up 17% since I bought. (I'd owned HAL for a few months, but had been underwater on it until almost the end of 2005. The GLW is something I bought just this month.) Legg Mason (LM) and the iShares Latin America ETF (ILF) were strong performers too: both were up over 9%.
I don't plan to sell anything in the next few weeks, though if my total BBBB or EEM holdings hit $1600, or if HAL hits par, I'll probably sell half (or perhaps shave a bit off two of them) to get a chunk for another stock (remember, my chunk is $800). I still don't feel like I'm diversified enough.
If I had some spare cash in the account, I'd consider Concur Technologies (CNQR), Portfolio Recovery (PRAA), or possibly Quality Systems (QSII) -- the latter just keeps going up like it's filled with helium after doing something like 160% last year and has gained like another 25% this month alone. I'm kicking myself for not buying it when the Motley Fool guys recommended it at the end of 2004, in a free report no less. (They also recommended PRAA in the same report, and it gained 30% in 2005.) I'm leery of buying it now that it's up so much, of course. I'd also like to own some Boeing (BA) and an insurance company or two, perhaps AIG. It's a decision that can be deferred a month or two, though, so that's what I'll be doing.
In other personal finance topics, I've opened two new savings accounts in addition to my Emigrant Direct account: one at ING Direct and one at HSBC. The ING Direct account is paying 4.75% for net deposits made between now and April 15; the HSBC account is paying 4.80% through April 30. Emigrant's stuck at 4.25% so I have no money in there at the moment. I split my savings between ING and HSBC because they were both offering a $25 bonus for opening an account, and the rates are close enough it's not worth moving them around. (If you want an ING referral, which gets you $25 and me $10, e-mail me: jerry AT this domain. You can get the $25 at HSBC just by entering the code 25PIG or START when you sign up. ING requires an initial $250 deposit to get the bonus; HSBC only needs $1. Be warned, HSBC's signup process is kind of a pain; your initial deposit will disappear from your funding account quickly but they won't send you the information to access the account online by mail for a couple weeks.)
Had to take a little out of savings to pay my main (State Farm rewards) credit card bill this month, since I've got the Macworld hotel on the card and I didn't get around to selling the lens I bought for my Utah trip last November yet, but I'm going to get that sold ASAP, along with a couple other things, and replace the money and a little more. By having three different savings accounts, I can move money to wherever it'll get the best rate. So far it looks like HSBC is being the most aggressive with their regular rates (and they matched ING's special promotional rate within a couple of weeks), so it might just stay there.
I got an offer from Bank of America for a 0% rate on balance transfers for six months with no fee, and so I moved most of what was on my Providian card (the 0% introductory rate on that card expires next month) to BofA to extend the payback date by another 4 or 5 months. The money to pay that off is in a savings account earning interest, now earning 4.75% instead of the 3% it was getting when I first filled up the card. That's a far better deal than I get on my rewards card! Also got a new MasterCard from Juniper with a 0% introductory rate, albeit a credit line of only a few hundred, and ran it up with stuff I was planning to buy anyway and put the cash to pay it off into savings for the next few months. My couch (which I bought in spring 2005) needs to get paid off in May, then Juniper in June and BofA in July.
I don't know if it's Puget Sound Energy or their payment processor, Checkfree, but I could swear I scheduled payment of my electric bill the last three months, but neither payment actually went through. That means I had to pay three months' worth of charges, nearly $300, all at once today. There were probably some penalties involved too, but I don't want to know. Time to set up automated payments on that -- I've meant to do so, but I'd never had trouble with Checkfree before, so it didn't seem worth the stamp. The good news is, by using blankets and sweaters a little more (and by turning off a bunch of stuff when I was out of town) I've reduced my electric usage in January by about 10% from the previous year. Or maybe it's just been that little bit warmer here this month.
Last month I discovered that Vonage had continued billing me after I canceled their service last October. Sneakily, they didn't bill me for October, then billed me about half the usual amount in November (which I assumed to be a partial charge for the month I canceled), and then in December and January billed me the full amount again. I discovered the December billing while going through my post-holiday statements, and while I was trying to get it straightened out, mid-January came and they billed me again! They have flatly refused to give any of it back even though it was entirely their fault. So it looks like I'll be taking it up with my credit card issuer with a carbon copy to the NJ Attorney General and the CEO of Vonage. I must strongly advise against subscribing to Vonage if you think you might ever want to stop. I use SunRocket now and am happy with them. I set my parents up with them over Christmas, too, and got a $50 Amazon gift certificate for doing so.
On the plus side, I did my taxes and will get a few hundred back. (This due to deductions I'm taking for my photography, which actually made me a small amount of money last year and thus justifies me writing off my photography-related expenses last year, including the Utah trip. Without this I would have owed a couple hundred bucks.)
More next month, probably...
Posted by kindall at February 1, 2006 05:29 PM