Confessions of a trading house wife

I have a confession to make.


I moved half of my husband's 401k into bonds, treasuries and guaranteed income funds back on September 25th. You know.....back when the DOW was around 11000? It was a Thursday night after the market closed for the day that I put in my order. I remember it very well. I had this sick, nagging feeling in my gut the whole day that something bad.....really bad was about to happen. The funds transfer executed sometime on September 26th which was a good thing since the following Monday saw a drop of over 700 points alone. Followed by days of 300 plus point drops leaving us where we are today. Hovering around a DOW 8800.

I know. I know. Some of you are rolling your eyes and thinking, "Don't you know that you should just leave it alone?" or "So you're the kind of person who was bailing and making the market tank?" ( Which wasn't me since the 26th actually ended UP about 100 points ). I know that we have another 20 plus years to "make it up" but I just wasn't willing to gamble with 10 years of retirement savings. I also wasn't willing to "wait out" the incessant selling off of hedge funds bringing stocks to insanely low levels equal to that of 2003. So, I did it and saved us a loss of at least a 3000 point drop that has occured since then. Over the last few weeks, on the really REALLY big down days ( like over 500 point losses ), I've been slowly putting money back in the market from my treasuries/bonds funds into the really beaten down funds.

My "Mad Money" ( my regular investments like my ROTH and Kirk's Rollover IRA which are made up of mostly individual stocks ) on the other hand, have taken a huge hit. I have a higher risk tolerance level though with those funds I manage. I've sold shares over the last few months as well as funding my ROTH with cash to build up my cash position just for this very moment. The time when stocks are at that level that you just can't help but buy more!

So, I did.

I bought Chesapeake Energy ( CHK ) when it got to 14.00 last week! ( It actually dropped to 12.00 but I still think 14.00 is a steal. ) I later discovered it dropped in half in a matter of a week because the CEO ( Aubrey McClendon ) was forced to sell his shares for whatever he could get for them seeing that he bought them on MARGIN! HELLO!?!?! Margin? Seriously? His loss is my gain! I'm up 40% in a matter of 2 weeks.

I bought some more Hugoton Royalty ( HGT ) that is now paying a nice 23% dividend thanks to the huge drop in stock price. I got in around 19.00 and it is currently up around 21.00.

I also bought some more Freeport McMoRan ( FCX ) when it got down around 33.00. I think it is about that same price.

Let's see how this next week goes............hopefully UP!