Rule One Investing Blog

I was just over at Phil Town’s website reading some old posts… ie: catching up to where I should be.

Anyway, he has a really interesting post on October 9th, 2009 named where is the market heading. Basically he’s saying that where at a point right now where the people who were scared of the market aren’t scared anymore and are starting to invest. This means that the market is at the price that it should be… ie: when we should be looking to sell or when WE are fearful.

It’s really an interesting read. Check it out.

On December 4th, 2009 I sold my 4 shares of Apple (AAPL). I was watching the indicators ever since it broke through the $200 threshold. I had this as my target price for a while and have been watching and waiting. Then on December 2nd it started to go down and I watched closely to ensure I wasn’t getting out too soon or too late.

The indicators I used to get out were the 20 day moving average, 50 day moving average and the MACD. I also was watching two versions of the charts the 3-month view and the 1-yr view. I’ve noticed that they provide different information and I like to have as much information as possible. I saw the 20 day moving average break through the price around November 30th, then the 50 day on Dec 3rd / 4th. The MACD was trending downward and hadn’t quite crossed but was about to. Anyway, I sold at $193.

Bought 4 shares @ 129.10 = $516.40 (February 29th, 2008)

Sold 4 shares @ $193.00 = $772

Profit = $255.60

Looking back at the trends over the past 1.5 years (chart below) I noticed that I should have sold my stocks original in July 08. Then I should have waited until March 09 to buy again. This would have been a correct Rule 1 trade, however, I wasn’t following things closely enough and missed out. This teaches a good lesson that watching the stocks does only take 15 minutes per day and you can profit greatly if you know what you’re looking for.

I am now in search of another set of companies to purchase. However, as my Rule 1 knowledge is a bit foggy I am going to re-read the book and refresh my knowledge so that I’m ready for my next set of winning trades!

A big part of the Rule 1 method is learning when to buy and sell the company. I haven’t traded much in the past 1.5 years and haven’t been watching the signals. Well, I stared again around late august and have been monitoring my AAPL and CWTR stocks off and on. I looked into the state of my stocks today and saw a 14.21% drop in the price of the stock. Wow! that sucks. But what can I learn from this?

I should have already been out!

Looking at the signals of the stock (which I’ve included below) I can see that the MACD says less people are buying then selling on Sept 28th, 2009 (according to Google) and October 16th (according to Yahoo). Then on October 16th the 50 day moving average cuts above the stock price. Those are the two indicators that I’ve been using and really like their pattern. And based on those signals I should have got out on the 16th or 19th of October for around $7.57 for a profit of $41.75. (woulda, shoulda, coulda doesn’t get you very far in the stock market though!)

That all being said, why am I still in Cold Water Creek (CWTR)? Good question. Mainly because I wasn’t monitoring my share / companies properly. It only takes 15 minutes a day which is completely true but I just stopped monitoring. Lesson learned and luckily it’s only a $41.75 lesson (so far). I will onto my stocks for now and wait to see what happens. Now I’m going to be monitoring my AAPL stocks so I don’t make the same mistake twice!

As I mentioned back in Feb 29th I bought the apple stock (AAPL) at $129.10.  It’s now sitting at $204 which is a good amount of ROI so now I’m watching the signals and looking for my ‘out’ point.

I will start updating the site again as I have a feeling I’m going to be selling this position soon and will be looking for more companies to buy into soon.  I’ll keep everyone updated with my progress.

Sorry for the long delay in posting.  I realize that I started this blog all gung-ho spent all my money then had to wait.  That’s the tough part about rule one investing, waiting.  Waiting for the indicators to turn the ‘correct’ direction be it up or down.

Now I’m back to posting.   Interestingly enough I’ve actually missed quite a bit while I was gone.  This ranges from apple’s stock going up (and a bit back down), acceleware’s stock moving to $1.00 (and back down) and coldwater creek’s stock taking a little rollercoaster.

Anyway, I’ll try and provide at least a ‘tri’ weekly post on this blog.  So without further ado we’ll have blog posts here eventually.

Yesterday, I discussed if Apple’s stock was going to increase. Well, after looking at the charts I decided to purchase some stocks. I woke up and saw that the price was around the same as yesterday, good.

So I put in a limit order at $129.10 and left for work. Got to work and checked to see if it went through and noticed that the price had dropped to 127, doh! oh well!


To summarize my stock purchase. I bought 4 shares (yes, 4 it’s a pathetic number and the broker fees will eat a big chunk out of any profit I make. As a trade a day states, it’s a learning experience and let’s call it “tuition.” )

• 4 shares of AAPL at $129.10 = $516.40

As always I’ll be watching the technical indicators to see when to get back out. Let’s hope that those iPhone 8GB sell good in the next year.

Today COO Tim Cook announced Apple’s (AAPL) Intention of selling 10 million IPhone’s this year (that’s a whole bunch of Iphones!).

As we know I’m a huge fan of Apple and the company in general as I discussed after the big Apple stock drop. I think they have everything that qualifies as a “bang on” Rule #1 Company. In fact, I think if Phil Town was rewriting Rule One he’d consider adding Apple as a example Rule One Company.

Anyway, I’ve been keeping my eye on this stock since I started trading. The stock price was either above the Margin of Safety ( back in December 2007) or the technical indicators were telling me to stay out (during the stock drop). Well, luckily for me there was a stock price drop and after the announcement today looks like the stock price could be back on the rise. Check out the image below.

The technical indicators tell us two important things

1. The Stock Price is just moving through the 30-day moving average
2. The MACD buy line is above the sell line and the average number of buyers is larger then the number of sellers.

So is the stock going to make a HUGE increase like before? Nobody can tell you that 100%. However, with consistent growth rates over the previous 9 years and incredibly good Return on Investment Capital it wouldn’t’ be a bad bet. I have a sticker price of over $200 so I see this as a steal of a deal!