Time to Say Good Bye

This week I say good-bye to two stocks in our portfolio. It’s been a great number of years, but it was time to part our ways. The split wasn’t accidental, in fact this week the Dow closed over 12,000 points for the first time in 2 ½ half years. When this happens I typically use the time to consider selling stocks which have in my opinion not performed well.

I sold Weis Markets (WMK) and Southern Company (SO) this week. I bought WMK back in 2003 when the company was undervalued and had an amazing 0% debt. SO was bought in 2004 and was also undervalued at the time. I had one major reason for selling these stocks:

               - Lack of dividend growth over the years

In fact WMK has not increased their dividend since I’ve owned this stock. Other companies in our portfolio have had increases of as much as 12-25% per year!

Since the market was high, and both companies were trading close to their 52-week highs this presented the ideal situation for selling. I know the stocks may continue to rise (or fall) but no one can time these things including me.

“Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.”

- Warren Buffett

The market was a little greedy this week so I sold. :)

Including dividends the return on both WMK and SO are:

WMK (purchased in 2003) = 61.57%

SO (purchased in 2004) = 67.72%

Both these stocks will get added to the list of stocks already sold in the Simply Investing Portfolio (returns inlcude dividends):

Emera 16.04%

RioCan 79.05%

Dofasco 48.17%

Cascades 53.60%

Sobeys 49.33%

Canadian Utilities 57.32%

ATCO 68.15%

Long Drug Stores 67.46%

Lawson Products 82.56%

JP Morgan Chase 51.01%

General Electric 27.72%

Eastman Kodak 6.41%

Caterpillar 69.94%

Good bye WMK and SO, it was fun!