Cody’s Latest Positions

Here is a list of latest positions with updated commentary and ratings for each position. I note that I’ve lowered five of my long positions to one notch and raised two short positions one notch, which underscores the fact that I’m just not seeing any reason to be rushing into this market right now.

I’ve broken the list into Longs and Shorts. And from there, I’ve broken down each list into refined categories in order from the largest positions within each category to the smallest. I also give each stock a current rating from 1 to 10, 1 being “Get out of this position now!” and 10 being “Sell the farm, I’ve found a perfect investment.”

So here’s the list:

Longs –

• Forever assets and other permanent holdings –
  • Media and other private investment/business holdings (9+ because betting on yourself and running a business is always a best bet)
  • Real estate, including land and the ranch I live on in NM (8)
  • Physical gold bullion & coins (7)

• Primary stock exposure portfolio
  • Apple (9) – Apple’s in a funk. It has been in a funk for months or even years at a time over the last thirteen years that I’ve owned it. I think it will get back to $130 at some point this year and will double in coming years.
  • Facebook (7) – Facebook proved once again that it is the premiere mobile app company on the planet. Zuckerberg’s buy of Instagram for $1 billion when it had just 30 million people on it looks brilliant, as Instragram now has 400 million people and counting on it. Facebook’s Virtual Reality subsidiary, Oculus Rift is going to be what investors focus on in the next few months as it comes out to market.
  • Google (7) – Google’s Android and YouTube Platforms are creating huge value and earnings for the company. Just like we’d been saying they would for the last few years.
  • F5 (9) – Cisco spent a billion plus buying a private networking company last week and I think F5 is an increasingly attractive target for bigger networking companies like Cisco or even IBM or EMC/Dell, etc.
  • Amazon (7) – I’d been saying that I’d buy back the shares I sold near $700 if the stock gets closer to $500. In the last couple trading sessions, I bought some call options in this name with the stock below $500.
  • Sony (9) – We need to see Sony deliver some strong sales from their TV and movie library for this stock to rally back to $30. Until then, it’s likely dead money as the market is worried that Sony built up their image sensor business for smartphones at just the wrong time.
  • First Solar (6) – I’m likely to trim and take more profits on some more First Solar as oil/energy remain crashed.
  • Qualcomm (8) –  Google is likely to start using Qualcomm chips in their server/data centers to help create some competition for Intel’s dominant server chips. There are a lot of potential ways to win with Qualcomm over the next few years as the company moves to smart cars and server chips.
  • Netflix (7) – The stock’s been taken to the woodshed in the weeks since we took some profits on some of our shares back near $130. I bought some call options in Netflix in the last couple trading sessions.
  • FitBit (5) – This stock continues to trade poorly and unless it delivers some real upside to the estimates for analysts in the next earnings report, I’m going to move on too.
  • Ambarella (6) – AMBA’s got to tell analysts that they’ve got all of kinds of strong demand from their Chinese drone/wearable/camera makers or I might move on from this one too.
  • Axogen (8) – Tiny cap, long-term Revolution Investment in the reconstructive nerve industry. I’d likely trim near $6 and buy more under $4.

• Primary short portfolio
  • Pandora (7) – Tough to compete against Apple, Google, Amazon and Spotify in the music market. Staying short this name for now, though I have locked in some profits as the stock has dropped 50% since we put this short on.
  • GW Pharmaceuticals (8) – I covered 1/3 of this short recently, locking in 50% profits on it. I do think the stock could drop another 50% from here in coming months though.
  • IBB Biotech ETF (7) – IBB is down 15% since we put this short back on and I’m holding it for now as I continue to expect more biotech/health-care pricing scrutiny from the government.
  • Valeant Pharmaceuticals (6) – *Tiny Position A poster child for the ridiculous pricing models in the biotech/health care industry. .
  • Kandi Tech (*no rating, too hard to short, puts too expensive) –*Tiny Position This stock continues to fade lower, but it’s so hard to find shares to short and to buy the puts at reasonable prices that I’m just about to move on from this name.

Remember: I wouldn’t rush into a full position all at once in any of these stocks or any other position you’ll ever buy. Patience and allowing the market and time to work to your advantage by buying in tranches is key. Maybe 1/3 or 1/5 of whatever you  might consider to be a “full position” in any particular stock. And I wouldn’t ever have more than 5-15% of your portfolio in any one stock position at any given time. The younger you are and/or the higher the trajectory of your career income, the more concentrated and risk-taking you can be with weighting in your portfolio. But spread your purchases and your risk out over time and over a several positions no matter your age or risk-averse level.

Scaling into a position using an approach of buying 1/3 or 1/5 tranches over time is how I build my personal portfolio positions, but there’s no scientific way to go about investing and trading. Sometimes you have to pay up for the latest tranche but I try to be patient and wait for a temporary sell-off to add to the existing position.

** NOTE FOR NEW SUBSCRIBERS:

If you’re new to TradingWithCody or if you’ve been a subscriber for a while but haven’t acted on much of my strategies yet and/or if you haven’t been in the markets, but you’re sick of getting 0% on your CDs, Treasuries, savings, checking, etc while the markets have been continually hitting all-time highs this year, what should you do now?

Before you ever make any trade, step back and catch your breath before moving any money anywhere. Rank your positions and your whole portfolio and make sure you’re not about to make any emotional moves with your money.

If you haven’t yet read “Everything You Need to Know About Investing” then spend a couple hours doing so, please. It’s a quick read but chock-full of important ideas, concepts and strategies that amateurs and pros alike should understand.

Then, take a look at my own personal portfolio’s Latest Positions and slowly start to scale into some of the ones you like best and/or the ones I have rated highest right now. I’d look to start scaling into a few of the many stocks in the Latest Positions that are at all-time highs along with a couple that we’ve recently featured in our Trade Alerts that I’ve personally been scaling into.

You can find an archive of Trade Alerts here.