Latest Positions and new ratings

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) – I already bought back the shares I sold near $130 as well as some call options when the stock got closer to $100. 
  • Facebook (7) – I’d buy back the shares I sold near $110 if the stock gets closer to $90.
  • Google (7) – I’d buy back the shares I sold near $800 if the stock gets to closer to $600.
  • F5 (9) – I bought another tranche of this stock near $95 and would buy more at $85 and might even add some long-dated call options if it gets that low.
  • Amazon (7) – I’d buy back the shares I sold near $700 if the stock gets closer to $500.
  • Sony (9) – Sony depends on exports and as the Yen has fallen 6% against the dollar in the last month, that likely bodes well. However, the company’s image sensor business is likely seeing a slow down. I recently bought back some shares that I’d sold near $30 when the stock was around $24. I’d look to buy more if it gets below $20.
  • First Solar (6) – I coulda woulda shoulda trimmed some more of this one when it was at $70 on the Goldman Sachs upgrade a few days ago. Energy stocks in trouble and if oil continues to collapse, First Solar might take a hit too as orders could get put off.
  • Qualcomm (8) –  I plan to own Qualcomm for the next 5-10 years as it expands its footprint with a new joint venture to integrate radio frequency controls into the main chipset it sells. Moreover, I think Qualcomm is positioning itself to dominate the smartcar dashboard of the future and that could fuel a whole new Revolution Investing phase for this company. I don’t know where it will bottom near-term but that’s why we leave room and use tranches to scale into it. If Qualcomm delivers on these Revolutions, it will be generating much more cash and earnings in five years than it is today and the stock would reward that, regardless of whether the S&P 500 itself is up or down this week or over the next five years.
  • Netflix (7) – I’d buy back the shares I sold near $800 if the stock gets to closer to $600.
  • Synaptics (5) – Smartphone and tablet supplier stocks are struggling mightily. Careful here.
  • Silicon Motion (5) – Smartphone and tablet supplier stocks are struggling mightily. Careful here.
  • FitBit (5) – I couldn’t have been more wrong about buying this stock, unless I’d bought an energy stock instead as Fitbit’s traded almost as poorly as oil and the average energy stock.
  • Ambarella (6) – TGoPro is less important than ever to Ambarella’s future, as the company’s customer list diversifies to Chinese wearables and drone manufacturers. That said GoPro still accounts for 1/5 of Ambarella’s sales and that’s not something to sneeze past as GoPro warned on revenues big time this week.
  • Axogen (8) – The stock’s been selling off along with all of biotech this year. Longer-term is growing steadily and positioned for dominating the nerve reconstruction business.

• Primary short portfolio
  • Pandora (7) – I covered more of this short this week as it hit my single digit price target. The stock probably still has much further to fall if the ongoing market correction continues.
  • GW Pharmaceuticals (8) – I called this a Great Short for a No BS Market when I put this short on and it remains so.
  • IBB Biotech ETF (7) – I ended up making some money on most of these IBB puts that expire here in January as they kicked in when biotech crashed to start off 2016. I will likely add some more IBB puts in coming days.
  • Valeant Pharmaceuticals (6) – *Tiny Position I’m likely just go ahead and cover this short and move on for now as it’s such a small position.
  • Kandi Tech (*no rating, too hard to short, puts too expensive) –*Tiny Position This stock has crashed and I’m up pretty nicely in my puts for it and am just going to let them ride as I think this stock is headed much lower still. 

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.