Stockcoach's Corner

I always enjoy the feeling that one has when a new year begins. One can put past mistakes behind them and start fresh. As far as investing is concerned, regardless of how well or how poorly you did the previous year, the counter gets set back to zero and everyone goes back to the same starting line. Of course, that warm and fuzzy feeling of knowing you have a perfect decision making record for the new year usually lasts until about 9:31am of the first trading day, but hey, enjoy it while it lasts.

Anyway, the first week of 2007 was a slow one for my portfolio. After deducting the $50,000 dividend that I paid myself earlier this week, the portfolio was up $2,114 (0.3 percent). This return was better than the Russell 2000 or the S&P 500, but not as good as the NASDAQ.

Despite the dividend, I am still sitting on a large cash position of about $200,000. I've been trying to bring that down by buying some new stocks, but so far most of the limit orders that I have in place have not been filled. Unfortunately, that's one of the problems with microcaps. If you want to start or exit a position, you can only do it very slowly since most of the time the liquidity simply isn't there to move large amounts of stock. In the microcap world, patience is indeed a virtue.