Fidelity Faux Paux

So, yesterday I spent some time on our finances, paying bills, updating our savings chart, updating our net worth numbers, etc.

I was on the Fidelity site to determine if some of my recent limit orders had gone through (trying not to let my IRA money sit idle in cash).  I'm a big fan of Fidelity and, in fact, I've been a Fidelity customer for many years.  I generally have nothing but good to say about them.

But, of course you knew a but was coming, I'm puzzled by something that I just noticed.  When I pull up a statement online (and same for paper, because I checked), my name is nowhere on the statement.  The statement is addressed to my husband (alone).  It lists our various accounts, mine are listed first, I assume because they are older accounts but it doesn't reference ownership.  These are not joint accounts, these are accounts that are individually owned by each of us (we do have a joint trading account) and in fact were established prior to marriage.

Am I bothered by this, yes.  And, I'll tell you why.  While I very much agree that the money on this statement is "ours", if you look at the numbers, I own, individually, the bulk of the money in these accounts.  And that is simply because I've been saving for retirement for a longer period of time.  The statement should be addressed to both of us and the accounts ought to be listed by ownership.

Fleeting Figment

On Saturday I logged into my Fidelity Roth IRA account with the plan to check on and, likely, cancel some open limit orders.  Imagine my surprise (and short lived excitement) when the total value for my Roth IRA had jumped upwards by more than a $100,000.  I quickly realized that my Apple stock was showing the post 7-1 stock split with the pre-split price.

It seemed odd, to me, that Fidelity would combine the two pieces of data, over the weekend.  Better to just leave it as is until Monday and today my short lived wealth has disappeared.

Stocks - Time to Sell?

Today, I sold some stock.  This was a momentous occasion because this was a first for me.  The last few years, in my IRA, I have been buying individual stocks (my 401k is mutual funds).  As of today, I had 21 stocks and my "change since purchase" (this would be my return if I sold everything) is in the 70s%.

Now, before you commend me on my stock picking skills, let me tell you that I am not an expert and you shouldn't be following my investment advice.  Secondly, I really started buying stocks in 2009, in particular March 2009, so much of my gains is as a result of a dramatic increase in the market between March 2009 and now.  Thirdly, I pick most of my stocks utilizing Fidelity's Preset Expert Strategies, so I am working off of expert research and not some particular skill on my part.

So, as I have been working on research for investing my 2013 Roth IRA monies, I noticed that I have several stocks that have done quite well.  One stock was up 500% in less than a year.  As a result, I was looking for some advice on whether to sell or not.  Thankfully there is a lot of good research available to read on the topic.

First, I realized that I am not setting any goals when I buy stocks.  And, sometimes you don't need to set a goal if this is a stock, i.e. blue chip, that one plans to hold for many years.  But, on some of my more riskier investments I should be figuring out what I want to get out of the purchase and then "pull the trigger" when that event hits.  For an example, if I buy stock XYZ at $10 a share and my goal is to triple my money, I need to set that as a goal and then set up a limit order to sell when it reaches that number.

Second, tax implications (and note I am not a tax expert either, and we were audited by the IRS so you really should not rely on any tax discussions that you read here).  Since, I am buying and selling within a Roth IRA there are no tax implications.  But, if I were selling this stock that I bought less than a year ago in a trading account I would be paying short term capital gains.  Roth IRAs are awesome because that $4,300 I earned today is tax free.

So, yes, I ended up selling my super hot stock, profiting and pocketed $4,300, tax free, and . . . .  I had immediate regrets.

Even though I set a well researched limit order to sell at a price that I thought was reasonable, the stock went even higher today.  Bummed, is how I feel, I could have made more money and I worry whether I could have made even more money by holding on to it.  I expect that I will continue to stalk this stock in the future to see how much more I "lost" out on.

The lesson I learned, among others, is that if I set certain goals for my stock purchases and I hit those goals I will feel better about my plan rather than being caught up in the exuberance of one hot stock.

How do you buy (and sell) stocks?  Do you have a goal or plan for each at time of purchase?

2013 IRA

Today, I funded my 2013 IRA, $5,500 into my traditional, non-deductible IRA.  Once the transfer from my Wells Fargo account to my Fidelity traditional IRA clears, I will immediately convert the traditional IRA to a Roth IRA.  Since 2010, the income limits for Roth IRAs were removed by the Federal government, but one still has to contribute to a traditional and then convert to a Roth.  On Fidelity, it is easy to do.  I convert the funds immediately, while it is still in cash, as I don't want to incur any gains that I have to pay taxes on prior to conversion.

Thereafter, my plan is to watch the markets this week which have been down and up due to the government shut down and the debt ceiling debate.  I don't normally try to time the market, but if the Dow dips below 15,000 again this week I will make some investments.  For our IRAs, we invest in individual stocks, i.e. Apple or Ford, etc.  I like to use the expert preset strategies to find well rated stocks that are on sale.  

Additionally, I have set up our 2014 IRA savings account over at CapitalOne 360 (formerly known as ING)