Ek CDs and some energy

I am not an expert investor. This blog is my trading notebook for myself and close family, though you are welcome to any of the information. Please do your own research and make your own decisions.

Thesis for basket Ek 4/20/13

There is an old rule of thumb that you take your age, subtract it from 100 and that is the percent of your invested portfolio (not including home) that should be in stocks. As people are living longer, that is being questioned and many experts are suggesting to have a higher percentage in stocks to prevent outliving your money.

The flaw with this of course is that it is possible to lose a lot of money in the stock market. As I am approaching retirement I am increasing the hedge ever so slightly.  To the best of my understanding CDs are pretty safe. Also, in a pinch, CDs purchased from a brokerage can be resold, but probably not at a profit under current interest rate conditions.

CUSIP Matures Interest
G99  10/11/13 0.55%
YW0   2/3/14  0.85%
5D0   3/23/15  0.95%

G73  10/13/15 1.15%

RE8   3/23/16  2.50%

5/19/15 Another CD has expired. Put an order in for 30 University Tex Univ Revs. Yield 1.141 Matures 08/15/2018. BTW, SYMX went up 8% today, who knows, that may get above water yet.

5/5/14 I took the cash from the CD that expired and moved it into small positions for municipals. This online broker had a good supply of munis that come due in 2015. The yield is dreck++, but it parks the money for a short time, earns a dollar or two in interest and is tax advantaged. Obviously I need to think about the longer term strategy for this basket.

3/11/14, I am not really happy with my strategy or execution, the biggest CD expired 45 days ago an reverted to cash, doing nothing. Need to rethink this some.

NOTE: from an earlier strategy there are two energy "orphans" in this basket:
VDE
4/20/13 106.84
SYMX
4/2013 1.04