Going to Cash

Well, for a minute, anyway.
I did close 2 positions today, one for a substantial loss.
That was Joy Global, which for the longest time has been ready to close on a deal to be bought out.
That has really been dead money, but I kept thinking that maybe someone or somebody else would come along and sweeten the offer, especially as the economy was eventually going to improve in China.
But suddenly, there has been a lot of selling of those shares by institutional holders, so I gave up and took the cash.
The same for that EMC spin-off after the buyout from Dell.
That one, at least had a decent profit.
But the theme for my thoughts over the weekend was that I wanted more cash, feeling pretty uncomfortable with the state of affairs in the world, especially with a pretty tumultuous week in the United States.
So much for holding onto that cash, as it didn’t take too long to plow it right back.
This time, into shares of Pfizer, going ex-dividend on Wednesday.
That looked like a good trade, whether assigned early or not.
Of course, there’s also the small matter of earnings tomorrow that may get in the way of a good theory.
With the market down sharply this morning, I do like the idea of cash, but we are at such an unknown point in our nation’s history that even hindsight may be insufficient to figure it all out.

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