I had purchased and sold throughout many different stocks over this quarter. At the beginning of the quarter, I invested $19,672 into nine companies which are five Hi-Tech companies and four daily service supporters. I used to believe in the Hi-Tech industry so that I invested most of my money into local technology companies, such as Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, and Tesla at the very beginning. Moreover, I chose Costco, US Food, IBM and other two China’s e-commerce companies, Alibaba and JD.com. Besides the nine companies, I bought and sold Caterpillar, McDonald’s, GE and AmerisourceBergen during this fall. I lost money but also gained some money back. Unfortunately, the whole stock market was going down through this quarter; overall, I lost 10% of my balance and end up with $17,867 in portfolio value. I managed stocks I had invested very frequently in the last month. My strategies for choosing companies are that read two ratios (PE and PB) plus a chart named MACD. I tend to invest a company with a PE ratio under or around 10%, and the PB ratio is under or around 2. By the way, I wouldn’t have invested a company at the yearly highest price as my long-term investment. The biggest mistake I made was to invest too much into Hi-Tech companies when the market started decreasing although their annual reports were very good-looking. I started selling Hi-tech stocks in October.
I purchased three shares of Tesla for $306 per share on October 1 and sold all three shares I owned TSLA had decreased 4.2% to $294 per share in three days. Since the SEC was suing the chairman of Tesla, Elon Musk, for making “false and misleading public statements and omission that caused significant confusion and disruption in the market for Tesla's stock and resulting harm to investors,” according to the Washington Post. Shares of the electric-vehicle specialist are down 5.3% in 2018 through Oct.3.
On the same day, I purchased JD.com 80 shares for $25 per share. JD.com has a great reputation and market in China, but its CEO, Liu Qiangdong, who owns 80% of the voting, was arrested in Minneapolis without charging with a crime. The price of JD.com in the stock market has been decreasing by about 39% this year because of the very negative news. Its price became cheap compared to its peers, Amazon. In addition, I believe in its value and it would come back to $40 per share since it has many deep and powerful stockholders, like Google, Walmart, and Tencent which provides the most popular messaging app and online gaming in China.
US Foods stock increased by 10% over this quarter. I purchased 100 shares for $30 per share in October. In fact, US Foods started to decline by 17% to $33 per share on July 28, 2018. US Foods Holding Corp. has a 52-week low of $27.51 in October. Although its stock price was decreasing, its rate of inflow kept increasing, and its economic output in this company’s sector was expanding well. Additionally, US Foods has higher revenues when it reports for the quarter ended September 2018. US Foods went up overall the quarter because it keeps improving customer service. In addition, US foods announced plans for a new distribution center in McClellan, California on October 30. According to the analysis released by Yahoo, the $71.6 million investment will assist USFD to more efficiently service the company’s independent restaurant customers across Northern California. However, I sold it out at $31 per share in the early November. The reason is that the company had revenue of $6.15 billion during the quarter which is lower than analysts’ expectations of $6.31 billion. Moreover, Dow Jones started declining from 26,191 point to 24,285 point which is the quarterly lowest point on November 23.
I purchased Caterpillar for $129 per share on November 6. I noticed that Dow Jones Industrial Average was rising up on October 29, and it had a golden cross on November 1. After two days, the value of the stock had increased 2.3% to $132.5 per share, then I sold it out for the price on that day. Caterpillar had a negative credibility which showed in Yahoo Finance. Furthermore, since Dow Jones turned in dead cross and started dropping at 25,289 point on November 15, the trend of Caterpillar was declining as well.
I purchased McDonald’s stock for $185 per share November 8. MCD increased by 5.7% over November. I have been holding it for a month and currently own 18 shares of MCD. Since the low price McDonald’s has, it’s possible that customers go McDonald’s more frequent in an economic downturn. According to McDonald’s profit and price in the great recession of 2008, the chart provided by YCharts showed McDonald’s earned more during that period. The stock advisor Billy Duberstein indicates that MCD is a model food provider over the world and less risky stock company to invest as a long-term object. I believe it could still remain even increase its stock price and value in the recent. Moreover, MCD has been doing a lot to improve the quality in the International Lead Market. For instance, they always customize the menu to the local people, and they are very good at efficient marketing and promotion.