A.I.M. Users Bulletin Board

[SFSecurity]

Hi Tom, and Gang;

Does it make sense to sell 15 shares at $12.335 ($185.025) when the cost of the sale is $9.99 (TDAmeritrade's price)? That is a bit over 5%. Seems high to me given people talking about selling in $500 minimum lots.

The other question I have is that in the two trusts I still have some inherited positions that are more than 20% down from purchase price and they don't seem to be moving all that much one way or another plus they are too high a percentage of the total pool such that I don't want to add to them as they hit lower lows. Only one did it make sense to add to as it was a small position - SVVC - as it was only 200 shares but lost a bit over $4/share yet the dividend income total paid almost half of the additional purchase. Plus at well under 2% of the total portfolio, even with sporadic dividends, it seemed to make sense.

The others I've managed to get out of with either a small gain or a loss of $1-300, which, given the size of the positions - $15,000 to $29,000 - was trivial.

What I need to know is whether to get a big loss and get out from under the large positions such as MORL which is almost 55% of one portfolio and about 45% of the other with a loss of about $18,000 as they are about 12% down. MORL is paying monthly and seems to be getting 18-20% return annually. Hanging on might be the best bet for now. What does everyone think?

The other question is how would I move them into AIM positions so they could be tracked that way? I'm not sure how to create the right Portfolio Control number. Any suggestions?

I know I can set the Buy such that it would have to take one hell of a dive before any buy signal would happen, but I'm not as sure of how to set a sell signal such that it would not be selling into negative territory. Suggestions?

The other thing is that I'm now sitting on a fair pile of cash, more than is needed for the AIM positions, but I don't see any clear positions to acquire given the highly volatile market the last two months so I've been sitting on my hands. Does this make sense?

Thanks,

Allen