Up over 40% in a week? Sell! Buy that car! Take those profits! Or. Yeah. Maybe later. Sharing a portfolio’s success is rarely a good idea. Some hear bragging. Some will jump in with competitive stories. Some know that it isn’t profit unless you sell at more than you spent. Some know that greater wealth is grown from slightly improved wealth, and only if the stock is treated like an asset not as gambling. But eventually, a big enough rise is big enough.

QBTS has been a stellar stock for me. I bought it at ~$1. Now it’s over $28 (as I type). I sold a bit to pay off my investments. I sold a bit to grab some profits. Those were months and years ago. Within the most recent week, the stock is up over 40%, partly because someone in DC decided to like it. 

I aim to buy stocks because I think they’ll eventually be worth a lot more. I buy risky stocks because their industries may not exist, yet. QBTS is involved in quantum computing. Someday that may be a dominant market. Other investors bid it up. Some speculator in DC bid it up. The revenues haven’t changed much. The people bidding it up are not advancing the technology or growing the market. They are growing the awareness and the hype.

I’m willing to buy into an unknown industry when the price is very low. Done.

People seem to be buying in because other people are buying in. Fine. I won’t stop them. 

Irrational exuberance was a common term during the Internet Bubble. It may be back again.

I’m invested for the long term. Imagine buying Amazon when it wasn’t profitable and people thought it was silly to run a company as it did, growing without initially worrying about revenues. 

I think quantum computing will be pervasive, eventually. I think buying into that trend in 2026 may look cheap in 2036, but I’m guessing. I guess in that way I’m gambling; but it is an educated gamble based on what I know about computing, and industry, and the markets. I think the markets are ahead of the rest, but my money is all profit left there to run. 

Or so I thought, and may still think.

Strategies and philosophies are fine, but reality sometimes says ‘act now.’ 

The realities of investing for me are that investing creates cash, usually every several months. I’m getting closer to selling something, so I’ve been watching the markets more closely. Even before this week my two main candidates were QBTS (because I have enough spare shares to sell) and LUNR (because they too are recent favorite investing targets). Quantum computing is racing space commerce. Both are new industries. Both are hard to quantify because neither has regular and predictable revenue. And now, both have had good news. I’d prefer not to sell either.

But there’s that cash thing, and the car thing, and my knee thing, and someday I need to take a long vacation.

I’d prefer not to sell either, but when (not if) I do, there will be excess funds for cars, knees, and vacations. I’m going to sell, and I may take advantage of the sudden interest, but my sale will not be because of that interest. 

With my style of investing there are lots of companies that went to effectively zero. I’ve lost effectively 100% many times. The most I’ve ‘lost’ however, was when I sold too early. My classic mistake was selling FFIV at $40. I thought they’d miss their revenue target, based on my misunderstanding of their stockholders meeting. At least I made a downpayment on a home. Sweet. Today it closed at just under $400. Forget the downpayment; I coulda bought the house for cash! I’ve missed out on such gains many times. I made profits. Yay. But I’m aware that those mistakes are massively larger than my ~100% losses.

When my portfolio rises as much as a new car, I am glad, but a stock portfolio, or at least my portfolio, is not to be treated as a checking account. My portfolio is more like a garden. No. It is more like planting a forest of trees that may wither, may grow steadily, or may sprout out of expectations.

Within the next few weeks I plan to sell to generate months of cash and to pay some bills. Life is unpredictable, so I’m not making firm plans, except to watch and be alert. QBTS was up over 46% this week. Cool. Good. But, I’m not going to splurge on a new car; but maybe like a fine bottle of something, or a storage rack, or a… I don’t know. I have time. Cool. Good.