Whew. I’m saying that a lot, lately. I winced because I didn’t sell QBTS at $30, but got some out at $25. Now it’s in the $22 range. I moved two years ago, which was good timing. I left Boeing in 1998, which was even better timing. Precise timing is a wonder, but a bit of imprecision coupled with patience can work, too.

It would certainly be nice to know the exact time to do the right thing. If that’s happened with me, it has been through luck. The decision usually involved some intellect and research, but the exact timing was a guess at best. 

I’ve been reflecting on timing as the time comes for my Semi-Annual Portfolio Review, which is arbitrarily due next week at the end of June. I’ve also been reflecting on this observation in last week’s post.

“Ironically, of the seven companies valued more than SpaceX, five are very familiar in my life: Apple, Google/Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook/Meta. But they all started as much smaller companies.”

Early in their trading histories, I owned shares in Apple and Microsoft, as well as Starbucks and F5. I’ll spare you the longer list. I sold them all. I sold them because I made a profit and needed the money, or at least had a better use for it at that time. 

F5, aka FFIV, was sold at ~$40 to pay for a downpayment on a house. I bought some at ~$4. Today it is just under $400. I made a ten-fold gain. I missed out on a ten-fold gain. A bit of patience and I could have bought that house for cash, except the rental I was in was actively damaging my health. 

I wonder how my life would be if I had found a better rental in the interim. I may have never had a threat of foreclosure which prompted anxiety attacks and existential scrambling. 

The same is true of all the stocks that subsequently did as well. If I’d hung on, my finances may have been much better, various health care issues could have been resolved when they were smaller, and life may have been better. 

Or not.

I’ve also held on to some  stocks for decades, which have turned into dead-ends, so far. I continue to have hopes for GERN, LCTX, and MVIS, but ‘hope’ is not a strategy. If I sold today, there’d be lots of losses.

And yet, as I’ve noticed before, the most I can lose in a stock is 100% and the most I can gain is thousands of percent. Put $10,000 into a stock that goes to zero and have zero (as well as tax losses, which can be a benefit in some portfolios.) Put $10,000 into a stock that goes up over 1,000%, and I’ve gained ~$100,000. At that rate, such a gain in one stock can cover ten losses. 

But there are no assurances of gains or losses or the appropriate timing.

Finances meant I had to sell my house two years ago. Life’s been better since then, mostly because I got rid of a mortgage. Stock performance couldn’t bridge the financial gap, then.

I left Boeing in 1998, just as the merger with McDonnell Douglas was about to change the culture. Stock performance meant I could as we were about to become millionaires. Of course, if I’d stayed, my salary and benefits would’ve had years to grow.

Decisions made then necessarily have consequences not seen until later.

Most of my stocks have had a turbulent month. Let’s unscientifically blame 

SpaceX’s IPO. SPCX has a market cap ~$2T. 2 Trillion Dollars. Two Trillion! Congratulations! That also sucked up money that had to come from other stocks. Companies that are making progress, and possibly making money, had their stocks go down because investors didn’t want to miss out on SPCX. 

Oh, woe is me?

Nah.

QBTS hit a near-term high of ~$30. I hoped for more, and watched it drop to $25. The timing wasn’t precise, but worrying about the precise timing was only a hope, and was a waste of time. Time is precious. I don’t ignore the value of my time. I sold at ~$25. Now it is about $22. I didn’t maximize my profits, but 1) I’m not going to complain about an investment that went from <$2 to >$20 in 2 years, and I still have stock in QBTS, so I’m still in that game.

But QBTS is not in SPCX’s business. Space investors were more likely to already be invested in space stocks, like LUNR. LUNR peaked at >$46 and is now <$20. Ouch.

So, here I sit wondering about my timing, and remembering history. Ignoring the last few weeks, where do I think these companies and their stocks could be in five, ten, twenty years? That’s enough time for quantum computing to become normal, a lunar economy to be established and growing, and most of my other stocks to have progressed to profitability. Holding onto these stocks now can be a significant benefit then, for various definitions of ‘then’. MVIS could even get a customer! Imagine.

It is easy to get caught up in the financial equivalent of doom-scrolling. People laughed at AOL, which I bought at ~$1 and sold at $40 after it passed through $80. Given enough time, long-term projects can accomplish incredible things. (BTW I’m glad I got out of AOL as they merged with AT&T, but that’s another story.)

As it is, I hope I have sufficient finances to cover my expenses for the next several months, ideally a year. Within that time, the furor over SPCX will probably abate, as it already seems to be happening. My various stocks may recover and then surpass their recent records, and my cycle will continue. Fine.

(Assuming AI, aliens, climate change, politics, and social unrest don’t flip the playing board.)

Was the timing of my stock sale precise? No. It never has been. Fortunately, with that sale, I can now afford a bit of patience. (Maybe I should buy some LUNR if it drops much more. Hmm.)