Monday, October 27, 2014

For several weeks I’ve been waiting for an announcement from Twitter on the company’s performance over the past quarter. I purchased stock in Twitter a couple of weeks ago, just prior to the stock market’s big decline. My entry point on the stock was $51.90, and I purchased a sizeable stake for my portfolio. I knew it was an aggressive move. I’d made a sizeable profit on a trade in Apple earlier in the month, and I thought a move into Twitter could boost my gains further. Boy was that a dumb move. Twitter began to decline within seconds of my purchase. Within hours I’d lost 5% of my equity. The stock hung around the high 40s until this morning. The entire financial community waited on the earnings announcement. I understood the stock could move 20% either way, depending on the financial results that Twitter would announce. I decided to hang on to the position. At 4:00 New York Time, Twitter published its earnings. Sales doubled from the quarter a year ago, which was awesome. But the company disappointed on other metrics. Wall Street anticipated that more than 17 million users would’ve signed up for Twitter during the quarter. But Twitter reported a total of 284 million users, but only 13 million people signed up during the quarter. Since it fell short on the new-account metric, neither the profit nor the revenue growth could sustain the stock’s valuation level. In the aftermarket, the stock tanked. When the market opens tomorrow I will sell, expecting that my stock portfolio will have been trimmed by 18% since the beginning of the month. That’s what we call the ups and the downs. Now I need to find a new stallion to ride through the fourth quarter.

 

Days since my release from prison: 441

Miles that I ran today: 12.7

Miles that I ran so far this week: 25.42

Miles that I’ve run during the month of October: 177.01

Miles that I ran so far in 2014: 2,041.03

Miles that I need to run in order to reach my annual goal of 2,400 miles: 358.97

Miles I’m ahead of schedule to reach my 2,400-mile goal by the end of 2014: 63.46

My weight for today: 168