Bought some Delta
Delta went down to around 7 a year or so ago after being at 60 before the crash and 9/11. I thought it had to be a good buy except that it's earnings at that time were -$15 a share and projected losses were $6 a share. It just seemed like a company couldn't possibly lose that much money. But they bottomed out and went up to around 15 before starting to work their way down again. Earlier this week they released the earnings which were bleak again and their stock was back in the 7's. I thought it was interesting but I'd hold back. Today it dropped in the mid 6's so I bought some. It's very speculative but hopefully it will go up. As soon as I bought it I wished I'd bought more, but that was the greed talking. I will buy more if goes down 20%, but I'm thinking I won't sell unless it goes up 40%.
| Permalink
| 
Comments (8)
I've been considering Delta, too. Good brand beat up bad, thinking how I wish I had bought K-Mart. Then I read this article. The CFO is leaving to go *to* a bankrupt company!
Delta Top Execs Leave
Posted by Jeb | April 17, 2004 1:23 AM
Well, today Delta is near an all-time low of $4.11 a share. After buying my first 100 shares for $6.62 a share, the stock quickly jumped. I wished I had bought more (then I would have some shares to make a quick buck on and others to hold longterm). But then it went back down and I did buy more at $6.23 on May 3 even though my general rule of thumb is to buy more only when it goes down 20%. Good old Delta quickly obliged, dropping to $5.29 a week later when I bought more. It continued to drop into the 4's, but started working its way back up as an agreement appeared to have been reached to reduce the pay of Delta's pilots who are paid more than anyone in the industry. On May 21 I was able to sell 100 shares at $6.56 and lock in some gains (while realizing a short-term loss on the shares I had bought at $6.62!).
I don't remember how high it got before heading down into its current spiral. My next buy price for a 20% drop was $4.98, but when the stock dropped to $4.70 I just wasn't confident enough in Delta (they lost $2 billion last quarter, the pilots are balking, oil is at record prices, and all of Delta's attempts to raise ticket prices have been abandoned so that they continue to lose money on every passenger). It kept dropping and today was down to $4.11. I almost bought some more (it was down to $3.91 this morning) but I'm really not at all sure. With obligations to continue to pay the pensions of hundreds of thousands of former employees that AirTran doesn't have bankruptcy seems unavoidable.
But I sure have made Scottrade happy since they've gotten $28 in commissions.
Posted by UT | August 6, 2004 7:26 PM
Delta continued to plummet after I wrote my last comment and eventually got as low as $2.75. Rather than buy more I decided I was down to so little money that I might as well stay in and lose everything (200 shares, so only $550) if they went bankrupt. But they crawled back up in the low 3's. Then they started going back up as American Express offered them some new loans (they already have $12 billion in debt; their stock is worth $600 million and they lose $2 million a day) if they could get a deal with their pilots. That sent the stock up to near $5. I thought that was pretty good so I sold 100 shares at $5.07 on Wednesday. No matter how I count it, I lost money on that one, probably $130. Of course the next day the pilots did make the deal everyone had been waiting for and the stock shot up into the 6's before closing at $5.72. I could have lost $70 less. Oh well. I still have my original 100 shares and they are that much closer to breaking even.
Posted by UT | October 30, 2004 10:02 AM
Well, I sold my last 100 shares today for $6.22. So I wound up losing about $70 on the whole deal. I just don't know when they will go back up. But if they go down again I might buy some more. I read that a few weeks ago Delta was shorted by more people than any other stock. That was before the price went back up, so those people are probably hurting.
Posted by UT | November 9, 2004 3:39 PM
I bought Delta the day after they freaked out the market using the "b" word. The stock dropped 50% in one day. They were using it to leverage negotiations with the pilots. I figured there was no way the highest paid pilots on earth would not offer concessions prior to bankruptcy, and that the stock would bounce back up after that. The pilots are currently voting (it is a 10 day process). The stock has gone up in anticipation of a positive vote as well as the American Express and G.E. loans. I'm looking to sell the day before or the day the vote comes in. (The 10th.) At $6.25 (current price) I'm at a 33% gain, so I'm a bit worried about being greedy.
Posted by Jeb | November 9, 2004 10:22 PM
Perhaps Steve Miller said it best when he offered "Go on, take the money and run" Ooooohhhh yeah!
Posted by UT | November 9, 2004 10:43 PM
It never fails. Today Delta is up to $7.40 so I could have wound up making money on the whole deal.
Posted by UT | November 15, 2004 11:48 AM
To follow up, we went ahead and got a little greedy and put in a sell order at $6.95. That would be a 50% return (more than the disciplined 30% I'm trying to adhere to.) The stock sold on the way up to $7.40. I was surprised when I got my statement to see that my $6.95 sell order went for $7.05. I guess it was going up pretty fast that day and no one offered $6.95 so it went for the next higher offer. This happened once before with rapidly rising Yahoo.
I knew those pilots would give in.
Posted by Bruthu J | November 23, 2004 12:50 AM