Trading and Investing in Energy has not been the wise move
Posted By RichC on February 19, 2020
Those of us who spend any amount of time investing or trading stocks enjoy the good feeling when we’ve studied and made positive investing moves … but we also tend to ignore the stupid trades. Looking at today’s chart of Exxon $XOM (5.80% annual dividend), there is no way I can positively spin one of my lousy investment decisions. Here’s hoping that admitting my mistake will help prevent “my” tendency to “dollar cost average … causing me to have an unbalanced or poorly diversified portfolio.
I’ve slowly been moving from a portfolio of growth stocks to income stocks … even before reading “The Little Book of Value Investing.” I suspect most people who are nearing retirement age like the idea of building of 
a dividend portfolio and hope for more portfolio stability. Tradition wisdom is that companies who’s profits comes from steady production and consistent sales are ideal. Unfortunately finding well managed companies with “free cash flow” and with a history of raising their dividends is getting more and more challenging.
Traditionally, energy related conglomerates have been the go-to candidates since the world depends on a steady flow of oil and natural gas. Unfortunately, the last 12-months or so of oversupply and depressed economies outside the U.S. have not been good times to hold or buy energy stocks.
Personally I would have been better sticking to a broad based ETF, well managed mutual fund … or in hindsight, holding a few more of the high flying tech stocks (admittedly, I sold $AAPL and most of my $TWTR to buy a basket of individual stocks like $XOM, $CVX, $RDS.B and $BP).
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