My first attempt at Selling Individual Long Bonds

[dualstow]

Background: I've never rebalanced out of treasuries, and last year when I rebalanced out of stocks, I held onto my bonds rather than bringing them down to 25%. I'm still nowhere near a 35% share in bonds, but for this year's rebalance I'm going to pare the bond share down to that 25%. (Won't take much).

Where: Fidelity

How: When I sell individual stocks (or TLT or EDV), I often use a limit order if I'm not in a hurry, so that I might sell at a higher price than market (with the risk that I might not sell at all). With bonds, my order kept getting cancelled at even a few basis points above Bid (and below Ask). I'm not sure why, but I really wanted to trim, so I did a small test-sell at market price, and it sold instantly.

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Now that I've bought physical gold coins and traded individual bonds, I only have a few experiences left on my pp bucket list: redeem I-Bonds (should be very exciting) ands sell gold coins!

[barrett]

Dualstow,

You'll need to be in the moment when redeeming I-Bonds because the process takes abut two seconds at your bank... a bit longer (maybe two minutes) if you have to sign a bunch of them.

I am hoping to sell some LTTs eventually because that will mean that owning them was a good idea.

Ah, the drama of the PP!! Should be made into a TV series where folks sit around obsessing about whether or not to rebalance!

[dualstow]

I am hoping to sell some LTTs eventually because that will mean that owning them was a good idea.

Either that or ten years went by. ;-)

Ah, the drama of the PP!! Should be made into a TV series where folks sit around obsessing about whether or not to rebalance!

In rocking chairs at an old age home. 

[dualstow]

Sold some more long bonds for a family member but this time it was at
Vanguard.

I got a message like, "This is the best price right now for the (measly) amount of bonds which you are selling. There are different prices for different volumes." Something like that.

Hmm. I was aware that this is one reason an individual investor shouldn't mess around too much with directly buying individual corporate bonds, as you can really get screwed, but for some reason I thought selling treasuries was somewhat like selling stocks.

[FarmerD]

Now that I've bought physical gold coins and traded individual bonds, I only have a few experiences left on my pp bucket list: redeem I-Bonds (should be very exciting) ands sell gold coins!

Actually selling my gold coins has been my only exciting PP experience.  Two years ago I sold some silver to Texas Precious Metals.  Me and my wife took a Saturday road trip to Shiner Texas.  The only two employers in this little dinky town of 1,000 people was the Spoetzel Brewery (Shiner Bock beer) and Kaspar wireworks (which owns Texas PM).  We spent about an hour with the head guy there, Tarek Saab, chatting.  A really pleasant, handsome, and humble (as I was to find out later) guy.  Said he worked as an electrical engineer at some large defense contractor before deciding he wanted to run his own business.  When we got back home I google him.  Turns out he was a finalist on the Donald Trump show "The Apprentice."  He also has authored a few books.

I sold some gold to APMEX earlier this summer.  I delivered my stuff directly to them at the old Federal Reserve Building in Oklahoma City.  They had 2 armed uniform guards at the back loading dock waiting for me.  I felt excited pretending to be Jason Bourne being escorted around by one of their sales reps and the 2 armed guards. 

Clicking my keyboard on the Vanguard website selling some stocks or bonds just isn't the same as selling gold. 

[dualstow]

Great story, FarmerD, and nice to see you back here on the forum.

[FarmerD]

Great story, FarmerD, and nice to see you back here on the forum.

Thanks.  I spent most of my summer in Europe and my brother's farm without internet access.