I executed a pair of Portfolio transactions this month that I’ve yet to post about.  So, let’s address that now and get caught up before October comes to an end.

I made two transactions in total, comprised of one sell and one buy.  The two moves were made at opposite ends of the monthly calendar.

With one transaction I eliminated a long-time Portfolio holding after years of under-performance.  With the other transaction I repurchased shares of a stock that I recently trimmed.

The two moves resulted in a net investment of roughly $1K into my Portfolio.  However, they also knocked down my forward dividend income by more than $200.

Let’s check out the details for these two transactions I made this month…

 

Nike (NKE)

NKE had been a long-term holding of mine.  I established a position in the stock over 10 years ago.  The stock’s performance was outstanding for many years after I initiated my position.

Then things took a turn for the worse at the start of 2022.  The stock tumbled from north of $170/share to the current ~$37/share since then.  It’s been a pretty steady decline.

A number of factors contributed to the stock’s demise.  There were strategic missteps by management, shifting consumer trends, inventory issues, and stronger competition from the likes of On and Hoka.

With no signs of a business turnaround anytime soon, I decided to purge my position before their last earnings report, and take a capital loss that I could use to offset gains on my next tax return.

I definitely put more faith in the company than their earnings results suggested I should.  Lesson learned.  Even some of the best companies can lose their way.  Don’t get too attached.

On 10/1/26, I sold all 149.651 shares at $36.15/share.  The sale proceeds were $5,409.77, after the $0.11 SEC fee.

At my sale price, shares of NKE yielded an elevated 4.54%.  This is a far cry from the sub-0.50% yield it had at its peak.  This 4.5% yield was about 2 percentage points higher than my current Portfolio yield of 2.53%.

With this sale, I realized a long-term capital loss of $3,597.58 and a short-term capital loss of $30.66.  I also recorded a drop of $245.43 in forward dividend income.  No bueno!

Since my initial purchase back in April 2016 until this final sale, I calculate my annualized NKE return to be a disappointing -3.19%.  As an indication of how far the stock tumbled, at the end of 2021 my annualized return was 23.84%.  I didn’t go into the red until this year.  I had plenty of chances to unload this position sooner and secure a gain.

Technically, I’m still sitting on my NKE sales proceeds.  I haven’t decided if I want to keep the money in the Consumer Discretionary sector or not.  I was already underweight in the sector before this sale.  I’d like to try and replace the lost dividend income, too, but with such a high yield (~4.5%), that limits my options.

 

Meta Platforms (META)

Recall that I unloaded my most expensive META shares in early September.  My hope was that I could sell them after their large run-up in price, and then buy them back at a lower cost in the weeks ahead.  Of course, after I sold, the stock continued to push higher… from the $655 where I sold to nearly $780 about two weeks later.  Safe to say I was a bit early.

The stock held up pretty well, until Q3’26 earnings were released last week.  In the earnings report the company showed large AI spending (pushing toward negative free cash flow), detailed a huge upcoming equity raise, and noted a major legal charge.

As a result of the news, the stock price has been retreating.  I was able to buy back my shares about $10 less than where I sold.  However, the price has continued to drop and I’d have been better off waiting a bit longer.  Nonetheless, I got my shares back at a lower price, so mission accomplished.

On 10/22/26, I purchased 10 shares of META at $645/share, for a total of $6,450.  The stock yielded 0.33% at my purchase price.  This is more than 2 percentage points lower than my current Portfolio yield.  The purchase only added $21.00 to my annual forward dividend income.

As a result of the buy, my META position has returned to 16.013 shares, growing by over 166%.  Unfortunately, this did raise my cost basis by a sizable $36.28/share, to $623.19/share.

With the purchase, META climbed a hefty 19 spots in my Portfolio rankings.  This was a big jump from being my 2nd smallest holding.  META is currently sandwiched between a pair of Industrials stocks, Lockheed Martin (LMT) and Cummins (CMI), in my Portfolio rankings.

 

Summary

In October, I unloaded a long-time holding in NKE, and added back some META shares after unloading them early last month.

With NKE, I probably should have sold long ago, as earnings continued to plummet over a handful of years.  In the case of META, I got my shares back at a lower price, as I’d planned… it just took longer than I thought (about 6 weeks).

I haven’t figured out what I’ll do with the NKE sale proceeds yet, but it will be difficult to replace the 4.5% yield it was delivering at the time I sold.

The two transactions resulted in a net investment into my Portfolio of $1,040.23.  Despite the overall investment, the result to my forward dividend income was a net decrease of $224.43.

With the sale of NKE, I realized long-term capital loss of $3,597.58 and a short-term capital loss of $30.66.  The annualized return for my NKE investment over the 10+ years I held the stock was a sad -3.19%.  Had I sold early this year I could have salvaged a small positive return.

Since NKE was eliminated from my Portfolio, and META was already an existing position, the number of holdings in my Portfolio dropped by one to 56.

 

Did you ever have a position you kept in your portfolio longer than you should have?  Have you ever sold a stock with the hopes of buying it back later at a lower price?  I look forward to your comments!