Virtual Broker – Margin Review on my Portfolio

Margin gives you the ability to buy stocks on borrowed money from the brokerage.  The more money you invest in a stock, your risk becomes greater as well.  It can be for the better or worse, but you really need to access how much you are willing to put down or stomach.  *Always be careful when borrowing money.*  

Presently, I have a margin account with Virtual Brokers.   The current rates at Virtual Brokers is 4.5% for CAD and 4.75% for USD.  Margin rates are usually competitive, since they have collateral to the amount of cash you have in the account with them.

Last month, I sold my Goldcorp stock.  So at the moment, I have $4,470.37 cash sitting in my CAD account.  I still don’t know what to buy on the Canadian side.

I also added a few American stocks to my portfolio on margin, but they haven’t been performing as well as I had hoped for.  At the moment, Currently, I have $8,384.51 margin in my USD account.  I am hoping Coke will make a turnaround soon, so I can lessen my margin load.

Current Value for USD Stocks on Margin:

Coke (KO)

2,075.99

1,912.00

-163.99

-7.90%

Visa (V)

$4,152.49

$4,052.83

-$99.66

-2.40%

Costco (COST)

2,240.99

2,292.40

+51.41

+2.29%

Anyways, I have been lazy and not really keep track of my overall stock portfolio.  Time for me to sit down one night and make a good tracking system for all my purchases and sales of stocks for 2013.

Sold a couple of my swing trades today

I sold out 2 out of 4 recent swing trades:

1. Kraft for a profit of $66.49
2. Mastercard for a profit of $16.49.

99c per trade is great for maximizing your profits 🙂 Keep in mind, I bought these two along with Coke the day before the market took a plunger.  I held these two stocks for a total of 9 days.  This is exactly what I wanted to do, the timing of my trades were not so opportunistic.  Next time, I will be more careful with my swing trades.

Currently, I am still holding Coke on this swing trade.  As for my most recent swing trade: Dollarama, it has been take a beating in the last few days.  Hopefully, they don’t sink anymore from this.

Also, I got a reimbursement from Virtual Brokers for transferring over my stocks from Questrade for $131.25.  They were true to their word.

 

Coca Cola Vs Pepsi

Coca Cola and Pepsi are two major beverage companies beloved by people all over the world.  Iconic name brands.  Coca Cola is the more popular brand indeed.  Most restaurants such as Macdonald’s carry Coca Cola as their main drinks.

Comparing the charts for the two companies, Coca Cola has surged 24% while Pepsi has underperformed with a slumping -7% for the past year.  Main differences between the two companies are the products they carry.  Coco Cola has focused on their beverages sector and stuck with what they know best.  While Pepsi has ventured onto snack foods where commodities such as corn and wheat have risen in price cutting they bottom line profits.

http://www.google.ca//finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1315542755168&chddm=99314&chls=IntervalBasedLine&cmpto=NYSE:KO&cmptdms=0&q=NYSE:PEP&&fct=big

However, I think Pepsi has a solid array of name brand products such as Frito Lays; Tropicana; Quaker; Gatorade which are staples in every household.  Almost at its 52 week low @ $61.34, Pepsi Co. looks attractive to me.  I may just buy up a few shares and see where the wind blows!