This no-so-savvy investor
finally gets a little bite
from the stock market
I’m no genius when it comes to stock investments, mostly relying on the likes of Vanguard funds for my IRAs. But I inherited a portion of what initially was my father-in-law’s stock account. Mostly I ignored it.
I had a little Coca-Cola, PNC bank, Procter & Gamble, Duke Energy, McCormick, Exxon. Emphasis on “little.” There was good reason to ignore it. My late father-in-law's portfolio was relatively conservative, but the stocks were all quality.
At one point I decided to buy a little Under Armour at about 50 bucks a share — local company challenging the big guys in sporting wear sounded good to me, lots of potential. Well, that showed off my investment acumen. Under Armour went down... and down... and down.
Licking my wounds, I decided to dump Under Armour. And looking at my portfolio, I noticed that my Exxon stock had gone up. and up. I had about 10 shares. Not fond of big oil, I had the bright idea to sell Exxon at its then-high, along with Under Armour at its then-low, and invest the proceeds in another company: Utz.
My Under Armour and Exxon stocks were worth nearly 330 shares of Utz.
I cannot remember any time on my life without Utz potato chips -- the main product (along with pretzels) of a company less than an hour's drive from Baltimore, in Hanover, Pa. The fabled gazillionaire Warren Buffett has long recommended investing in products you use and like. Potato chips -- what could possibly go wrong!
Well, inflation. Prices for food went sky high, and cut into potato chip and pretzel purchases by many families.
I had a theory about Utz — highly popular products, strong local brand, and one of these days the company would be gobbled up by a bigger one and make my investment at $13.50 a share double. Instead, over the past year, its price per share had dropped nearly by half to about $7.50 -- what you'd pay for two or three bags of chips.
This morning, my stock broker called. “Congratulations!” he said. “I have good news. Your Utz stock went up by 90 percent!" The company is being acquired by Germany's Intersnack group and going private, in a deal valued at about $2.9 billion.
The deal is expected to close by year’s end, but my broker recommended selling now, at the current price just a tad over $14 a share. Having put all of Utz’s skimpy dividends into buying more shares of the company, I made a little profit.
My broker promised to call in a day or two to recommend a new investment. Meanwhile, I may head out this afternoon to celebrate -- I think the local supermarket has a half-price deal on Utz chips this week.
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