Gyroscopic Investing

What do people think of BP these days?

It is the only individual stock I currently own. I bought it when the height of the Gulf oil spill hysteria was at a peak several years back. It has recovered nicely and pays a good yield. Currently I'm still planning on holding it for a while simply because I feel no pressing need to sell it.

As for pricing today, hard to say really. Oil prices continue to hold at pretty high levels and economies like China will continue to demand more access to petroleum so the entire sector still remains a likely solid play. It may make more sense to own an energy ETF to diversify if you wanted to speculate here.

The time to buy it was when it was being crushed. I agree with Craig (nice speculative play btw), go with a sector specific ETF.

craigr wrote: It may make more sense to own an energy ETF to diversify if you wanted to speculate here.

Yeah...I just noticed that it's lagged the index fund (XLE) quite a bit since the spill.  It also pays a pretty nice dividend. 

I have it in my VP which I am currently focusing on dividend stocks for companies I am a consumer of.  Have zero research to back this up, just figure if these companies know me better than I know myself and I shop there with my limited income, then it must be doing something right.

Plus I like having dividends for instant gratification to keep me from fiddling with my PP.