Hello Friends and Family,

Link to this year's index by clicking here.


HP Retirement Anniversary III


HPQ Another year has passed and it is now three years since I retired. And what an interesting and challenging year it has been! Of course the economy has recently provided the "challenging" part — in multiple ways.

Those of us who took the early retirement package have been watching the price of HP stock carefully — because most of us had stock options that had to be exercised within three years of retirement. I talked to so many people about what strategy to follow in deciding when to exercise. It seemed like no two retirees had the same opinion — so I had to develop my own plan.

Because of the historic volatility of the price of HP stock, I decided to exercise 1/3 of my options each year. I have been following the prices carefully this year and postponed action on that final third, hoping that the price would go up just a little bit more. However, there is an old saying related to investments — more money has been lost chasing that last little extra bit of return. So finally, I decided that I could not wait any longer — and exercised at $48.15 (last year, I got $50 a share). And I cannot believe how lucky I was — because the next trading day, the Dow dropped 777 points!!! And has pretty much been falling ever since. Phew, dodged another bullet.


As I did in previous anniversary editions, I have compiled a set of photos from the last 12 months of LAHP. Not much more to say but enjoy!

Loved Ones & Friends

Places

Entertainment

 Life is good.

 Aloha,
 B. David