miscellaneous stocks

[Luke Warm]

i've worked for several big companies over the years and i've always ended up with various amounts of stocks from the companies getting bought or splitting up. i keep getting dividend checks anywhere from $2 to $30 so were not talking a big amount of money and i never keep up with it, it's just there. i figure it's maybe a few thousand dollars. so this year i thought i would sell all the stocks and put them in a betterment account mostly just for grins but also to have it in one place. so i sold one stock when the dividend check came in and put that money into the betterment account. i then got a dividend check from another stock and when i went to sell it i saw it was quite a hefty sum. i looked up the stock on line and it seems to have been going up for quite some time. what do i do with it? keep it where it is? put it in betterment? keep half of the stock and put the other half in betterment?

[Rob_bob]

What is the stock?

[Luke Warm]

thermo electron corp

[Stimpy]

So let me get this straight:
Got a Dividend Check
Went to sell stock, see it's a large amount.
Got scared and want advice.

Here is my advice.  Stick to your plan.  Only delay if you would have to pay a significant amount of taxes for the sale.  (ie spread out your tax bill over years if you must.)   If the stock in question no longer fits your Investment Policy Statement (IPS), get rid of it and put your money where you stated your going to.

Now if you have a reason, like say you feel this company is awesome and could go up more.  Fine, call it play money and keep it as is. But I don't recommend doing this to most of your holding that do not fit you IPS.

[Luke Warm]

i was looking at this stock selling as play money but it has turned into real money. i've got no loyalty to this company or any of the companies that i have stock with. i'll check into the taxes. thanks for the advice.