He’s got a little over $20k from working for them for years. Then the a$$holes laid him off. We would like to buy a house at some point, so selling is tempting. But I can also easily see that this is their worst year in, well, years.

    I don’t know much about stocks, but traditional knowledge is buy low, sell high.

    Problem is my husband can see it getting much worse under the current CEO.

    Thoughts?

    Husband owns a good chunk of $UPS, do we need to just keep it?
    byu/spanielgurl11 instocks



    Posted by spanielgurl11

    21 Comments

    1. Totallycomputername on

      This depends on how far back your looking. Their down almost 5% on the year and about the same as last year this time. 

      If you have no confidence in the stock, sell it. 

    2. foamboardsbeerme on

      sell and put into voo. unless you think UPS is going to outperform the market.

    3. Iwubinvesting on

      If you have no idea on the business, why not sell and buy the entire snp500 index?

    4. I mean if it really bothers you guys sell and buy voo or any other safer etf.

      With the amazon announcement today i can see ups stagnant for a while and worse if amazon shows proof of their growth in 3rd party deliveries in the future.

      Also if you are planning to buy a house soon better to sell soon to have the money on hand. If however you are planning to buy in 5+ years you can stay in the market a bit longer than in something safer.

    5. nobody knows what is going to happen with UPS stock, whether it will continue to fall or rebound from here.

      what is true is that individual stocks have a very wide range of potential outcomes. anything ranging from -100% (businesses fail all the time, even if this is a relatively low probability for UPS) to… well, we’ve seen plenty of companies 10x the past year thanks to AI bottlenecks.

      meanwhile, the broad equity market (think the S&P 500 for US stocks or MSCI ACWI for global stocks), while also having a wide range of potential outcomes, has a relatively narrower range than any one individual stock. the broad equity market won’t go down 100%. it might go down 50% in the event of a very bad recession, but it’s always bounced back. it’s also unlikely to 10x like some stocks might.

      overall, the average individual stock underperforms the broader equity market. so my point is, make your decision based on the amount of risk you’re willing to take.

    6. Citadel_Employee on

      So is this near-term (1-5 years) that you’ll need the money? If so one of the most conservative/safest ways is to put it into treasuries. I’m honestly not sure about the future, but if the Iran war keeps going, I think we will see it hit UPS margins at some point, if not already (I haven’t kept up on UPS financials).

    7. DontForgetTheDivy on

      Given the tone of your post, I’m going to assume you guys don’t own many stocks besides this 20k in UPS. UPS is certainly having some issues, but I would give the same advice even if they were in a stronger position. You should not have 100% of your stock investments in a single company. You’d be better off selling it and buying a low cost index fund like VOO.

    8. Jack-Burton-Says on

      In general my rule has always been to sell company stock at vest and put it into something more diversified.

      In terms of making the decision about this stock, whether it’s down from when it was granted or vested is not the issue. If you wouldnt take $20k and invest it today then sell it and redeploy. Don’t get trapped into thinking it’ll come back or you might face this question when it’s lower in the future.

    9. EightFolding on

      When you have a position like this, the question isn’t really about how that stock might do in the future, rather think about it like this:

      If I had $20k to invest where would I put it today?

      If the answer isn’t UPS, sell it and put it where you would put it.

    10. I was a long time bagholder of UPS but sold at a big loss earlier this year. The biggest issue I see with the company is trying to compete with Amazon shipping as their DSP model can easily undercut more highly compensated UPS drivers.

      UPS could have a turnaround but they need strong leadership and a plan to compete against Amazon shipping. [https://shipping.amazon.com/](https://shipping.amazon.com/)

    11. Down more than 10% today on Amazon news. Sell at least some of it and put it into S&P. Do you have other investments?

    12. SocratesDaSophist on

      I think you should sell if you could need the money & you’re not that confident about the company’s future.

      You can earn 3.5-4% in bonds and that seems like your best bet now.

    13. The question really is do you believe that UPS can turn it around and beat the market if you don’t believe they will then it is time to sell and pay the taxes on the sell and maybe buy some other stock and hold that.

    14. steady_compounder on

      If the goal is eventually a house, I’d frame this less as ‘is UPS cheap right now?’ and more as ‘do we want this much single-company risk?’ A concentrated ex-employer stock position is a different problem from a normal investing choice. If you already don’t trust the business outlook, simplifying and accepting the tax bill can still be the right move.

    15. ynu1yh24z219yq5 on

      diversify, if you were there in corporate HQ and had any insight into UPS in terms advantages maybe keep it (and of course follow all applicable rules and regulations for such), but would you randomly put a large chunk of cash into it if you hadn’t been working there? No… so why would you now?

    16. Walternotwalter on

      UPS is a great stock and pays a very nice dividend. The part of the economy that matters to the stock market is using them A LOT. You give up that dividend getting rid of them and also create a taxable event.

    17. Stephen_1984 on

      If it’s in a 401(k) or similar tax-advantaged account, sell it.

      If it’s in a taxable account, I don’t know. Depends on the amount of capital gains and whether they’re long term or short term.

    18. Longjumping-Title-27 on

      It’s a transportation stock- with high energy costs- one of the largest inputs- don’t see the earnings prospects on the positive side

    Leave A Reply