I made a hard decision today.

I sold two gold stocks in my portfolio that I had done well with.  Actually, very well, as I was up 135% on one and 40% on another.

And I kind of agonized over it for a bit, although I shouldn’t have.  Selling stocks when you’ve made a good profit is not such a bad thing.  It sure beats selling them when you’ve lost money.

And it’s not like I don’t think the price of gold won’t going to keep going up either.  Over the long haul, I feel it will continue on it’s upward path.

So why did I sell?

Well, the whole thing reminds me of a conversation I had with some friends in the past about their plants.  You see, I’ve been an avid gardener in my past, growing just about every vegetable out there.  I even grew some pumpkins one year that were so large and heavy that I had to use a dolly to pull them out of the garden.

So anyway, my friends were showing me around their place and pointing out all of their nice decorative plants.  And I said they were very nice, but I preferred to grow plants that earn a living.  Meaning, of course, my vegetable gardens.

Now let me hasten to tell you these were close friends, so they knew I wasn’t putting them or their plants down.  I was just expressing my preference.  To each his own, I say.  I just like plants that make things I can eat.

And that leads me in a rather round about way back to why I sold the two gold stocks.  They didn’t pay any dividends.  In other words, they weren’t earning a living from my point of view.

Now gold stocks quite often don’t pay dividends.  Many are quite speculative, and some of those speculations pay off – as you can see with my handsome 135% return on one of them.

But there are actually some gold stocks that do pay a dividend.  I kept one I have in my portfolio that does just that.  Granted, it’s only 1%, but still, that stock is earning a living in my view – and it’s appreciated in price as well.

One other thing about dividends is that I think it keeps company management a bit more focused on the shareholders (read owners) and a little less inclined to go out on ill-advised acquisitions of other companies, or promising gold fields, or things like that.

There’s nothing wrong with doing these things — correctly, but I think it’s good to keep the management ever mindful of the owners.

And that is shareholders like you and me.

So that’s why I sold those two gold stocks today.  Now, since I still believe gold will go up, I’m actively looking for new ones to invest in as we speak.

But they will be gold stocks that pay a dividend.

Because I much prefer stocks, and plants, that earn a living.

To your health and prosperity – John