Mistaken Profits

     Years ago, when I had a job, I would often have free time to do some Internet research of  potential investments. I would also keep a close eye on my current portfolio in case something was happening to a position. By using yahoo finance or my discount broker's website, I could type in symbols of any company that I owned or had read about. One day I made a mistake when typing-in the symbol of Intel which is INTC , instead, I typed-in INT, which is a company called World Fuel Services. Instead of backing out  and correcting my error, I read about this company to find out what they were about. Turns out that I was fascinated by their business. They would provide any kind of fuel to any company or government anywhere in the world-for a hefty price. This means that if a government was waging a war somewhere in the world and needed aviation fuel, diesel fuel, gasoline or anything else, WFS was johnny on the spot. If an ocean-going freighter needed fuel on the high seas, WFS was there also. This company had been in business for many years and even paid a dividend. I was looking for potential investments and I found one entirely by accident. I pulled the trigger on ITC because it fit my criteria for a new addition to the portfolio: Stable management, reasonable valuation (PE ratio), good business model, regular dividends, reasonable debt ratio, WTH I'm in. I had a good run with INT for about 2 years, then I sold it for a nice gain which was long term to ease my tax burden. The reason I sold it was that fuel prices were starting to decline because new supplies of crude were coming on line due to hydraulic fracking in the USA. Fuel prices alone should not have hurt their business because they were basically a service business but investors don't always see it that way. Sometimes stocks fall because they are too close to a declining commodity. Anyway, I made a profit from a mistake. Why am I telling you this? Good things happen when you do your research-even if you make a mistake.