Destruction!

So my computer finally gave up and died. I abused it. So I know have a brand new Acer 5920 and shall begin posting again soonest, as soon as I can get Vista to like my Outlook 2007. In case you haven't been watching TCM is going to be announcing 3rd quarter results early next month. That was enough to push it up a little. It still has strong fundamentals and worth the watch.

Another contrarian is our friend Countrywide, up over 4 on Friday. Again momentum from, hey wait we screwed up and lost lots of money but we will be profitable soon. It does sound analytically feasible but definately worth the watch.

DECK, my ultimate nemesis as I was poised to buy it at 18.XX is now over 145 and was bought up by institutional investors Friday making its strength that much greater...

I still like overseas ventures, even though they are volatile, look at the US. 3 funds to look at: ACINX, HIOMX, PRIDX.

More to come later...

Remember to give some of those profits!

How hard is it to part with 30 bucks a month to change the life of a child in a country where the opportunities are non-existent at best. Just 32$ a month to sponsor a child!!! 1200 - 32 is still about 1200!

Change a child's world.

Your tax-deductible contribution of just $32 a month connects your child with a loving, church-based child sponsorship program that provides:

• Educational opportunities
• Health care and supplemental nutrition
• Opportunities for safe recreation
• Opportunities to learn about important life skills
• Most important of all, sponsoring a child will allow your child to hear about Jesus and be encouraged to develop a lifelong relationship with God.

20 Minutes 1200 Bucks

So before I left Florida on Monday I dropped an extra 5k into BCSI, took about 20 minutes from deciding to do it, selling a speculative position and buying BCSI. Friday at the bell profit was over 1200 bucks. Not bad for a quick play. Not only did it pay for my weekend in Fl, but I pocketed about 500 bucks extra.

I will be covering some short term trading strategies over the next few weeks. For those of us not brave enough to enter the day trading arena we can still make profits and "ladder" them into large returns using limits and applying fundamentals to make good plans in the evening to execute automatically over the next day to a few weeks.

Stay tuned as I find time... Let's all make some money. Please leave comments on how you are doing and on any tickers you have researched or are watching for the short term play.

Yahoo!

So Google and Yahoo are set to report earnings next week. While Google is obviously a rocket and latest price targets are reaching well over 700$ Yahoo has been falling and lost a little of the search market ground. So how does this relate to Alibaba you ask? Since Yahoo is committed to buy 1B$ of Alibaba's IPO I think Yahoo should be in a better, more positive, position to commit that much money. They also have a 40% stake in the Alibaba Group.

Where is the good news in all this? Recently Yahoo has begun to make some acquisitions to position itself to perform better in the future. Two recent acquisitions focus on what makes Google such a powerhouse, on-line advertising. Analysts estimate these acquisitions should contribute between 400 and 600M$ in revenue over the next 12-18 months. Positive news for a company that seems to be losing ground in the search engine market.

This along with the IPO commitment set Yahoo up to bring some shareholder happiness in the future. Maybe a long future in Yahoo but a future at least.

What's new today

So, I don't get to look at the market all day now, however if you have looked at my site lately I mentioned the Alibaba IPO, it is very similar to VMW as in EMC owns a bunch of VMW and Yahoo owns a bunch of Alibaba. So again, if you can't get in on Alibaba get in on Yahoo.

Although VMW is up 107% as of today. EMC is starting to move as well.

This came across my radar today... will be looking at in the near future:

BluePhoenix Solutions, Ltd.(USA) (BPHX)

DNDN--my favorite nemesis of a stock, along with, DECK, Dendreon has a prostate cancer drug in final phases of trials, looked somewhat promising that the FDA was going to approve but didn't, is in-value now with high potential next summer when results of the testing are released.

Actually several cancer drug companies have drugs entering various stages clinical trials... more to come over.

BCSI has been doing very well since the split. Need to watch the technicals to minimize risk.

Guess what's coming to town

Alibaba IPO, the chinese storefront for thousands of suppliers. alibaba.com underwritten by at least goldman sachs. More to come on this. I believe it will strike in November.

So VMW is over a hundred, AAPL clost to 170, RIMM over 110. Did you buy any of these when I mentioned them.

I sold EMC and picked up BCSI after it's split. We'll see. I used to be a user of Blue Coat and think the products have an audience.

Breaking News

A couple of interesting things here. Today while researching a little on Verizon's (VZ) near term plans for an I-Phone competitor, which is due in South Korea by the end of October. In case you didn't know South Korea is the most wired country in the world. People actually use the features of the phones for accomplishing everyday tasks and their is more bandwidth per person than anyone needs, but hey why not...

Now to the breaking news, in this research I discovered a little article discussing Google and Verizon's participation in the soon to be spectrum auctions. This is where the the spectrum where wireless technologies operate it get sold for proprietary use. It is interesting to note that Google is advocating the Verizon is breaking some FCC rules about disclosing its lobbying practices over how federal regulators will govern its sale and use. Know what is interesting about this is why does google care about the radio spectrum anyway, after all its an Internet company right?

If they are interested in taking "something" to the wireless realm that could bring long awaited ideas to reality that combine google's capabilities with wireless telecommunications devices. This would positionthem as the number one provider of get anything go anywhere wireless devices. This would allow users to lookup their myspace friends in relation to any search imaginable and add the 3-space enhancement of geolocation provide unlimited possibilities. Or imagine uploading realtime video to you tube, how would that change the face of the news, no video editing, real, raw and direct to the user. The ideas are endless and would poise Google for the next level, if their is such a thing, of market value.

One to keep watching, and why not look at BIDU, the number one search engine in China!!!

Feeling Thirsty

Who would have thought that you could retire on the hippy-associated beverage company. Hansons, HANS. I owned them in the high 30's, go look at where they are today! I bought them after they split as well, they were in the 200$ (pre split adjusted) range not too long ago. At the same time I hedged and bought Jones Soda as well since they were getting some press and had a short lived reasonable expectation.

So again, take your money and put it in some good stocks and leave it there!

Goldman Sachs raised their earning expectations today. Why not look at all those kids running around with "energy" drinks in hand.

Time to pull the trigger

I mentioned RIMM when they split, buy right after... Now Blue Coat and Johnson Controls split today and tomorrow.

BCSI splits 2:1 tomorrow. They have no debt and a great product in use by many industries. I used to work on their old proxy appliance when it was cache flow and it was great. Just like VM Ware, I used to work with that too.

Johnson controls has always been one of those companies to long and at a 3:1 split shouldn't have a problem turning a profit on that one.

If you are worried about today's loss, just some profit taking, market still looks pretty bullish.

Time to pull the trigger

I mentioned RIMM when they split, buy right after... Now Blue Coat and Johnson Controls split today and tomorrow.

BCSI splits 2:1 tomorrow. They have no debt and a great product in use by many industries. I used to work on their old proxy appliance when it was cache flow and it was great. Just like VM Ware, I used to work with that too.

Johnson controls has always been one of those companies to long and at a 3:1 split shouldn't have a problem turning a profit on that one.

If you are worried about today's loss, just some profit taking, market still looks pretty bullish.

So If only you knew

09/01/2006 01:10 PM

I'm buying Apple (AAPL) today. If you read my technology blog, you already know that I bought a new MacBook laptop this week, and I think it's the cat's pajamas (great)!

But why should anyone buy the stock you ask? My purchase is emblematic of next big wave of growth that I predict Apple is going to see over the coming years, and that is Windows users switching to Apple hardware, but staying on Windows. Apple has always had great hardware, but it's expense, and it only ran the Macintosh operating system. With Apple's switch from the PowerPC CPU to Intel CPUs, and the advent of software products like BootCamp, Parallels, and the soon to be released VMWare for Mac it is now possible to run any version of Windows on an Intel Mac (not to mention almost any version of Linux) and it's FAST and STABLE!

I work for a consulting company that is a Microsoft Gold Partner (we live an breath Microsoft all day everyday), our CEO is carrying a new MacBook Pro, our head IT guy is carrying a new MacBook Pro. I'm also aware of Microsoft employees, a other thought leaders in the Microsoft development community who are know using Apple laptops as their primary work computer.

So time will tell whether this is a few uber geeks playing with expensive toys, or a group of savvy early adopters starting a trend...I'm confident it's the later.

Prediction: 2 years from now a lot of people will look at Apple as primarily a WINDOWS hardware company, and that's a HUGE market compared to the Macintosh, or even the Ipod.

Want to help or need help

I haven't talked about the whole "helping others" theme of my blog lately so here are two sites you visit to give or lend money to others. These sites aren't part of the true spirit of giving because both of these sites allow you the possibility of getting your money back but they do provide loans to people who might not otherwise get any. Also, you can sign up for a loan yourself from people just like you...

Both of these allow you to contribute as much or as little as you like and help people with different objectives and goals. At both sites a group of users contribute to a pool until the amount requested is met. This allows you to contribute to multiple people and limit your risk as well.

The first site is Kiva.org Here you can view third-world country entrepreneurs in need of some working capitol. Now giving is purely about helping others but here you actually lend people the money they need to build, continue or start their business. The key word there is lend. That is they are just like any other business people in that they obtain a loan with the intent on returning the money. It is interest free but a great way to help someone with their goals and more importantly help build communities and commerce in emerging countries. Go to the site and review all the business owners when someone stands out contribute some money to the "pool."

Now at Prosper.com it's a little different, here you lend money again in pool fashion or the entire amount with the intent to recoup your capitol plus interest. Credit ratings are available for each member. You can also request a loan yourself.

Where's Your Cash

Ok, so with all the economic indicators out there I see two reasons to start accumulating cash. One in a few years when the housing market begins to turn around there are going to be extremely excellent opportunities to get into a house you probably couldn't even begin to afford a few years ago. On this same line, why not start your real estate investment business and pick up a few rental houses at a greatly reduced rate in an environment where rents are still strong. I think the demand for rental units will rise over the near and long term. One because of the foreclosure market people are going to be looking for places to live, second hopefully banks won't make the mistake of lending to people with extreme debt to income ratios maintaining the rental demand. I don't think I am alone in this since several banks and funds are buys beginning to buy billions of dollars in property over the next 3-years in recessed housing value areas.

Second, the employment outlook isn't that great so ensuring your emergency savings is ready to carry you through any unforeseen emergencies would be a wise decision. 3-6 months of take home pay in a high-yield savings account is a smart way to do this. You won't feel like you have a good chunk of change sitting somewhere not making you any money. At 5-6% safe returns, on-line savings accounts aren't a bad thing. Even if you have a great job, let's say your a high-paid contractor type. There is nothing preventing your contract from expiring without the need for your "option" years and not knowing that until a day before the contract ends. Having a few months take-home pay on hand will help alleviate the stress and give you the necessary time to find that next contract. Also, always contribute at least what your company is matching to your 401K. Don't ever turn down a 100% return on investment. Finally if you are able to contribute to a Roth IRA do so. In the case you need more cash you can withdraw your contributions without penalty, not the interest earned, but your yearly contribution amount. See your accountant for more details.

Plus having some cash on-hand sets you up to be able to buy when that next VM Ware comes along!

Lessons Learned

So I have been playing some technical analysis and momentum games lately. Today is the first day in a while that my 4 current picks are down. Not by much but down. At one point not too long ago my "play" or active portfolio looked like this GE XRX TYC and XOM. All are up over 30% from what I held and of course I sold them for about 30% below where they are now. That was based on not having any cash in the account because it was all tied up in stocks and when a new "hot" stock came around I would have to sell quickly to free up the necessary cash to buy the new stock. Of course all this buying and selling had commissions attached as well. Had I did a little research (I had on Tyc which just got through it's own scandal and the stock had leveled off and GE of course is GE, Jack Welch is one of my favorite CEOs to research) and XOM was strong but this was before the gas price surge. If I had been smarter then I would have moved them into my Long portfolio and added cash to my active side. This would have brought me 30% return over the last year or so not including any dividends.

So what is the lesson learned? Don't be greedy, pay attention to the balance sheet and listen to the consumer and the company. When you find one that has potential leave it alone for a while and see what it can do.

My picks for potential today are QCOM, NOK, PTR, possibly RIMM (in other words more research is needed, although I had planned to buy at the split I did not) and EMC. CROX might be the next DECK, I've been saying this while watching it rise without buying, yes, the same as DECK back at 18.

My lesson learned is to pay attention to fundamentals and buy the stocks that look like the ones I should have bought and hold them!

Safe Returns for Your Cash

Everyone knows about savings accounts but not as many know about online-savings accounts. Whats the difference about 4% APY. This site has done the research for you, pick one that will give you a rate of return your looking for and put your savings in it.

http://www.savingsaccounts.com/

What easier way to earn 5% on the cash you should be keeping on-hand in case of an emergency?

I'm not sure why everyone doesn't put there savings in one of these accounts. You are cheating yourself out of considerable returns by keeping your money earning 5% verses 1 or 2. They are FDIC insured and you move money into your checking account just like you would at your brick and mortar bank. They can offer these returns because of the money they save being paperless and not maintaining tellers and windows...

If you had it would you give it?

http://www.businessweek.com/investor/philanthropy/

31 Billion, yes Billion from Buffet to Gates.

Don't have 31 Billion how about 25 or 30$.

25-30$ a month to Food for the Hungry (http://www.fh.org/) or Compassion International (http://www.compassion.com) can make a difference in a child's life. Check them out and decide if it's write for you. Yes, we sponsor children through both.

On line Investing (part 1)

There are a number of online investment sites out, any of which will provide you the basic buy this many shares of stock X at price Y functionality. If you want cheap go with Zecco.com. If you want more in-depth tools go with something more. I use TDAmeritrade which costs me about $10/per trade (remember that's 10 to buy and 10 to sell factor this in your when figuring profits). TD has many many research tools available to the average user and has in-depth analysis and reporting on just about any facet of research you may need. More importantly they have on-line tutorial and education assistance as well. It also has great reporting tools which simplify taxes tremendously, very important for all those short (held less than a year) trades you do.

I have friends that use Scott Trade and trade through their banks, all have different commissions. Best way to decide, again, is to perform your own research on what each has to offer.

Until next time...

Energize your returns with Solar Energy

As you are all well aware of the energy crisis and growing nations, renewable energy sources will be in big demand in the near and long term future. Solar energy has 3 components, the raw material made into polysilicon, the solar cell maker and then the solar cell implementer. LDK is in the middle of the three and of course located in China. This puts it in close relation to polysilicon makers. China's energy demands are driving sales as well as internationally.

A great post on this is from the Stockgumshoe blog (http://www.stockgumshoe.com/2007/09/robert-hsu-red-hot-solar-profits.html), with the following comments on their article.

" 'LDK' is a fast moving company I bought a few months ago when it was around S40 now it's around $68 and going for $71...so the anaylst say. Sometimes this stock moves up as much as $6 in a day...then back down a little. " Just like Petrochina and RIMM and APPLE lately, or almost.

"Other decent solar movers are 'YGE' and 'JASO'...and of course... 'FSLR' is out of my league now."

"Just look at their charts. I bought JASO at $18 and a few months later, I sold it at $35. Wish I had it again as its up around $40 already after a recent drop to $30's"

Eat at Chili's on Monday!

On September 24, Chili’s Grill & Bar offers an easy way for you to join the fight against childhood cancer: dining out. Participating Chili’s restaurants nationwide will donate 100 percent of its profits from this Monday to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. So enjoy those famous Baby Back Ribs or one of Chili’s other signature entrées for lunch or dinner, and you will be supporting the life-saving work of St. Jude.

Interest Rates Drop Buy Online Banks

Annaly (NLY), even cramer yelled about this one in the lightning round. .26 Dividend declared Ex-div is 26 Sep. As rates drop these banks make more money.

"Listen to me and listen good. ... Today there was a firm that downgraded it, and we were cackling. ... Now that rates are going down, [CEO Mike Farrell is] going to print money. I want you to get in there. I want you to buy Annaly two-fisted. And not only that -- they just raised the dividend yesterday. I want you to pull the trigger multiple times."

I'm Done!

Ok, the new philosophy is to buy the news. I bought a couple of stocks the night before the fed announced rate cuts, almost a gimme that they would be cut and that the momentum would swing up. Well obviously that happened and it extended into the international markets so not only did I make a few quick bucks my long-term mutuals have jetted greatly.

So forget technical analysis, volume, buyers vs. sellers, P/E, PEG ratios, fundamentals and all that other stuff. My philosophy of buy other peoples emotions is working!

So maybe I won't quit learning about the technical side but these last few weeks/months have been easy money. It's almost predictable what is going to happen just by reading the news and market sector anticipation. Even the futures market fluctuates with emotion.

I know this is obvious stuff, but I'm making money this way :-)

NOK, LEG, AMNT.OB (Speculative, but relatively safe with potential), TCM downgraded to hold but as any Chinese company, lots of potential!

Yay Fed!

How about them Feds??? Did you see the momentum after 2:15 est today. If you were a gambling guy/gal you would have bought some of the recessed stocks last night and sold this afternoon. Two that are on my list were RIMM and PTR, both expensive but rose 4 and 6+ respectively. Or played it safe and bought NOK, GE, DECK (expensive but rose 7+) Just about anything you were watching that has average fundamentals would have made you some quick cash today. After all 3 out of 4 stocks rise and fall with the markets momentum.

Let's see what happens tomorrow!

I recommend reading "The Successful Investor" by the founder of IBD, William J O'Neil. Pretty easy read and you can actually start to understand those technical chart things you always see that show volume and high/low and close numbers.

He makes a good point about timing the market and that no one thinks you can because of the volume institutional investor buy/sell takes too long to react to market metrics. As well as explaining why most of us think backwards when it comes to investing. Haven't we all thought or been told buy on the way down. Lower you cost basis! Yeah, in hindsight how often has that worked.

Anyway, buy the book and read it. I picked it up and got through most of it on a 3 hour flight to Cancun and it only cost 11.95.

Yes, he plugs the subscription to IBD quite a bit, but if you have the time to read and comprehend the technical stuff and not the time to do all the research you need to reduce your risk the IBD is an excellent tool to help you out. When I get a grasp of these charts myself I will be subscribing.

Until Next time, Hasta Luego!

What I learned today and some stocks!

You are only truly rich when you know who you are, where you belong in this world and you accept where God has placed you at any point in time. I want to make money to be able to do whatever I want to when I want to. I find it inherently difficult to accept where I am despite where I live, how much I make and how much time I have. I have more than most and give a little when I can but I am constantly working on the goal of early retirement. With the millions upon millions of people in the world that have less than I with the thousands of children dying everyday because no one does anything to help. My hope for this site is to show people how to obtain some control of the financial situation so that they might give more than ever thought possible to those that truly need our help. God doesn't just ask for 10% he asks for all you have. In this I believe is the hardest part for anyone to accept but is the true meaning of faith. It is painfully obvious that the old saying "money is the root of all evil" is true. I have seen it drive people to buy lottery tickets instead of food for their kids, business men to lie, cheat and steal to have more than anyone ever deserves and drive politics and arguments that are just insane and steal away from the true course of mankind.

Ok, off the soap box for now... I'm currently starting to look at LEG, it has been increasing dividends consistently and a low PE along with manufacturing of consumer products, which if the mortgage woes impact retail purchasing might not be a positive. It has been in a sell off lately and is just above it's low with a target of 27$ (as far as targets go). I will be looking into this one in more depth in the near future.

MCD has raised its dividend payment to 1.50 this year. Never to late to start buying some. I recommend their DRIP program. No matter what happens people always go to McDonalds. Again another continuous dividend payer.

More to come. Yes, I should have held onto VMW. But I should have bought DECK and MVL and CROX, etc... So do as I say and not as I do...

On-line surveys for cash, yeah right.

Everyone has heard of taking on-line surveys for cash. Who believes that? Well here is a site that provides you just that. It might not be the hundreds of dollars you were promised by other sites but if you have some time you can easily make a few extra bucks a day. With payouts beginning at 10$ it's easy to get that "extra" paycheck each month. Just go to cashcrate.com and sign up for a free account. When you have done that just go to the offers and sort by 100% free and rating then start typing! It's that easy. People have been making hundreds of dollars a month using this site why not you?