Feb
29
Wait for the 2nd Day?
February 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment
I am more of a value investor. I look for companies who have good growth potential but for some reason have been neglected by the market. I do this on a long term horizon as well as a medium term one.
When there is a bad day in the market, I tend to feel the urge [...]
Feb
20
ESPP: Employee Stock Purchase Plan
February 20, 2008 | 1 Comment
Many companies have them, yet not every employee takes advantage of them. I wonder why?, and the only reasons I can come up is: lack of knowledge, laziness, or the fact that most people live paycheck-to-paycheck — All of them are conditions that can be fixed if we really want to.
I think Employee [...]
Jan
14
Prosper – More Prosperity for 2008
January 14, 2008 | 2 Comments
Ironically, Prosper.com is the only one of my portfolios showing all nice and green. Better than I expected, it shows all loans either current or paid (1 paid). So far, I have issued 31 small/shared loans, one of them has been paid off. The initial principal was $3,000 (small amount, but [...]
Jan
8
Things Have Shifted During Flight
January 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment
My year end vacation is over, and as I stand on the Admirals Lounge in Honolulu I notice that things shifted… by about $100 grand in the negative direction in about a month, more than all the 2007 stock market gains by a big margin. Not a fun sight.
Those tracking my investment [...]
Sep
14
What Besides Banks?
September 14, 2007 | 1 Comment
You can poison yourself on too much of a good thing. Those who know me are aware I love to invest on banks: great dividends, good growth in an economy that depends on them, and a great business model that has proven itself over centuries. However, being invested on a single sector [...]
Sep
5
Prosper … Will I Prosper?
September 5, 2007 | 6 Comments
Life is not all about stocks. It is about loaning money as well, about helping other people achieve their dreams, grow the economy, and fill your pocket. For a long time I have toyed with the idea of starting either a bond portfolio, or a Prosper loan portfolio. For those not [...]
Aug
28
Money Moving In The Opposite Direction
August 28, 2007 | 1 Comment
For a long while I had a rule: money that goes into investment account stays there. Dividends: reinvested, capital gains: reinvested, spare money in checking: invested. All of the money flowed into the Ameritrade stock brokerage account.
In my new stage in life I have to make changes on that rule. [...]
Aug
18
Day Trading Lessons Learned– Halfway Through August
August 18, 2007 | Comments Off
Since I am not working in a traditional 9 to 5 job anymore, decided that rather than eating up my interests and dividends, I would try to live out of very short term trading of good but volatile stocks – while I am in between contracts. I consider myself an above average long [...]
Jul
23
Book Review: Mad Money
July 23, 2007 | 1 Comment
I am not talking about the show with the same name, but about the Jim Cramer’s Mad Money Book: Watch TV, Get Rich. It is his own book about the techniques used and how to understand that ubiquitous TV show that you must have seen while waiting at an airport for a flight, or [...]
Jun
29
The Big Flat Screen TV Family
June 29, 2007 | 1 Comment
Being a landlord is not as easy as people think. I once had a family occupying one of our rental units. The family is very nice, very polite, and trying to establish a good family. Financially, they are probably a mess. Payments consistently arrived late, sometimes more than a month late [...]
