Latest Posts
Well, I finally managed to track down an iPhone in the Seattle area, no thanks to apple or at&t’s web sites. I’ve only had it for a few hours now, the verdict? Neat device but, so far, painfully slow to type on.
They were out of the 8gb models so I had to get a 16gig. […]
I made the mental leap to buy an iPhone over the weekend. My current Motorola flip phone is starting to get worn out and the new phone has a couple nice features such as a faster internet connection than the prior iPhone and GPS capabilities. My contract with Verizon is up and, since they haven’t gone out […]
From a personal finance perspective, I try to avoid any unnecessary recurring expenses. I figure I’m stuck with a cell phone, high speed internet and utility bills for the most part, but things like NetFlix, Premium Cable and Car Payments are things I can live without.
Software as a Service (SaaS) has been talked about for quite […]
Yesterday I bought some more Taser. Maybe I’m digging myself into a hole, but I think this company’s technology could be a major part of the future of law enforcement and military weaponry and I can’t believe they are trading for as little as they are.
They have a strong brand (Does “Don’t tase me bro!” […]
A few weeks back, Starbucks launched their new Pike Place Roast coffee. They advertise it as “Smooth and Bold, made every 30 minutes, all day, every day, just for you“.
Here in Seattle, the Starbucks center of the universe, they’ve been promoting it very heavily. Without coming out and saying it, it seems pretty […]
My not-so-diversified portfolio has received a bit of a beating lately. Last week I closed my positions in Intel and sold off part of my Marchex position (after a nice 34% run up in 6 weeks) so I’m sitting on a bit of cash.
I hadn’t intended on buying anything right away. Having just shy of […]
It is times like this when I can see how folks get spooked by the market, sell at the bottom, and remain soured on investing for the long term. I know its in my best interest to hang in there and perhaps even buy at these levels, but its tough!
My cash account with Scottrade has lost […]
My car is starting to show “signs of aging” and I’m actively on the hunt for some new wheels. I’ll certainly be getting something used so I don’t get zapped with massive depreciation in the first few years. The link indicates that most cars depreciate 15-20% per year, I’ve heard even higher rates from other sources. […]
Slashdot has a post today about a technology that is embedded in many printers that can actually identify when any given page was printed and, often, the serial number of the printer that printed it.
According to the EFF’s website, the US government was able to convince “some color laser printer manufacturers to encode each page […]
If logic prevails, Microsoft stock may be in for quite a rebound on Monday. After announcing an offer to buy Yahoo! for 44.6 Billion on February 1st, Microsoft’s stock went into a steep decline. Ending January 31st at $32.60/share, the stock closed yesterday at $28.56/share, a drop of roughly $4 or ~12%.
Its clear that investors either […]
This is the first of what I hope are a few posts to help people take control of their blog or website earnings to generate some interesting statistics about where their blog revenue may be in the future, metrics about where their earnings currently are, and information on how to track true success metrics on your blog […]
I headed over to the International Monetary Fund website last night, trying to find out what the per capita income was for Afghanistan and ended up finding a list of per capita incomes for all the countries that participated in their data collection for 2007. Afghanistan came in at $383 dollars per year. The United States sits […]
Well, I have an appointment set up with the Honda dealer again tomorrow. Things could get ugly. I have a Honda Civic that is just shy of 15 years old. I’ve been in the ’shopping for a new car’ status for the last few years but just can’t bring myself to part with a car that […]
Not a lot of time to post today, but I’ve read three articles in the last few weeks about how Marchex may be significantly undervalued based on their portfolio of nearly 200,000 domain names. They have a huge portfolio of domains that they own and run advertising on and they also offer an ad platform […]
Joel Stein over at the LA Times has an excellent post on his view of the fiscal stimulus package. Here is the first paragraph and, trust me, its worth reading the rest. He covers everything from Ron Paul’s goofy exasperation to Bebe clothing stores to telling Ben Bernanke that he is good looking to how […]
Requirement #1 to get you through a cold, dark, wet Seattle winter? Coffee. Caffe Appassionatto is roasted locally and served in many of the fine Seattle cafe’s. Looks like Amazon only has three packs, but three bags of coffee for $20 isn’t bad and it’ll be just enough to last you through a Seattle weekend.
Requirement #2 […]
Jim Goldman posted a nice article over at CNBC today titled “Google’s “Damaged” Shares: Can They Regain High Ground?“. Its a nice, quick read that lays out everything Google has going for it despite what the critics say.
His thought is that Google’s stock doesn’t deserve the recent beating that it has taken. Last year Google […]
Yesterday, VMware announced earnings. The company makes virtualization software that can be used to maximize computer hardware by allowing you to run multiple operating systems on a single set of hardware. It can offer additional gains by allowing a company to house all of its hardware in remote locations where rent may be cheaper, power […]
With McDonald’s focused effort to enter into direct competition with Starbucks via their “McCafe” concept, I’ve been giving some thought to what that really means to the investors in both companies.
McDonalds is certainly a juggernaut and has nothing to lose by entering into the industry (high margin coffee drinks could greatly increase the average order […]
I’ve been writing on this blog for a year and three months now. I’ve had some popular posts and some not so popular posts, but I’ve realized that I think I’m taking the wrong approach to things and am going to make a concerted effort to change my approach over the new month.
Over the last 15 […]
S.W.O.T. is a decision making technique used in financial and market analysis. Often used internally by companies to evaluate potential products or investments, it is also a simple tool you can use to make sure you do due diligence when making investment decisions in individual companies.
S.W.O.T. is an acronym for:
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
Remembering SWOT when looking at companies […]
By far the most amusing thing I’ve seen in the stock market in a while happened to Taser’s stock this week.
The week started with Taser at CES where they announced a Leopard print Taser and a Taser MPG (Music Player Holder) that features a 1 gig MP3 player keenly integrated into your Taser’s holster. Its getting […]
I just finished taking the BBC’s “Brain Sex” test. It took about 15 minutes, I highly recommend it. You can learn a lot about yourself, and it is a fun way to work your brain a bit. Don’t worry, its a family friendly test!
Toward the end of the test, there is an interesting question that has a […]
There was a time when I chewed through personal finance and stock investment books at a breakneck pace. I read all the guru’s books, I read all the motivator’s books, I even read a book by Robert Lichello titled “How to Make $1,000,000 in the Stock Market Automatically”.
Each book had its own little trick to […]
This morning, someone forwarded me a link to Rick Steves’ “Cold in Kyoto and other hot topics” article and, after reading it, I can’t help but feel like the current batch of presidential candidates are missing the boat.
As some of you know, Steves is a well known travel author and tour guide. He’s spent his […]
Several years ago I picked up a copy of Robert Allen’s book Multiple Streams of Income and read it over the course of a weekend. I don’t remember it as being a terribly substantial book, but the premise has stuck with me.
To be a prudent investor, one must diversify their investments. When you think of diversification […]
As I look at my portfolio over the past few months, I see its down. Down a bit more than I’d like it to be for sure but nothing compared to some of the folks out there. As a small-fry investor, I assume I’ll make bad decision on a specific stock now and then, I […]
I was listening to NPR on Friday while heading out for Thanksgiving, round II and heard an interesting argument about Americans’ over-consumption and insatiable appetite for cheaply made imported goods.
Is it true that we Americans are in love with having more, more, more or is there something else going on? The interview was with several folks, […]
Stocks are getting hammered today. Like all small investors, watching your portfolio value drop considerably in just a few days hurts but I am taking advantage of the situation and buying some more TASR.
The company has great growth prospects, a (mostly) non-lethal protection device that police can use to subdue their subjects with a high […]
I’m under 30, make a pretty good salary, have no significant debt (other than my house), how much should I be putting into my 401k? My employer doesn’t match my contribution at all, but they do have a profit sharing plan so a percentage of my salary goes into my 401k regardless of my contribution. In […]
In recent articles (Options Basics, Options Leverage) I’ve discussed using options to boost your leverage and reduce capital requirements on making a big play. Options, while risky, can limit the amount of cash you need to put into a trade and can allow you to use your available cash to highly leverage your position without taking […]
Yesterday’s nearly 50% decline in Heely’s (HLYS) caught my eye. I remember their IPO back in December 2006, the closing price in their debut was $32.60. Their stock approached 40 by February and has been on a bit of a downward trend ever since. On Tuesday, August 7th, 2007, their stock closed at $21.90. By […]
I’ve been writing about my experience with options trading for a while now and feel like I often have to explain options-related terminology within my articles so I’ve decided to just post a quick glossary of terms that I’ll be able to refer to in future articles. This is just a basic list, but ought to cover […]
Why do options offer any advantage over trading stocks? They’re riskier, since they expire within a certain amount of time and their values are more complicated to assess.
Because they expire on a given date, the investor has to make a choice within a relatively short time frame. In my earlier post, I think this expiration […]
I’ve been experimenting with options as a way to turbo charge my portfolio for the past year or so. Overall, I’d say my trades so far have been a wash, but I still think it is a very valuable strategy to heavily leverage your portfolio and limit your risk. In discussing options trades with friends, […]
Well, it was bound to happen, this week Yahoo! announced their SmartAds platform to allow advertisers to better target potential customers as well as more flexibly create ads for specific markets. The flexibility in ad creation is a neat feature for advertisers and seems fairly unique, but the improved targeting is the piece that is really […]
A couple recent news articles have opened my eyes to the fact that Americans seem to simply have too much money. They have so much money, it seems they don’t know what to do with it.
NPR’s ”All Things Considered” had an interview last night with Charles Fishman of FastCompany magazine who recently wrote an article on the […]
There have been many claims of late that the mobile web is the “next big thing” that is expected to explode over the next few years. More and more cell phones are able to surf the web, smart phones are getting smaller, and web developers are finally starting to develop sites that work on […]
Henry Bloget has a blog posting on Seeking Alpha today titled “Is Google’s YouTube Toast? Not Even Close”. He discusses Viacom’s recent one billion dollar lawsuit against Google/YouTube for having Viacom’s copyrighted content on YouTube.com and the recent pact between News Corp and NBC (read: FOX, NBC, Microsoft, MySpace, etc) to start their own online content […]
BusinessWeek has an interesting article this week on smaller investors being able to take part in private equity investing. Until now private equity funds have generally required investors to be “accredited” meaning they must have a net worth of over 1 million dollars (excluding personal real estate) which put private equity investing out of reach for many. Some private equity funds have recently dropped minimum investments to as low as $250,000, though that is still out of reach for the vast majority of investors who seek to diversify their investments broadly. A more accessible means to take part in private equity investing may be…
I’ve been holding a few April call contracts in Microsoft (symbol: MSFT)since late 2006 and was happy to have ridden a portion of the wave up from the high twenties to nearly $31/share leading up to the consumer launch of Vista.
Unfortunately, my profits have all but evaporated over the last couple weeks after a less […]
Recently, the time came for me to refinance my house to lock in a longer term interest rate. I bought my house on a three year interest only adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) and my interest lock was ending so it was time to find another mortgage. I had entered into the property with 100% financing […]
In the time of blogs, online media, aggregation services, message boards and 24 hour a day business television, it is easy to cast printed business magazines to the side as a valuable tool for getting investment news. I disagree and think there is a strong case for maintaining a few magazine subscriptions to publications such […]
At $21.80 per share, RadioShack stock (symbol: RSH) is resting close to its 52 week high today. Goldman Sachs upgraded it on the fact that the “powerful” turnaround effort is going well. While my belief back in December was that the stock would decline on heavy competition from its competitiors, I’m starting to believe that the stock is […]
This week’s Business Week has an interesting article about the Ethanol-based fuel boom and how it is affecting the world economy. I had heard through other sources about the limitations and drawbacks of shifting to a more ethanol based fuel supply, but hadn’t thought of all the ramifications.
According to the Business Week article, the ethanol […]
I starting thinking about Google’s sources of revenue tonight, specifically their AdSense program, and decided to do a little research. What got me interested was understanding how their AdSense program, which pays content providers when a user clicks on a Google-provided text ad on their site, relates to their bottom line.
Logically, the Google’s […]
I’ve been investing in the stock market for many years but, for a variety of reasons, I never traded any stock options. I had always had a high level of interest in options as they have limited risk with an extremely high amount of leverage, but I hadn’t gotten around to actually pulling the […]
I recently watched Who Killed the Electric Car? and found it quite interesting from a business perspective. Narrated by Martin
GM’s main reasoning to kill the car was that there was insufficient demand for the automobile. Chelsea Sexton says this argument is unconvincing because she, as a lead marketing employee for GM during the time […]
If you haven’t heard of Prosper.com yet, you may hear about it very soon. The company was started by E-Loan cofounder Chris Larsen and, according to their website, they have 140,000 members and have funded $27,000,000 in loans in the past year. Their platform allows individual borrowers and lenders to come together to […]
I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Google for the last few years.
While I love their ability to innovate rapidly and bring some valuable tools to the user (Google Search, Google Gmail, Google Toolbar, Google AdSense, etc), I have this thought in the back of my mind that they have the ability to become really nasty […]
I just finished reading a copy of Jim Cramer’s new Mad Money book that I got for Christmas. I haven’t watched Jim Cramer’s show on CNBC in quite a while, but I know he is high energy, knowledgable, and eclectic. I had high hopes for the book, but I have to say I found it […]
Calculating compound interest without a calculator can be difficult. Thinking back to my business school days, I remember the formula is something like:
present_value * (1 + interest_per_period) ^ number_of_periods] = future_value
Even if you can remember the formula, calculating 1.08 to the power of 9 is not an easy task to do in your head.
If you […]
Its often difficult for people to track their economic progress. There is, generally a lot going on in one’s economic life. People have auto loans, credit card debt, student loans, home mortgage debt, stock accounts, retirement accounts, cash in savings and often other types of investments that may be a bit less mainstream. […]
I recently watched “The Smartest Guys in the Room” on DVD. It documents the rise and fall of Enron. It is based on a book, and the authors of the book have a large part in commentary of the movie. It is shot in a PBS documentary sort of way, but is actually very entertaining.
I’ve […]
For the last year or so, I’ve been thinking about what investment opportunities are available out there if you have cash available. I don’t have the cash, but interest rates are still low, making the cost of borrowing cheap. Credit cards are easy to come by, home equity loans allow people to borrow against […]
I found a cool article over at Market Trends Before The Tape today about Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) that track the performance of shorting the major indexes. In case you aren’t familiar with shorting stock, but the quick explanation is that shorting stock means to borrow it from an existing shareholder, sell it immediately […]
I’ve used Omniture’s products in the past for analyzing web traffic, they have a great product and offer exceptional value to their customer. Their revenue model is strong in that they make a small amount of money for each server call that is made from the customer to their servers. One or more of these […]
I bought some January puts on RadioShack for 1.18/contract on December 12th. The stock was trading around $17 and Best Buy had just announced that earnings were pressured due to low margins caused by price competition. I’m not the hugest fan of Best Buy, but their price and selection is pretty great. If they are […]
I have been giving some thought lately on whether to invest in Intel, AMD (Advanced Micro Devices), both, or neither. I have an open position in Intel November 22.50 calls, but those will be expiring soon and I’m not sure what to do next.
AMD has always been the underdog in the home PC processor market. […]
I recently finished reading Money Masters of Our Time by John Train. I read The New Money Masters a few years ago and loved it, so I decided to give this one a try as well. In Money Masters of Our Time, Train looks at the investment strategies of 17 of the world’s most successful […]
I bought TASR calls for $2.65/contract on 7/26. The price of the stock was approximately $7.30 which puts intrinsic value of the option at $2.30 and about a .35 time premium for 5 months. The premium seemed low and TASR is a volatile and fundamentally attractive stock.
If you haven’t heard of Taser, I’ll give you […]
I bought Omniture on 6/28 for $6.18/share, shortly after their IPO. I’ve used this company’s products and have seen the amazing impact it can have on how a web business can operate. I know there are a lot of sites out there that still are not taking advantage of web analytics and I really believe […]
I bought Willamette Valley Vineyards (WVVI) on 9/18 at $6.10/share. I spent some time researching this company and, financially, it looked strong. I admit I know little about the wine industry, but it seems like a great company. They are small, approximately 100 employees.
They seem quite progressive in their environmental efforts, an interesting article was […]
I bought Microsoft April 27.50 calls for 1.75/contract on 10/2. The stock was trading at $27.35 a share. Intrinsic value was zero, time premium was 1.75 for 6 months. Microsoft has traded in a range for years without any really significant catalysts. Their earnings continue to be strong, their position in the industry is still […]
I sold WSSI on 9/31 for 11.98/share. I didn’t hold the stock for long. I did make a slight profit on it, but I had decided I didn’t know enough about the company and had plenty of exposure to the web analytics field with my holdings in Omniture (OMTR). I bought the stock without doing […]
I sold my Intel Jan 2007 calls today for 4.40/contract. The option was deep in the money and had appreciated considerably since I purchased it. I was looking to get back some of the capital that was tied up in the contracts but wanted to maintain a long position so I sold the […]
I bought Intel November 2006 20 calls for 1.95/contract. The thought behind this trade was to increase leverage buy buying additional contracts with the profits gained from the Jan07 17.50 calls which were deep in the money and tying up a large amount of cash.
Instrinsic value on the option was $1.70 so I paid $0.25 […]