Archive for September, 2006
Back in July, I left my job to become a full time entrepreneur. In addition to helping InvestorGeeks grow, I spend my working day incubating a few projects through my design and development firm Stranger Studios.
At my old job, huge IT budgets were the norm. My salary depended on them. But everyone knows that the pioneers of Web 2.0 are capable of building huge applications and entire businesses on pennies. In any case, it is a lot cheaper than it used to be.
Below is a list of tools I use for my own projects and why I find them useful.
As you know we recently put out a call for some new InvestorGeeks. We had a strong response again this time, and after deliberation and discussion amongst the founders we have decided on our new Geeks. There will be six in all. I won’t be introducing you to any of them today, they’ll take care of that themselves over the coming weeks. But you can all look forward to an increased focus on TA and a dedicated real estate writer.
Just a reminder that submissions are now closed, and we’d like to thank everyone who applied. We’d also encourage anyone who applied this time to continue doing their thing, build a great body of work and apply again in the future. Thanks again and we hope that you all enjoy the new Geeks as much as we do.
Tuesday, Sep. 19, 2006
by Frank
What a treat for investors or business owners! I wish I had this book when I started my first business - it would have certainly sped up my learning process at the time. And for investors who want a good solid background on reading financial statements, it’s hard to imagine a better introduction.
I found this interesting site through a link that came up on my Google Finance screen for Crystallex.
Ant & Sons Chart of the Week Video:
Ant & Sons has rolled out its updated Chart of the Week column with technical analysis video using the latest technology.
The video is hosted through YouTube and displayed on their site with YouTube’s distributed Flash player. I’ve seen a few of these video stock review sites cropping up and I think the model is tempting. I’m going to try to find some good screen capture software and a good microphone to set this up myself. Any suggestions?
I’m also going to be on the lookout for more stock review videos on YouTube. I’m starting with a simple search for “stock chart“.
p.s. Ant & Sons’ take on KRY is to watch to see if it can stay above the 50-day moving average and $3 level. The early day trading today shows KRY having trouble with that $3 resistance. I have a position in KRY, but won’t be adding to it until it trades a full day (open to close) above $3.
Friday, Sep. 15, 2006
by Jason
Pheedo places text ads into your RSS feed. Publishers are paid for click-throughs and ad impressions. For publishers with a substantial readership through RSS, this is a great option for monetizing traffic that may not always make it to your site.
We have integrated Pheedo into our RSS feeds here at InvestorGeeks and think that you should consider it for your own sites. (Apologies to any of our feed readers who may have witnessed some anomalies in our feed as we switched things over.)
I know my writing often sounds like I’m preaching for everybody to be value investors. That’s simply not true! I only feel that some people can be value investors due to the temperament and the time needed to perform analysis. So what do I tell the general public who couldn’t care less about reading financial statements, or sitting in front of the computer day-trading?
Mutual funds are still the no-brainer solution for the average joe. Much “marketing” debate has been made about management fees. They’re not wrong to be critical but everything is really dependent on the “net” returns you’re able to achieve. My only concern is that consumers do the minimum work of researching the track-record of the fund and the fund manager. A long, consistent and positive tracking record is a must for active-managed funds.
But when John Bogle, founder of Vanguard, decided to balk the norms of the financial industry and aggressively market passive index funds, it was a strong indictment on the vast majority of managers who fail to beat their corresponding benchmark indexes. Vanguard’s promotion of this strategy still trumpets strongly, but there are signs of shifting towards actively managing their index funds, even if it’s just a little bit!
You might be wondering why an investing website like Investor Geeks is discussing a topic like long-term care insurance. Well, it would be a shame to learn all sorts of great investing strategies on this website, grow your portfolio, and then watch it quickly disappear if you get sick or injured and require long-term medical assistance. Protection of assets should be a concern of all investors.
I learned a lot reading the applications our new InvestorGeek hopefuls have been sending in. For example…
An ARM can be a huge money saver, or a time bomb. Unfortunately, there are a lot of time bombs out there.
The size of virtual worlds like Second Life and World of Warcraft (Wow) are making them more and more the target of entrepreneurs and investors. The stats are hard to calculate, but each world has about 4 million “inhabitants” and growing. Here is a quick round up of some of the business going down in these new markets.
