InvestorGeeks

In Defense of Bush’s Tax Cuts

by Christian

I was listening to Bernake, and then Mr Sanders started the typical leftist propaganda. The Democrats are idiots who are going to self-destruct in about four years. My political leanings are center right liberal libertarian.

The tax cuts that Bush made have raised the hackles of Democrats. Democrats want to nullify the tax cuts. Yet I will argue that Bush was right to make the tax cuts.

I bet you are ready to pounce on me and say, “Only the rich benefit from the tax cuts and they pay so little.” Well, let me tell you a story about morality and being pragmatic.

Some Interesting Details

by Christian

Some people look at PE ratios, cash flows, and so on. I try to find the small details, small things that have big ramifications (1,2,3).

Today many of the leaders that the West dislikes met in a single place. The fact that most of the South American leaders were in Ecuador was not a surprise. What is a surprise is that Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was there.

This is one of those things that we as investors need to keep an eye on. I asked my sister what this means, and she said two things:

1. There is a drive to get some discipline in OPEC. The leaders in OPEC are concerned about the falling prices. I can understand this because the oil leaders became drunk on high priced oil and with low prices a hangover is ensuing.
2. The South Americans are driving towards a European Union type integration. The South Americans want a common currency and free trade deals with the EU.

For me it means we better get our butts into gear regarding alternative fuels! Alternative fuels is the only solution to keep OPEC at bay. I figure we have some leeway, but not much. I also figure IF something comes out of this meeting and if volatility returns to oil we are in for massive stock sell-off.

iPhone: Miracle or Disaster?

by Christian

Steve Jobs held a keynote and announced the iPhone. One site even did a quick look and feel of the phone. Apple surged by 8% and others like Nokia and RIMM dropped. Though RIMM dropped more than Nokia.

What I think: Sell Apple at its peak (it should climb a bit more) and buy on the weakness of the other players.

The remaining part of this blog will explain why I am skeptical of the iPhone. Some may view this as being overly critical, but others will wonder. You will wonder who is right me or Steve Jobs. Since Steve is much richer and has built a big company (unlike myself) you will be biased towards Steve.

End of Year Calculations

by Christian

Based on seven months of investment our ROI is 26% as that is when I jumped in this year. I have to say that I am very happy about this. This ROI is based on funds, stocks, and bonds throughout Europe, and the America’s.

As of today my positions are as follows:

What About API N?

by Christian

In reply to my automated trading blog entry I have had people send me emails asking what about this or that toolkit? This made me think that I should be doing some reviewing of products and toolkits.

Therefore if anybody wants to send me your toolkit WITHOUT RESTRICTIONS I will do a feature by feature comparison and review of your product on my blog and Investor Geeks. And if any reader wants me to focus on some products or toolkits please tell me and I will get in contact with the vendor.

Ok, sound interesting?

Round ‘em Up

by Frank

Thought I’d share a few articles I found over the past week or two, that I think are worth a read.

We have two articles from BusinessWeek. The first one profiling great companies with which to launch one’s career. Lucky me I work for one of them .

Content is still King, but it seems that the movers in the content industry have two things in common. They’re leveraging, building, or buying distribution channels. (I.E. Fox and myspace). Keep an eye out for Yahoo to make a move towards Facebook, and there’s stirrings of Viacom heading after facebook. The second thing is doing the opposite of what Time Warner is doing. Here for yahoo/facebook. Here for YouTube/Viacom/content.

New Geeks

by Frank

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.

Become an Investor Geek: New Authors Wanted

by Jason

In honor of Labor Day, we are offering to employ between 5-10 new authors. If you are interested in becoming a contributing writer for our site, please:

• Send your name, e-mail address, phone number, and blog URL if you have one, to contact {at} investorgeeks * com.
• Include a brief summary (no more than 200 words) on why you want to be an InvestorGeek.
• Also include hyperlinks to 2 articles you’ve written.

We will try to get back to you within three days of receiving your application. So while we will be accepting applications until 11:59PM on Monday the 18th of September, if you apply sooner you’ll hear back from us sooner.

If you specialize in a particular topic, let us know. We are specifically looking for writers to help round out our real estate and entrepreneurship topics. We are also very interested in bringing on active traders (day traders, swing traders, etc) and people who are making their living through their investments (retired investors, real estate agents/brokers, etc) to discuss their work. If you do not expect to cover one of these topics, please apply anyway. Because first and foremost we are looking for excellent writers with a passion for investing, people who would like to help us build our investing community. Is that you?

What’s in it for me?

• If you have your own blog, writing for InvestorGeeks is a great way to drive traffic back to your site.
• Becoming an Investor Geek will bring you together with other passionate investing writers who will become a resource for you to bounce writing and investing ideas off of. You will become a better writer. You will become a better investor.
• We share our profits with our authors. Despite our claims of offering “employment”, the current take for the average InvestorGeeks author is not enough to live on. However, one month’s wages might buy you dinner (this is a bit of an improvement from our offer of “a beer” per month last time we were calling for authors).

We felt our first call for new writers was very successful (thanks, guys), and we hope to find some great new people to help us grow. Good luck to all who apply.

Keep Tabs on All Our Investor Geeks

by Jason

I’ve thrown together a few tools you guys can use to keep tabs on us. Subscribing to the InvestorGeeks feed is the first way, but we also do a lot of writing outside of the site.

At Rollyo.com, you can use our custom-configured InvestorGeeks_Authors search engine which will search through a list of all the investing and personal finance blogs our authors maintain. This is a great way to get the InvestorGeeks take on MSFT or find articles by InvestorGeeks authors on 401ks.

The next tool comes courtesy of FeedJumbler.com. Once again I’ve compiled a list of all of the blogs maintained by InvestorGeeks authors (this time including non-investing related blogs) so you can keep tabs on our every move. You can subscribe to the feed using your favorite feedreader by visiting the InvestorGeeks Combined Feed.

Announcing the INVESTools Forum

by Chris

We’re pleased to announce our new INVESTools forums. InvestorGeeks is one of the top ranking sites for web surfers looking for information on the high-end investing toolkit called INVESTools. Last year we wrote about the product in an article called “Phil Town and INVESTools.” In that piece we investigated whether these two new faces in the investing community were scams or merely fads. Not only did we find the reviews favorable, we concluded they were here to stay.

Now based on user feedback, we’re pleased to announce the INVESTools Forum whose mission is to act as part support group/part watchdog. We hope you enjoy it, and if you’d be interested in helping out, please let us know!