Jason’s Portfolio April 2016

I thought it my be useful for myself and others if I list out the stocks in my portfolio and watch list. I have informal categories for each stock I own based on whether I’m looking to buy, hold, or sell. I’d like to make those categories a bit more formal in this post and (more…)

“Payback Time” Analysis for GOOG

I still own a few shares of GOOG. It’s felt overpriced recently, but I’m holding onto a minimal amount at all times and trying to add more over time. So I’m hoping the price drops a bunch so I can pick up more cheaply. Do a search here for GOOG for my previous thoughts (years (more…)

Commodity Investing – Insurance for your Purchasing Power

I wanted to provide a counterpoint to some recent articles posted on Investorgeeks that have suggested commodities are not a good place to invest. More specifically, that the commodities boom is a high risk area of investing and potentially a giant bubble.

I have a different opinion. I personally feel that investing in commodities is the only way to ensure in the coming years that your portfolio is not decimated by hyper inflation.

The Present State of the US Economy

Before we discuss this further, we need to do a quick summary of the present state of the US (world) economy:

To Buy or To Sell: That is the Question…

Do you buy or do you sell? Steve says the following:

Here’s the deal, if you felt Apple was a good buy at $130 and it drops to $120, why would you sell? Unless some really bad long term news came out, this is a buy trigger to me. Not only does it lower the cost basis of your original purchase, but it increases your holdings at a price better than you thought was good before.

That is a very dangerous game to play since if the stock drops again you now lost double the amount. And you cannot predict whether a stock will go up or down since it is a general crapshot. Easy come and easy go is quite common in the market.

Wine Investing

Bill (CEO of WineLog) did a quick little post on Wine Investing over at the WineLog blog and introduced me to a site called WineInvestor.com. A good site to learn about wine investing is wineinvestor.com. Wine Investor is collecting (in one place) all the types of information I would need to explore investing in wine. (more…)

Turn 100,000 into 1.6 million in Four Months!

Yes you read it right, I can show you how to make 1.5 million in less than four months. You think it is impossible, right? Think of what you could do with that money. You could pay off your mortgage, take a trip around the world, or buy a brand new Hummer because well you (more…)

Why Are You Paying More?

I was reading Jason’s posting and forum entry was thinking…

“Yeah, commissions stink. With the E*Trade account, my net loss was ($629). I paid $441 in commissions.

I have thought numerous times about moving to another broker for commissions, but I’m really happy with how E*Trade has treated me otherwise. As my account size grows, the commission cost will become a smaller part of my gains/losses.”

Why are people paying more than they should? I really don’t understand it. It’s as if people enjoy throwing money out the window. My mother is in the same boat. She traders with Ameritrade, and BlueMax, and these companies are ripping you off.

Let me give an example:

Mistakes Happen

Last week I made a $13,000 mistake (a tax ruling, not in my favor due to most impressive stupidity on my part). In Warren Buffett terms, that mistake cost me $226,842 ($13,000 compounded at 10% for 30 years – see boys, I do know how to do math).

I won’t sugar coat it. It sucked. Big time.

But I can guarantee that it won’t be my last mistake, nor my biggest (yeah, much to look forward to). Making mistakes is part of investing (or any financial decision for that matter).

Mutual Funds ARE for Losers!

Kimber made a post about why Mutual Funds Aren’t for Losers, which was a good article and I see her point of view, however, in this case, I thought I would show the other side of Mutual Funds, which, in my opinion, suck to the point where vacuums should be named after them, or maybe they could rename the Chicago Cubs the Chicago Mutual Funds.