Links For Charity 2007-09-04 15:25:53 I got this idea from The Million Dollar Journey, and am copying it with his permission.
On the right side bar, you’ll notice a heading called “Links for Charity
”. For you webmasters out there, you can have your website listed for $10/mo. There will be space provided for up to 5 links which will be displayed on EVERY page on this site (50+).
All proceeds in this fund raiser will be donated to fine arts charities in the United States. Links are listed in a first come first serve basis.
If you’re interested in participating in his charitable fundraiser, please contact contact me.
How do you, the advertiser, benefit?
You will receive a permanent link from a Google PR1 site. As you may already know, one of the largest factors in search engine optimization (SEO)
is getting link-backs from other sites. See below for our traffic stats.
Exposure to the intelligent readers of this personal finance blog.
ALL proceeds will go directly to a Fine Arts charity, so you ge
August Site Stats 2007-09-04 15:23:54 Blog Stats
:
Visitor Sources
You can see a complete list of this sites visitor sources on this spreadsheet.
Toward the end of the month I began submitting all of my articles to Stumble upon, my largest referer, and discovered the more tags I give them the more traffic I seem to get. I always use relevant tags, so I don’t spam, but I try to maximize distribution. Typicly I would assume that this traffic hits my site glances at it for a couple of seconds and then leaves, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. It appears that the people coming from that site average 1.73 pages per visit. That suggests that the majority of people are actually looking at more that just that one article.
My next biggest refer this month was the Frugal Law Student when he hosted the Carnival of Personal Finance. I like these types of referrals allot, even more than Stumble Upon, because they are people who are really interested in my type of blog and are more likely to comment and/or subscr Read more:August
Thank You! - August Edition 2007-09-03 14:16:11 Thanks!
First I would like to thank all those who published and read my articles in their festivals this month.
My article MFs, HFs, and ETF’s oh my was included in 112th Carnival of Personal Finance organized by the Carnival of Personal Finance and hosted by The Frugal Law Student.
My article More on Retirment was included in 114th Carnival of Personal Finance organized by the Carnival of Personal Finance and hosted by The Simple Dollar.
My article Money Markets Galore was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance #116 organized by the Carnival of Personal Finance and hosted by FreeMoneyFinance.
My article Student Loans vs. Cash Flow was included in the 102nd Carnival of Debt Reduction organized by the Carnival of Debt Reduction and hosted by Mighty Bargain Hunter.
That same article Student Loans vs. Cash Flow was also picked put by 22nd Carnival of Debt Management organized by the Carnival of Debt Management and hosted by Debt Consolidation Lowdown.
I would also like to th Read more:August
, Thank
, Edition
Festival Of Investing Education 2007-08-30 03:19:56 I have noticed that the festival of investing has been inactive for quite some time, and I was wondering if anyone would be interested in starting up a festival of investing education. It’s all just an idea now, but I would like to see it focus on articles that discuss investments, investment strategies, planning, and articles like that. I know I can’t be the only one interested in articles like this, but now every thing is so scattered, and the few blogs I have found either mix those articles in with other articles that focus on other topics or only focus on particular investment. If we, provided their is interest, start up a festival of investing education it would give people a single weekly place to find those articles.
Any feedback is welcome on this topic. Do you think this is a terrible idea? Why? Would you read something like this? Would you contribute to something like this? Let me know!
Festival
of InvestingEducation
If you liked this post, buy me a beer
Biased Fool.com Rant 2007-08-29 14:30:23 Those of you who have read my blog for any length of time know that I use fool.com on a regular basis as a source of information, it wasn’t until the I was writing my Coverd Call article that I realized just how one sided they are.
My biggest gripe with most main stream investment publications is their “one size fits all” or “one strategy fits all” recommendations about investments understates, if not completely ignores, the importances of ALL investors education.
Here is what they said.
The main problem with the covered call strategy is that it flies in the face of why you own stocks in the first place. While dividend income can be an important factor in choosing a stock for the long run, a big part of how stocks add value to your portfolio over time is through price appreciation.
This is true for most investors, but it promotes a very dangerous idea. What is that dangerous idea you ask? It’s the idea that people should ALWAYS buy, hold, and p
Fundemental Analysis vs. Technical Analysis 2007-08-28 03:25:33 Wall Street Analysts are divided into two main camps when it comes to analyzing stocks. Fundamental Analysts and Technical
Analysts. I often get the two confused, so I thought I would write an article helping me, and any readers, distinguish between the two.
Fundamental Analysts:
Basically, fundamental analysts believe in determining the value of the company then comparing it to the current stock price. If the stock price is is under what they believe should be the proper value of the stock they will buy it, if they believe the price of the stock is over that of the underlying company they will not.
How they determine the value, also called “intrinsic value” will vary, and is, unfortunately, out of the scope of this article. Perhaps thats a subject for a later blog entry. If you can’t wait until then read Fool.com’s article Analyzing Stocks.
Technical Analysts:
Basically, technical analysts don’t look at the “intrinsic value” of a st Read more:Analysis
Coverd Calls 2007-08-27 14:02:29 Options (Part 3)
This article is meant to provide an overview of some of the various options trading strategies. As with all investments you should always do your own research before investing.
Options Strategies
Long Stock
Short Stock
Long Call
Long Put
Naked Call
Naked Put
Cash Backed Call
Covered Call
Protective Put
Cash Secured Put
Covered Put
Synthetic Long Put
Synthetic Long Stock
Synthetic Short Stock
Collar
Bull Call Spread
Bear Call Spread
Bear put Spread
You can find a matrix comparing each of these strategies at 888options.com
Over the next few weeks, or months, I will try to research each of these strategies in turn, and provide an overview of them. Today’s article will be on covered calls.
Covered Calls
If you are interested in covered calls you may also want to read my review of CompoundStockEarnings.com’s webinar. It provides allot of information about options in general, and a management strategy for covered calls.
An options strategy whereby an inves
Compound Stock Earnings Review 2007-08-24 21:15:53 This is a review of the free webinar provided by CompoundStockEarnings
.com on their “proprietary” covered call strategy.
Introduction
I am a talk radio junky, their I admitted it. Even though I am a music major, I don’t spend alot of time listing to music in my car. While on my way home one nite their was a new program on the station I primarily listen to. It was called “UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM - The CSE Investment Show”, and it had all the makings of a late night infomercial, or so it seemed. As I listened they had a guest who used their strategy of managing covered calls and was earning about 4% return per month. They kept touting you can expect 3-6% per month by using their strategy over and over.
Sounds like an infomercial rite? Well I kept listening for about 45 mins, and they never tried to sell anything. They mentioned people attending their classes, and that they had a book, but they never mentioned buying that book, and they never pressed
Calls and Puts 2007-08-21 13:56:59 Options Part 2
You may be interested in reading the first article in this series called Options Options Options.
*Warning, some of this information is going to get technical. If you have any questions let me know and I will try to explain things better.
Terms
holder:
The buyer of the option.
premium:
The dollar amount paid by the buyer of the option to the seller.
writer:
The option seller.
strike price:
The predetermined price at which a given futures contract can be bought or sold. Also called the exercise price, these levels are set at regular intervals. For example, if Treasury bond futures were at 79-00, T-bond option strike prices would be at 74, 76, 78, 80, 82, and 84.
at-the-money:
An option is at-the-money when the underlying futures price equals, or nearly equals, the strike price. For example, a T-bond put or call option is at-the-money if the option strike price is 78 and the price of the Treasury bond futures contract is at, or near, 78-00.
in-the-m
How I am becoming my own financial planner, and how you can too. 2007-09-26 15:34:04 I SumbledUpon an article called 5 Steps to Becoming Your Own Financial Planner at Money Thinks. It really provides a nice explanation and framework for what I am trying to do on this blog.
Understanding my money personality
Are you a spender or a saver? - I would like to think of myself as an investor, although at this point I am a spender. It’s hard to save without an income. Read more:planner
Important new information about your 401(k) 2007-09-25 14:08:47 This was taken largely from Forbes Investment Guide, July 2007.
Changes
Your retirement account(s) may be looking at some changes soon, and you need to know what you will be facing.
Roth K-Congress approved January 2006 on a “trial” basis, but recently decided to make it a permanent option for employees. As you might guess from the name this account is administered by your employer but you contribute after tax money. When it’s time to retire you can withdraw the money tax free.
Opt out not in- New pension law entourages employers to automatically enroll new employees in their 401(k) plan. If you don’t want to invest then it’s up to you to make the effort.
Escalators- Some companies plan to automatically up your contributions over time. So if you aren’t paying attention you could suddenly be missing a few extra dollars.
Life cycle funds- employers will be encouraged to make something other than money market accounts the default investment opti Read more:information
Prosper Update 2007-09-22 14:23:40 This is a follow up article to First Impressions of Prosper.
The Loans
I have funded two loans through prosper. Check out my August Prosper Statement.
So far so good:
My first loan started a little scary, and I almost immediately regretted lending money to them, but I think the problem was with prosper and not the the borrower. Shortly after the first payment was due…nothing. Then a few days went by…. nothing. Then a few more day….still nothing. Needless to say I was getting a little nervous by this point. My first loan goes bad after it’s first payment? What are the ods? After about two weeks I noticed that a payment had been posted. Prosper wasn’t very clear on what happened, but judging by $0.11 categorized as a NSF fee I assume the first check bounced.
This is my first complaint. It would be nice if Prosper kept the lenders informed when they know why the loan is late.
Other than that small hiccup, they have made their second and Read more:Update
Review of Forclosuresdaily.com Seminar 2007-09-20 13:14:52 Summary
I attended this “seminar”, and I use the term loosely, on August 8, 2007. I will summarize everything later in the article, but let me save you sum it up in two words. Don’t Go!
The entire seminar was a sales pitch. Despite what the adds suggested, nothing was thought, nothing interesting was presented. Just the same sales pitch over and over again for an hour. I must admit the system sounded good, and it did peak my interest at times, but I couldn’t get over my sceptisism of this snake oil salesmen. Their powerpoint presentation was riddled with typos and their presenter didn’t know what city he was in. I guess I can excuse the latter if he was doing allot of traveling, the former was just unprofessional. If you can’t fix spelling mistakes before your presentation I wonder what mistakes are going to be in your “franchise like system in a box“.
Conclusions
I know this much shorter than my normal reviews, but their really Read more:Seminar
Conspiracy Theory 2007-09-19 01:08:08 I don’t normally subscribe to conspiracy theories, mostly because they tend to be come from people who don’t want to take responsibility for something or another, but this one dawned on me today.
The market reactions to the credit crunch seems rather irrational, (see Been Stien), unless one realizes that in these types of corrections the money investors loose just doesn’t dissapear. Someone is making money when they sell. And, in my opinion, the only people who have the ability to move markets the way we saw in the end of July or after 9/11/01 are the institutional investors.
I don’t know the law, or what goes on behind closed doors in these institutions, but it is really hard to believe that organizations whose buisness is mortgages and risk management could not see at least the possibility something like this could happen. I think it is at least possible, if not likely, that some of these organizations used this opportunity to cash out on record high mar Read more:Conspiracy
, Theory
, Conspiracy Theory
Good Debt vs. Bad Debt 2007-09-17 02:33:32 This is a continuation of one of my first articles called Good Debt Bad Debt
. After getting some mixed reviews on the article, I decided to take an informal survey of what others thought, and what better place to do that than NetworthIQ.com?
You can see the original question I posed here, but here is what I asked,
Is their a really a such thing as good debt. I know what I think, but I wanted to see what everyone else thinks, and how that perspective correlates with their net worth.
and here are the reactions I got,
Stealthbucks said:
Good debt, I guess is any debt that you can repay, guaranteed with money you are getting a guaranteed return on superior to the previously mentioned good debt cost. In this case you would make money on your money.
Others consider good debt to include tax advantaged mortgage debt, student loans, and business debt used to grow or improve a business.
I think you have to decide if debt can ever be “good: to you. These are just the usual textbook an
The Universe Provides 2007-09-12 15:52:58 It’s amazing how the Universe
works. I doesn’t matter if you believe in God, gods, karma, or in self fulfilling prophecies, but their certainly seems to be something to it.
Four days after I announce my quest to be more introspective *fill in your supernatural power of choice here* has given me the opportunity to do just that. Without booring you with the details, I had a very scary personal experience last night. I am still reeling from it, but with time I’m sure I’ll recover. It has brought some of my darkest fears and long buried pains bubbling to the surface, and now, though hard, I am having to take a cold hard look inside myself to address those issues and put the to rest.
I don’t know that this relates to finances directly, but I think at some point in all of our lives *fill in your supernatural power of choice here* gives us these types of opportunities. And if we have the strength look at ourselves and make the changes we know we need to,
Ben Stien 2007-09-11 13:01:26 Does anyone remember when Ben Stien became a financial expert? Seriously, I don’t, but I like allot of what he has to say. I’ve liked him ever since “Win Been Stien’s Money”, but I’ve never payed any attention to him as a financial expert. Ever sense the recent “credit crunch” coverage in the media he has had allot to say.
The Stupid Investor and the Smart Investor
First, let’s take a look at his recent article in Fortune Magazine (September 10, 2007).
No one is too stupid to make money in the stock market. But their are many who are too smart to make money. To make money, at least in the postwar world, all you have to do is buy the broad indexes domestically — both in the merging world ad in the developed world — and, to throw in a little certainty about your old age, maybe buy some annuities
I like his first two sentences. “No one is too stupid to make money in the stock market.” I think he is co
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