The stock market has been behaving a bit erratically, and is very sensitive to bad news as of late (not that it is not always erratic and sensitive). The week or so there have been some huge intraday swings in the performance of thew stock market. At points it will be a half-a-percent down and all of the sudden it will be even, or ahead for the day, and vice versa. This performance has made investors that are already jittery, even worse. I am beginning to sound like Chicken Little, but I see this as more evidence, piled on top of mounds of current evidence, that something big is going to happen to the stock market soon. It simply cannot sustain all of these factors that it has for so long now, mainly because it never has before.
Will history repeat itself or will the market continue to roll along?
Written by Nagel on June 30th, 2007 with no comments.
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My computer went to a black screen a couple weeks back. I had never had a computer crash on me before so I was not prepared for the remifications, especially the ramifications of not being prepared for a computer black screen.
Obviously, my wife and I lost a lot of important data, but nothing that was make or break in nature. But we did lose my family budget numbers I had been copiously keeping for a couple years. I was always hoping to be able to compare those years’ numbers versus future ones. But now I will need to start our budget again from scratch, and as soon as I have some information included I will need to save it and BACK IT UP!
Written by Nagel on June 28th, 2007 with no comments.
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Terra Nitrogen (TNH) and Mastercard (MA) are the both recent investment mistakes I have made. This is not because their price dropped like a safe, they didn’t; they skyrocketed. That was my mistake, it sold one too early and misses out on buying one on the way up.
Terra Nitrogen (TNH) was a winner for me. I bought it and it had a 7% yield. I watched it rise and fall, sometimes 5% a day. It was up 20% and I was concerned that I was getting greedy by holding on, especially since it showed extreme volatility. Therefore, I dumped it mid-day on last Thursday. Since then it is up another 26%, ooops! I still got my 20%, right?
Mastercard (MA) is a miss. I had a limit order for it at around 143 over a week ago. It was there, but literally jumped 2 points and I missed the limit order. At 145 I did not want to take the short-term risk because I thought I might have missed it. Well, since then it has hit the mid-160s. Yikes!
We all make mistakes, especially in investing, and let’s hope these are as bad as it gets.
Written by Nagel on June 27th, 2007 with no comments.
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I bought some Best Buy (BBY) shares the other day because I saw a huge dip in price. The price drop was brought on from a disappointing earnings report. Best Buy did disappoint in earnings. However, revenue was up as were same-store-sales. The price might suffer short-term, but it has great long-term potential. Investors often overreact to bad news, and I think with BBY they did just that. The price is down 8% since the earnings news was revealed. Keep in mind that the PE for Best Buy make sit a value buy. For a growth retail company, Best Buy is ridiculously cheap. It might take a quarter for the price to recover and show gains, but long-term it looks great.
Written by Nagel on June 25th, 2007 with no comments.
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Credit cards are not created equal. It gives you an introductory APR of 0% for six months, and after it is a 12.24% variable rate. For regular purchases you get 1% cash back and then an extra 2% cash back for supermarket, gas stations and fast-food restaurants. However, after you charge $600 during a billing cycle, the rewards goes down to 1%.
Credit cards used to give away the farm, but now deals like the Chase Freedom Visa card is a good deal. Credit cards are pulling back all this cash back benefits so shop around if you are looking for a new credit card with a low APR.
Written by Nagel on June 22nd, 2007 with no comments.
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This piece is a continuation of our series on how to save more money.
- Try to live on a smaller percent of your income, even if you do not have to
- Try to avoid using your credit card for all purchases, paying with cash hurst a lot more
- Don’t pay ATM fees, go to the grocery and use it as a debit card to purchase goods and withdrawl cash
- Go fishing, umm tasty!?
- Camp out instead of hotels?! Questionable, but if you have no one to impress it might work
Written by Nagel on June 20th, 2007 with no comments.
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Who likes to pay property taxes?
Answer: Nobody!
Where I live property taxes are typically higher than many other parts of the country. Unfortunately when my wife and I received our deal for our mortgage we had to agree to pre-pay our property taxes in the same payment as our mortgage. I was not happy about it, but we saved 0.75% on our interest rate because of the real estate market slow down. So we agreed, and who would not.
I recently found out after 12 months of mortgage payments we will be able to pay each six months instead of monthly. This way we can save 6 months of property tax money and collect interest by putting it in a savings account. Also, if we have large expenses we can pay them off, while still continuing to save up to pay twice yearly.
Written by Nagel on June 18th, 2007 with no comments.
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The current housing market is awful, and might not get better any time soon. If you are selling your home you are probably concerned about what price you will get for your home, and you are racking your brain in order secure a good price.
I am not trying to sell my home, but one day I probably will be. In order to save as much on the capital gains when my home is sold, we save all records of costs for home improvements. By doing this we can deduct all the money we put into our home off the capital gain amount in order to keep more of the money we will receive once the home is sold and the mortgage is paid off.
What ideas do you have?
Written by Nagel on June 15th, 2007 with no comments.
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Should I get new Visa cards?
I have had several credit cards over the past 10+ years. They have come and gone, some quickly because I needed the 0% balance transfer and/or 0% on purchases. These often would last between 12-18 months. Then I would cancel and start the process over again. This was not great for my credit score, but it saved me hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.
Now I own a home and a car, so I do not need to be concerned about my credit score. Is now the time to get new Visa cards, or let sleeping dogs lie?
What do you think?
Written by Nagel on June 13th, 2007 with no comments.
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My current stock portfolio consists of some mutual funds, but the most important part are the stocks I own.
Toyota Motor Corporation (TM)
It’s the best car company in the world and actually makes money and has a low PE.
Peabody Energy Corporation (BTU)
This coal company is best in breed.
Trinity Industry, Inc. (TRN)
It makes railcars–oh yeah, and it is the only company that does it when demand is skyrocketing.
Corning Incorporated (GLW)
A well-diversified company that creates the LCD screen and much more.
Terra Nitrogen Company, L.P. (TNH)
7% yield is very nice. It has been very volitile in the past few weeks, but is up almost 17% for me.
Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS)
Best-in-breed. Goldman Sachs is the gold standard.
Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO)
A growth technology company that has a value PE. Come August it should jump dramatically
Transocean Inc. (RIG)
Best-in-breed, p-e-r-i-o-d. Huge contracts are already signed so nowhere to go but up, especially at bargain basement PEs.
Written by Nagel on June 11th, 2007 with no comments.
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