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Investopedia.com

by Bradley Voight on 10/07/13

If you know nothing at all about investing go to investopedia.com. I wish I had discovered it sooner. There you can find out literally everything there is to know about investing mostly for free! You can also play the stock simulator game which starts you out with $100,000 (in fake money) and you trade in near-real time on real markets with real companies. there is no better way to learn about investing than to learn by doing. I consider myself somewhat knowledgeable when it comes to stocks but far very, very far from an expert. That is why I am playing the simulator to sharpen my skills and buy some of the stocks on my watch list that I don't have the real money to buy right now. You can link directly to the simulator here

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Portfolio Update 10/4/2013

by Bradley Voight on 10/06/13

It has been one wild ride in the markets since the end of July. Just when I thought there was nothing to worry about the month of August started off selling and then a new war was imminent and the Fed was set to taper the QE stimulus and the sky was falling and then, suddenly, it was all over and the S&P 500 hit another all time high of 1729.86 on September 21st. Now here we are two weeks later and the damn sky, or debt ceiling, is about to fall again and crush America. I am not ruling out that someday the dollar will fall and the mighty US will lose it's leadership role in the world but until then I have to weather the storm and put my money to work in the richest equity market on planet earth. Here is the portfolio update for Friday October 4th 2013.

KR 50 shares @ 40.56.......................$2028.00

STKL 196 shares @ 9.95...................$1950.20

SIRI 175 shares @ 3.95......................$691.25

RVLT 175 shares @ 3.93.....................$687.75

SGLB 2850 shares @ .1035..................$294.97

AXPW 700 shares @ .1151...................$80.57

HBAN: I bought 125 shares on 5/9/2013 for $923.25 (commission of $7.01 included) sold all shares in 4 sales throughout September because Fed did not taper it's stimulus, meaning prolonged low interest rates, which is bad for bank profits so, in the words of a Shark Tank billionaire, "I'm Out". With $11.25 in paid dividends to me I sold the 125 shares for 1025.96 after commissions for a total of $1037.21 a gain of $113.96 or 12.3%. I took most of that money and added to STKL and bought AXPW. SGLB is one that I did not list before that was bought along the way with $203 from sales of RVLT shares.

Share Total.......................................$5732.74

Cash Total........................................$258.40

Grand Total.......................................$5991.14

Original Investment.............................$5382.73

Performance to date...........................+$608.41 or 10.1%

Shaving profits from the top of Kroger and closing HBAN provided the cash to expand what I feel is my best position in STKL. Now if we can survive the imminent default of U.S. debt and the government meltdown, er shutdown then we should be good to go for the end of the year. Unfortunately I was way off on my assessment of the debt ceiling and budget battle....DOH!

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Budget & Debt Ceiling Woes Again-This Time Will be Different

by Bradley Voight on 09/27/13

I am going to make a bold prediction and say that the congressional logjam will be freed without a hitch and a compromise will be made. The debt ceiling will also be raised without incident. How do I know this? I do not for sure but I suspect that congress would like to avoid the circus that took place in the summer of 2011 when the credit rating of the United States of America was downgraded for the first time ever. The Fed has given large banks lots of ammo that has yet to be spent and big money loves to buy.

The Dow 30 and S&P 500 have been making new highs, then shrinking back in the face of Europe, Fed tapering of their bond purchases, Greece, Libya, Syria, and the myriad of other things there has been to worry about out there in the big scary world. If the markets get any sort of all clear signal we could be off too the races. Markets that climb a wall of worry are a good sign in my book because when the coast is finally clear, there is no excuse not to buy. I look for the S&P 500 at or near 1800 by years end if I am right about the government not shutting down and the debt ceiling being raised. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

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Options Trade Update

by Bradley Voight on 09/27/13

The options I bought with my scrap money expired worthless. I bought 2 contracts on Halcon resources @ the $6 strike price and the stock never went above $5. I made this trade based on heavy insider buying but that alone was not a good enough reason to risk my hard earned $29.50. Halcon company insiders bought shares alright but they weren't expecting the stock to go up right away. Perhaps the third quarter results for the company will provide some incentive for buyers to re-enter the stock but for now I will just monitor the company and stay on the sidelines.

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Abenomics Coming to a Market Near You

by Bradley Voight on 09/16/13

Beginning in January of 2014 the Bank of Japan is set to embark on the most aggressive stimulus package in Japanese history. I won't go into to all of the details but a few highlights include major infrastructure projects, the creation of 600,000 jobs, and a bond buying program similar to the US Federal Reserve Bank's quantitative easing. The package is valued at 20.2 trillion yen or 210 billion dollars. Interest rates will remain near zero in Japan.

We now have the European Central Bank, The Bank of England, The Federal Reserve Bank, and the Bank of Japan all diluting the money supply worldwide. We are going to see a rise in all the world's stock markets as this cheap and easy money seeks out yield. Bubbles will be formed in a variety of asset classes. In case you are unfamiliar with the term "bubble" it is simply an overvalued asset class. The Japanese stock market in the late 1980's was a bubble. Japanese firms were fetching dizzying valuations that were way out of line with company earnings. The Nikkei 225 peaked at over 38,900 in December of 1989 and went downhill from there till April 2003 when it bottomed at 7603. So beware of cheap money coming to a market near you because it is all around the world right now and it will be flowing into risky assets. Cheap money also loves to speculate so be careful and stay tuned to the Smalltime blog for more updates on the economy and how it affects your bottom line.

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