Listing out the Goals of the Trading Account. Phase 1

With the goals of the Investing account defined we can focus on the Trading account...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

I want to expand more on Time as a resource for the trader and investor. As I mention in the video, we can add more money through deposits.  We can also start our record for successful trades and numbers for trading.We can read new books and watch new videos and learn from past mistakes. What we cannot do is get back the one natural resource that every person has. Time.

I spent a year stuck in "Analysis Paralysis". Planning how I would trade and invest. I thought I had to get all of my money first before I could start but funnily enough never had $10,000 lying around. I found myself worried that I might be missing something when in the end I did. I missed out on opportunity by inaction.

The advice given out in the financial world seems contradictory at times. Don't over trade, but if you never trade you never make profits. Learn and understand money management and risk management, but again you have to trade and make mistakes to learn some of it. I've even done it several times in my videos to you guys. When everything is said and done though at some point you have to roll up your sleeves and jump in. Hopefully my videos and blog entries help in that.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial adviser, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets

Week 22 Deposit

When investing and trading your own money even with a lot of experience you need to recheck your risk management.

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

Up until now I placed emphasis on building up investing so I could start getting some base income started. Mostly for psychological reasons at this stage of funding. My mind automatically went towards Trading. I noticed though that my eyes would not drift on lower down to poor neglected savings. Neglected being a joke but with a lot of truth. Too often having that backup money that isn't actively doing something gets overlooked. But that is the same argument for not getting insurance.

When looking at the odds of an emergency happening its easy to look at them individually. What are the odds I will have a car accident? Pretty low. What are they odds the furnace goes out? They last 18+ years so pretty low. But get enough "pretty low" occurring events and its just a matter of time before something happens.

Given enough time, some sort of one off emergency will happen. That has to be calculated into our portfolio.
When making a budget do you have a category for "one time" expenses? Do you tell yourself that you won't really budget in an oil change because its a one off things that only comes up every 3 months? Or 6 if you are like most people. But do you have at least one "one time" expense? At that point shouldn't it be figured into the portfolio? That's the realization I came up with this week and why that savings needs to be higher over making more money.

There will always be another trade tomorrow.
There will always be a dividend stock to invest in tomorrow.
but...
There will always be some emergency in the future.



Weekly Activity
$100 deposit into Savings


Model Portfolio Totals

Trading Account: $300
Estimated Monthly Income: $0 (Not ready to trade until Phase 1 completed)
Max amount in Forex trade (20% of account): $60
Max loss per trade (2% of account): $6

Investing Account: $1314.13
Estimated Monthly Income: $5.74
Stock
Energy
     ERF: $1.68 income/month
REITs
     O: $1.05 income/month
Bonds
     JNK: $1.84 income/month
     PCY: $1.17 income/month
     TLT: $250 reserved for future purchase
Maneuvering Cash: $110.03

Savings Account: $500
Emergency: $400
Portfolio Protection: $100
CDs: $0
Precious Metals: $0



Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Listing out the Goals of the Investing Account, Phase 2

With Phase 1 of the investing account for the Model Portfolio done I move on to Phase 2.

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

25 positions for a 4% portfolio risk is important for me. Yes the solid Dividend Aristocrats have paid and raised dividends for 25+ years. Who knows what will happen in the future. Look at bank stocks. They used to be the cornerstone of many dividend income accounts. Not only did they cut their dividends after 2008 but their share price was devastated.  If you were going to move your money to something else... you might as well have to start over you would have easily lost 50% or more of your position.

The 25 stock and ETF for the Investing Account phase 2 are going to be across multiple sectors. Consumer staples, restaurants, real estate, health care. I have read too many horror stories of people who went "all in" with a couple of companies. 1 or 2 don't work and they lost everything.



Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Listing out the goals of the Investing account, Phase 1

If I am going to manage a dividend growth investing account for 15+ years I need to set out my goals...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

In the video I mention that getting paid weekly was important for the dividend investing account. I want to talk a bit more about that. When selecting stock and ETFs it was the last thing on the list of important things I needed. Safety, stability, a good yield, strong potential for future growth and the other topics I discuss in my other videos take priority. ERF was the final piece of getting paid in week 3 of each month. But if I didnt feel that it was a good income source with stability and everything else I look for in an investment? I wouldn't have picked it up. To be honest, I got lucky that it pays during week 3.

I'm pretty pleased with how Phase 1 of the Investing account turned out. I do not have TLT yet but its just a matter of being patient and controlling emotions in buying when it's the right time. The move to Sharebuilder in the long run maybe a good thing as now I can DRIP and let compounding take over.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Investment: ERF Enerplus

Enerplus is a good addition to my dividend investing account...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

You can learn a lot when researching a new company as a possible investment and I'm not talking about learning about the company. Before ERF, I didn't know about tight gas or waterflood oil. Investing isnt all about making money.

Something I didn't mention in my video that is a big plus for me with ERF... they spend a lot of time and money hedging with calls and puts on their oil and natural gas. This will help them maintain their dividend and stabilize losses. Its something they do openly talk about. It can give some exposure to trading in the markets without actually doing the trading ourselves.  Most companies will do this but its interesting to see them talk about it so openly in their reports.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Week 21 Deposit

Quite a bit going on with the Model Portfolio...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

As I mentioned, there is a lot going on. I sit here waiting for my Investing Goals video to compile and I will have to split it into two videos. Windows Movie Maker is not liking the 16 minutes I have so far. I have another video on entrepreneurship that occurred to me today while at lunch. That's pushing others I had planned back to next week. Its an exciting time and things are starting to move that I want to share.

The Investing account numbers are income per month. If its quarterly they I will average it out per month. If its a bond fund that tends to fluctuate its dividends then I will use the average of the past twelve trailing months. The point here is to compare what each one is paying so that I know where to add more money.

One last note. On the Investing tab I have moved the commissions into the cost basis section. The way Sharebuilder works is that you say how much you want to apply towards an order. They take the commission out of that and then use the rest to buy whatever can be had. That is different from other brokers where you buy X number of shares and whatever it costs is taken out of your account and then afterwards they take more money out for the commission. For free trades on Sharebuilder the cost is still the same it just means that you get a little bit more for your order.
Since it is so different and my cost basis is all nice and neat at an even $250 for each one I felt it important to share that.

Edit: Alright you guys are pretty sharp and observant so I'll mention a slight edit. I changed ERF from a stock to energy classification. The reason? It gets it's profit from commodities: oil and natural gas. This is a different type of income source then those generated from a traditional stock that has a customer base where  they sell a service or finished product.
I'll be talking about ERF this week but since technically I did purchase it last week I needed to record its data.



Weekly Activity
$100 deposit into Trading
$1.16 dividend from O
$1.77 dividend from JNK


Model Portfolio Totals

Trading Account: $300
Estimated Monthly Income: $0 (Not ready to trade until Phase 1 completed)
Max amount in Forex trade (20% of account): $60
Max loss per trade (2% of account): $6

Investing Account: $1363.43
Estimated Monthly Income: $5.74
Stock
Energy
     ERF: $1.68
REITs
     O: $1.05
Bonds
     JNK: $1.84
     PCY: $1.17
     TLT: $250 reserved for future purchase
Maneuvering Cash: $110.03

Savings Account: $400
Emergency: $300
Portfolio Protection: $100
CDs: $0
Precious Metals: $0



Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Type of Investments: 4 - Royalty Land Trusts

Royalty Land Trusts. They aren't often talked about in the dividend growth world but they do offer some nice current yield...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

In the video I paint a picture that these things run out of their natural resource and an investor loses all their money quickly. The lifespan of these trusts are measured in decades when they start up. The drop off in the dividend paid out because of rising costs takes years to occur. There is plenty of time to monitor and get out in time. The trick is not to be greedy. Not to get every last bit of payment because you don't want to be holding the bag.

Something else to consider. The dividends are 100% based upon the current going rate of the natural resource sells for. When oil rises trusts like BPT will pay out more in their next dividend. If natural gas falls then trusts like HGT will have a lower payment.  From an inflation point of view this can help pay for your personal bills. Buy up enough oil trust shares to cover the rising cost of gasoline in the summer time. Do the same for a natural gas trust to cover your winter heating bill. If these natural resource prices fall then yes you will get a smaller dividend however you will have a lower bill to pay for when you are living off of these also.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial adviser, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets

Week 20 Deposit, Dreams and Goals

I know where I stand starting up month 6, do you?

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

I thought the order would go through for PCY last week. But since it was a holiday I guess their computers took the day off too because their automatic orders were not sent Tuesday morning. 1 week isnt going to be a game changer but it is something to plan and be aware of for the future.


Weekly Activity
$100 deposit into Savings


Model Portfolio Totals

Trading Account: $200
Max amount in Forex trade (20%): $40
Max loss per trade (2%): $4

Investing Account: $1357.10
Stock
REITs
     O: Scheduled for purchase 9-11-11
Bonds
     JNK: Scheduled for purchase 9-11-11
     PCY: Scheduled for purchase 9-11-11
Maneuvering Cash: $1357.1

Savings Account: $400
Emergency: $300
Portfolio Protection: $100
CDs: $0
Precious Metals: $0



Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Portfolio Management: 7- Hedging and Speculation

I take a slightly different viewpoint on hedging and speculating

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

Ok so we all hedge and we all speculate. Now that we got that out of the way lets tackle the differences between hedge fund managers and people.
They have more money to work with.
That's about it. Seriously.

Think when you first started your current job. There was lots of things new. Other people were doing things and their jobs that you had no idea how to do. With time and experience the mystery of how they do it was cleared up and you learned the tricks of the trade for your job. Then you see the new person hired and they make the mistakes that you know better not to do... because you did them. You learned.

Hedge fund managers make tons of money because they started with lots of money and they know what to do.
Their knowledge came with time and patience. Those are not unique and we can reach that point.
What we do not have is millions of dollars but to be honest? Do we need millions? They have to make that much money because they have millionaires funding them, lots of people funding these hedge funds all expecting big profits. There is pressure to compete and meet these expectations. They have to find ways to grow and protect a ridiculous amount of money.

Us? We just need $2,700 a month. In comparison we have it easy. All we lack is knowledge but that can be gained with time.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Week 19 Deposit

What a comical series of errors for this weeks deposit video. Between cleaning the garage, Bobby (our Saint Bernard) injuring himself at the dog park, and Windows 7 errors the video didn't happen on time.  I'll try to knock it out this evening.

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

The $100 went to the investing account. I am just about done funding phase 1 for the investing account. If my time horizon for investing is 30+ years why even bother with different phases especially if phase 1 only takes 4-5 months? Two reasons.
1: Its about breaking up the overall goal into small achievable ones. If my goal is to be making $3,000 a month... that's going to take awhile. For me and my personality I am going to need smaller and defined goals to get me there. Last month I made $4.12. It can get discouraging seeing how far there is still to go. Slowly but surely we'll get there with what financial goals we lay out for ourselves.
2: By taking the time now to plan out and lay out a foundation for the investing account we will make it easier later.
I have a video planned to cover phase 1.

EDIT: Seriously Windows Live Movie Maker?!? You think its a good idea to start updating while I have a 500 MB file compiling? Its like fate is against me getting this weeks deposit out lol.


Weekly Activity
$100 deposit into Investing
$1.22 dividend from PCY


Model Portfolio Totals

Trading Account: $200
Max amount in Forex trade (20%): $40
Max loss per trade (2%): $4

Investing Account: $1375.28
Stock
REITs
     O: Funds transferring to Sharebuilder
Bonds
     JNK: Funds transferring to Sharebuilder
     PCY: Scheduled to be repurchased at Sharebuilder
Maneuvering Cash: $468.05

Savings Account: $300
Emergency: $250
Portfolio Protection: $50
CDs: $0
Precious Metals: $0


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Dividend Investing: 6 - Payout Raito

I continue my investing series with another statistic that can give a lot of light onto the dividend policy of a company...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

There are a lot of different ways to look at the ideas behind what a payout ratio represents. It can be based on EPS, free cash flow, free cash flow before capital expenditures, before debt is calculated in, etc.
The key point is to figure out in some way...
1:  How much money the company generates.
2:  How much they keep to grow the company in the future
3:  How much money they have to pay as a dividend.



Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

"Storage Wars" is the Financial Markets

We can get interesting lessons of the markets from different types of media...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Week 18 Deposit

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

One other problem with doing an account transfer... I have to send Sharebuilder an account statement from my current broker. Being as how ThinkorSwim merged in with TDAmeritrade I don't have a full month's of account statement yet and I don't want the hassle of explaining things to Sharebuilder. I'd have to wait till October to get a full account statement meaning it could be middle of December before I'd have my accounts straightened out.

The more I think about this transfer the more comfortable I am with where my money will be. I want to be on autopilot as much as I can so I can focus on other things that need my attention. That isn't always about making more money. I'm passionate about the markets but not as much as I am passionate about my friends and family. Things being easier for investing and trading frees up more time for other things in life.

Weekly Activity
$100 deposit into Investing


Model Portfolio Totals

Trading Account: $200
Max amount in Forex trade (20%): $40
Max loss per trade (2%): $4

Investing Account: $1278.59
Stock
REITs
     O: Scheduled to be sold 9-1-11
Bonds
     JNK: Scheduled to be sold 9-2-11
     PCY: Scheduled to be sold 8-29-11
Maneuvering Cash: $468.05 moving to Sharebuilder

Savings Account: $300
Emergency: $250
Portfolio Protection: $50
CDs: $0
Precious Metals: $0


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets

Dividend Investing: 5 - Dividend Growth Rate

You can have all the dividend raises in a row you can get but if they are too small they aren't worth it...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Week 17 Deposit

Last week sure had a lot of activity. I suppose a better term would be inactivity...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

Is it me or does the still frame of the video make it look like I have braces on?

After I posted the video to Youtube I went out to pull off a red bell pepper to take as part of my lunch to work. Proper tools are made for proper jobs. Instead of using a shear I thought I'd tear a pepper off. I ended up snapping a branch that had 5 small peppers growing on it. Seeing as how those sell for $1.50-$2 in the grocery store that was a $7.50 mistake right there. Lets consider it a capital gains that I had but the share price dropped before I could sell it.


Weekly Activity
$100 deposit into Investing
$1.16 dividend from O

Model Portfolio Totals

Trading Account: $200
Max amount in Forex trade (20%): $40
Max loss per trade (2%): $4

Investing Account: $1166.59
Stock
REITs
     O: 8 shares ($1.16 total dividends received)
Bonds
     JNK: 7 shares. ($3.52 total dividends received)
     PCY: 10 shares. ($2.48 total dividends received)
Maneuvering: $368.05

Savings Account: $300
Emergency: $250
Portfolio Protection: $50
CDs: $0
Precious Metals: $0


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets

Portfolio Management: 6 - Risk

Most people focus on the profit and most of the financial industry, news, and advisers do too. They really have a way of talking about risk without actually talking about risk itself...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

In the video I mention that people do not think about risk. Oh they may say that they do. They know a company's debt limit and their competitors' and business model but that is risk to the company not to them.
They have analyzed the technicals of a commodity knowing the support and resistance and moving averages but that is risk to the future not to their portfolio.
How can I tell that they have not thought about their risk? Because when things are going well they talk about how great of an investor or trader they are. When things are going poorly they ask, "What do I do now?" or they sit there watching their trade plummet.
They defaulted into category #4 risk acceptance: whatever happens happens.

You should never ever NEVER be in a trade that goes against you and ask "What do I do now?" You ask and answer that before the trade is entered. If I don't have good answers to potential "What do I do now" scenarios I do not enter that trade.
That's the difference between a trade losing 3% of your account vs 30% of all your money.



Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax adviser. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets

Garden Project: August Update

The great ThinkorSwim Debacle of 2011 is getting worse. I'm still missing the $200 in the trading account but am told it is being transferred and fixed. The $266 in cash in the investing account was turned into a money market position. That is not showing anywhere but I do have a message of "Margin -$266". I sure hope they arent thinking I am needing a margin call and they will sell my stock positions. Total I am now missing $466. I'll refrain from commentary until I am a bit more... calm.

But at times like this I try to focus on other things so lets talk about my garden project and its quest to generate some cash flow in the form of saving me grocery money...

I started seedlings out in April but as I mentioned previously I didn't have any good direct sunlight. So in the second week of June I set them out in the sun hoping for them to grow. I was careful to keep them watered however we had a heavy wind storm which knocked them over, and out of their little pots. About half of the dirt was blown away and the shriveled pretty quickly. Which really I suppose is just as well, I used biodegradable Jiffy Pots strips which are nice but some of them started getting a bit of mold on them. Too much water, not enough water. Its like I can't win. I wasn't able to save any of them.


Packets of seeds: $16
Jiffy Pot strips: $4
Jiffy Potting soil: $7
Total for Seedlings: $27

I figured I would at least get something out of a garden this year in the form of experience if nothing else. I went down to Lowe's and picked up some pre-grown vegetables. Just enough to fill one of my raised gardens. I also learned my lesson from last year and bought some chunks of tree bark for mulch to block the sun from baking the ground.
1 each of Pumpkin, Cucumber, Strawberry, Green Bell Pepper, Red Bell Pepper, Squash: $30
1 Tomato: $10
2 bags of Mulch: $6.50
Total for Pre-Grown Plants: $46.50
Yeah that is going to set me back in the profitability column.

Now for the good news. Plants grow an unbelievable amount of vegetables and are flowering all over the place. It took them awhile to grow, presumably as they were growing solid root systems but now they are really spreading out nicely.
Bobby my Saint Bernard hopped up into the garden and kicked over the Green Bell Pepper plant. I was rather surprised that after I planted it back in (albeit at a 45 degree angle) it not only has survived but thrived and is preparing to give me half a dozen peppers.

The harvest so far is just two red tomatoes. However that one plant has 5 green ones and 20 flowers. The squash has 18 flowers and the rest of a dozen or so. I am not sure if I can break even on my costs this year as I only have 1 garden bed going and had to spend $46.50 more then I should have. At any rate though I will have a good amount and have until the end of September probably before the first overnight frost sets in.  And the taste of those tomatoes? Fabulous. I hadn't realized how artificial tasting the grocery store vegetables had become.

Total cost of the raised gardens: $154
Total cost of the seedlings: $27
Total cost of the pre-grown plants: $46.50
Total cost: $227.50
Yeah I don't think I will get 75 lbs of food this year. However next year I should only have $30-$40 in reoccurring costs.

Total profit: $1.50 from 2 tomatoes

Week 16 Deposit

4 months? Really. Wow...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

Weekly Activity
$100 deposit into Trading
$1.74 dividend from JNK


Model Portfolio Totals

Trading Account: $200
Max amount in Forex trade (20%): $40
Max loss per trade (2%): $4

Investing Account: $1056.00
Stock
REITs
     O: 8 shares
Bonds
     JNK: 7 shares. ($3.52 total dividends received)
     PCY: 10 shares. ($2.48 total dividends received)
Maneuvering: $266.89

Savings Account: $300
Emergency: $250
Portfolio Protection: $50
CDs: $0
Precious Metals: $0




Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Broker Management

When looking at where your portfolio can fail and where we can shore up its weak points we shouldn't forget non financial concerns...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

I made this video Friday morning with my internet going down twice for hours at a time. It ended up being the cable modem supplied by my service provider broke. I won't blame this one on them, I have had it for about 4 years now and it has worked well. But that does not change the results or the future risks... my connection was down and I could not trade. I was down most of yesterday too (thusly the delay in posting this blog entry vs posting my video). My service provider said they might be able to get someone out in a couple days to take a look at it.

I went out and bought one for $70 which includes $10 from Best Buy's extended warranty. I know I know. Those things are usually a scam and the manufacturer has a warranty. Being an I.T. guy there is also some wounded pride involved but I do have a reason. If my modem goes out for whatever reason it directly impacts my trading, what if I am in the middle of one? I do not want to call the manufacturer and wait for them to send me a new one. I want to walk into Best Buy, grab one without question and be on my way to get back up and running.

Why bring up buying a new cable modem to you guys at all? Well there is a lesson here that I missed. When I first signed up they charged $5/month to lease a cable modem. This was years ago when cable modems cost quite a bit. Last year they raised the price to $7/month. $2 is no big deal and I didn't pay attention probably as much as I should have. The end result? I have paid easily over $350 in fees for a $60 piece of equipment.
$300 is the same size as my stock purchases for the model portfolio.
Money can be tight at times for anyone especially in these times. Finding the cash flow in our budgets may not be as hard as we think if we take a close look at our budgets.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Sometimes you don't have to wait for dividend growth

In a previous entry I mentioned that through patience and time, a dividend paying company's dividend can grow over the years and surpass bonds.
Sometimes you don't even have to wait...

O: 5.65%
KMB: 4.47%
ABT: 4.09%
JNJ: 3.79%
PG: 3.59%
30 year U.S. Treasury: 3.51%


WMT: 3.02%
KO: 2.94%
MCD: 2.9%
CL: 2.89%
10 year U.S. Treasury: 2.13%



Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets

Further stock market jitters

Not too surprising seeing a market dive after the U.S. gets downgraded in credit rating...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

The main point I hopefully made in that rambling was that we cannot predict with 100% certainty what will happen. What we can do is control our risk and exposure and be prepared for when things settle down.  That will be my mine focus for the near future.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets

Week 15 Deposit

We certainly are in interesting financial times...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

I made the video and posted it on youtube this morning before the markets were open. I am posting this blog entry after the markets have closed. I mention this because in the video I talk about the $100 going to trading. That hasn't changed. However after having two 5% drops in 3 days it tends to alter ones plans which I will share my thoughts on...

At the time of the transfer I was thinking that I might get a breather in the plummeting of the markets, I could build up a trading position and then if it started to fall again when focus returned to Italy and Spain I would be in a position to take advantage of that. Now though it appears that we might be back to a 2008 situation where we will be in free fall. We have already dropped around 16% total I could easily see another 16%. I would not be surprised in the least if we hit the 2008 lows.

However for trading? We have already gotten big moves. Volatility is high so that will make options more expensive. I have chased massive moves too many times and gotten in the bottom of them. It may move too far and too fast for a trade here. What then?

Then I look to invest. When everything has started to settle it will be a rare chance to buy cheap. I want to be in a position to buy more shares, not just trade their options.

So I am reserving the right to move the trading money over into investing. If this does turn out to be another 2008 where the general market fell by 50% I will be buying twice the shares for the same income stream. Remember these dividend companies didn't cut their dividends then I don't see them cutting them know especially with the record amount of money companies are hoarding.
For trading I am still testing and practicing. I can easily fund it later. The forex market will always be there for me to trade. However there won't always be large discounts on stocks.


Weekly Activity


$100 deposit into Trading


Model Portfolio Totals

Trading Account: $100
Max amount in trade (20%): $20
Max loss per trade (2%): $2

Investing Account: $1017.34
Stock
REITs
     O: 8 shares
Bonds
     JNK: 7 shares. ($1.78 total dividends received)
     PCY: 10 shares. ($2.48 total dividends received)
Maneuvering: $265.15

Savings Accout: $300
Emergency: $250
Portfolio Protection: $50
CDs: $0
Precious Metals: $0



Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets

The Stock Market "Crash"

After the horrendous day yesterday with stocks how can one possibly recover?

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

So to me this "crash" is a whole lot of nothing but there is a self analyzing opportunity for us here to learn from.
What is your mindset? Did you or are you panicking and hitting the refresh button on your broker screen every few seconds? You probably have too much money at risk and you probably haven't been through these moves before. Not to say the later is bad, its a process that every new investor goes through that no book or video can teach. I go through it too.

Why I bring this up is you can tell when you are becoming an "expert" or a "professional" when you are able control your emotions or better yet, when they don't come up at all. This allows you to move more quickly to your mental checklist to go through for major events. This would include things like...
Does this change or impact my portfolio?
Does this change or impact my overall strategy?
Do I need to make any defensive changes?
Do I need to make any profit making changes?

Notice the first three I list are defensive? I always focus on that before going after profits.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets

Portfolio Management: 5 - Trading

"Will there be dinosaurs in your dinosaur park?"
Jurassic Park

Will there be trading in your trading blog?
For a three part portfolio there hasn't been even talk about trading. Lets change that...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

I debated back and forth quite a bit actually on when to start talking about trading. Not that I do not want to share but do I 

A: Wait to have done my Forex demo trading before sharing and thusly skip by any mistakes? or

B: Share as I go along going through the newcomer to the forex market

I went with B because well... that's what this blog is about. I understand that I open myself up to public errors and mistakes but you know what?  That's what this entire blogging venture is about. Sharing my process with others. If I am showing my thought process and steps publicly that lead to losses and errors then that will have 

a bigger impact then me just saying "Don't do that".

Along this theme I will be creating a trading system from scratch. My stock option trading was mostly centered around fundamentals added with simple support and resistance. For Forex though I want to add in some more technical tools. I'll be testing and evaluating Stochastics, RSI, and MACD.

Evaluating? I prefer to dig into something and really learn and look at how something works. Its one thing to read in a book or watch a video saying "Do this with RSI" but to trust my portfolio's money with it? Thats something different.

Thinkorswim allows Forex trades in 10,000 sized lots. That's going to be around $300 needed in a trade with their leverage. If I want to keep it at 20% leverage of my overall account I will need $1,500 before I can think of trading. Probably more for me to be safe. To be honest some more with you guys... that isnt going to take place until next year.

Yep no trading until 2012. Now that does not mean nothing will happen for trading in the next 5-6 months. I have a lot of work to do demo trading before I am comfortable with whatever training system comes up for the Model Portfolio. More on that later.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets

Week 14 Deposit and reverting back to my plan

It appears that the likelihood of default is at least lessened...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

One change of note is that I am not going to list the total dollar amounts for each category of investing. That is listed on the spreadsheet and I am just duplicating data. Plus when it comes down to it, since that is an income account dollar totals are only needed for weight balancing which is also listed as a percent on the spreadsheet.

EDIT: I incorrectly listed the total PCY dividends paid as $3. As a commentor noticed and mentioned, it was incorrect.

Weekly Activity
$100 deposit into Investing
$100 transfer from Trading into Investing that was planned for Phase 1 of Investing
$50 transfer from Trading back into Savings Portfolio Protection
$1.22 dividend from PCY


Model Portfolio Totals

Trading Account: $0

Investing Account: $1081.78
Stock
REITs
     O: 8 shares
Bonds
     JNK: 7 shares. ($1.78 total dividends received)
     PCY: 10 shares. ($2.48 total dividends received)
Maneuvering: $265.15

Savings Accout: $300
Emergency: $250
Portfolio Protection: $50
CDs: $0
Precious Metals: $0



Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Possible US Debt limit plays

Disclaimer: NONE of the following is advice for anyone. Its merely an exercise in different choices and available options for current events and theorizing what ifs. I currently have no plans to initiate any of the following.

I'm getting hard wood floors put into my home this week. Everything is moved and out of place and life has been tossed into the air. My time to make videos has been limited but I did want to talk more on the U.S. debt limit as a few commentors requested updates as things develop.

So here we are Thursday 7-28-11. 3 work days before the U.S. debt limit is reached. Everyone seems to have an opinion and plan as to the future of the entire world economy if the limit is not raised. Is this the doomsday event that sends us all into the dark ages again? Is this just much ado about nothing?
As I mentioned I don't want to make predictions but I do want to have plans for what ifs.

If the limit is raised then the Model Portfolio will proceed as normal.
The $150 in the trading account would be re-allocated $50 back to Savings and the $100 to Investing as was planned to continue Phase 1. No harm no foul in the long run with the portfolio.

If the limit is not raised on August 2 what is the likely event that would happen? Well its not like all payments are due on August 3rd.  Bonds are paid monthly and some government organizations get budgets front funded so they have time to keep operating.  There would be few people not getting paid and the federal government would have a bit more time to make a deal.
The impact will be to the image of the stability of the U.S. ability to pay its debts.

U.S. Treasury bonds would more then likely take a hit as people sell to get away from bonds that might not get paid on. Where would they put their money?
There are 4 main categories where your average person has their money: Cash, Bonds, Stock, Precious Metals. There are a lot more but I am talking about generalities and massive amounts of money in overall markets.

Cash
If people sell bonds and just sit on cash there isn't much of a play open to me to take advantage of short term other then the Forex but I am not ready to place money into that. It will be interesting to keep an eye on the EUR/USD pair though as this all unfolds. Even in extraordinary times I do not want to take on the risk of my own inexperience and lack of knowledge. I could be right and do something wrong and lose money. That is a very real risk that many do not think about.

Bonds
The theory so far is people are leaving U.S. Bonds so we'd want some put options on those bonds. These put options would increase in value as whatever they are tied to drops in value. Lets use the TLT etf which covers 20 year US Treasuries. Options expire on the third Friday of the month. We could go with August options but would only have about 2 weeks before they expire. Before that time, their value drops pretty sharply because of this deadline limit. Would any move in the markets move that fast? The markets perhaps but the government no. I want to look at Sept options

TLT Sept 92 PUT @ $1.22
I know I haven't covered options yet and I said I would try not to bring up topics without talking about them but time is a bit short. I will cover options more in the future.
If I were to buy this option it would give me the right, but not obligation to sell (because its a PUT option) 100 shares (the number of shares in 1 option contract) of the TLT etf for $92 each to whomever sold me this option. The $1.22 price is per share in the contract so to buy 1 option it would cost my account $122, almost all the trading money. I'm not sure if I like that part.
Since I do not have 100 shares of TLT to sell I need to sell this option in the future but since this would be a trade that is fine.

TLT is nearly at $96 right now and hasn't been under $92 since April. In June we have some support around $93-$94 range so we have that fighting against this trade.
The "open interest" of an option is how many option contracts are out there. For this Sep 92 PUT, there are 2,300 contracts owned out there by others. With lower open interest there are less investors and less money involved which would make it harder for me to get out of the trade if I were to get in it. Perhaps there is something else that I can get into with more liquidity. I ALWAYS want to be able to get out of a trade when I want to. Believe me, its rough being in a trade trying to get out and nobody is taking the other side.

TBT Sep 34 CALL @ $0.9
TBT Sep 35 CALL @ $0.84
TBT is a x2 ultra short version of TLT. These means that it will move in the opposite direction that long term US treasuries move. I could buy a CALL option which increases in value to whatever its tied to.
In this case people sell bonds, TLT drops in value, TBT increase in value by double that amount, a call option of TBT would also increase in value.
Its a bit cheaper and wouldn't take all my trading money. The open interest is 15,000 for the 34 and 34,000 for the 35 option. That's a better open interest level but bonds usually don't move far very fast and I have a time limit here.

Precious Metals
There is another play available to me. If people sell bonds where would they place their money? Precious metals is a good play when fear is high. Not many things are more fearful then the U.S. collapsing. Note I do not think the U.S. is going to collapse but the markets could think so temporarily.

I do not want to buy actual gold for a trade because it would take weeks for delivery. Then when I sell I have to find someone that wants to take a pile of metal from me. So I will need to stick with ETFs here.
GLD is a gold etf but its options are going to be way too expensive for the amount of money I have currently available. I could buy options that are really far away from the current price of GLD but the further you go out the less likely you have of the share price getting to your point.

Silver is a good alternative...
SLV Aug 40 CALL @ $1.26
SLV Sep 42 CALL @ $1.33
The interest here is only 2,500 for the Sep option. Aug has 37,000 but that is getting close to expiration. Everything else is getting pricey.

ZSL Sep 12 PUT @ $0.9
ZSL is a x3 short of silver. Remember how I mentioned in my video that I don't want a lot of complex moving parts to a trade? For this trade to work people sell US treasury bonds, then put their money into silver, silver rises in price so ZSL drops by x3 that amount, since this is a put option the option increases in value.
If you are confused don't worry, this is just a ridiculous trade. The fact there are only 200 options in open interest should tell us that the rest of the world thinks this is a bit silly too

Stock
What about the stock market? The S&P500 has tried 3 times recently to break above 1350 how much more effort can it have left? The US government fears could easily push it on down. It seems the stock market freaks out over anything.


SDS Sep 22 CALL @ $0.86
SDS is a x2 short of the S&P500. I like that price and Sept gives us an extra month to see what develops. $22 was the price back in June and appears to be the resistance level. Open interest is over 11,000 so lots of liquidity there. This also helps hedge my O investment if that were to fall in price with stocks in general.

The SDS play probably is what I would consider. In all honesty though guys I see maybe a 10% chance of me actually doing this. Something major would have to happen like all negotiations stop or they keep trying to work on multiple plans on Monday Aug 1st. They could make an agreement at 11:59 pm Monday when markets are closed. I would be stuck in a trade I made on Monday. That is some very big risk to consider.

I am perfectly happy sitting back. At this early stage of the Model Portfolio I want to build up the account through deposits and my rules state my account must grow each month.
A month ago I wouldn't have even seriously considered these trades but the government seems to be messing around on this topic. If nothing else we can look back on this entry and see what happened with the option values. The research and experience gained from this exercise in theory could be more valuable then any actual dollar gains.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets

Week 13 Deposit and being prepared

As I started my blog and model portfolio I laid out how and where I would make my weekly deposits. Current events necessitated me to change those plans...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

In the video I mention wanting to keep things simple and avoid lots of moving parts. I want to expand on that a bit.
On one hand it seems simple: if Congress doesn't raise the limit people will sell bonds. If they raise it everything is fine. But is it really that simple and is that even accurate? A lot of people are saying this.  The "moving parts" of this theory is in the details.
1: The Democrats, Republicans, House, Senate, President of the United States, "Gang of Six" all have their own ideas. That's potentially 6 different ways this could play out let alone what form any compromises will take. Even if they get a compromise in place before August 2nd...
2: How will the world react? The credit agencies have stated that they might lower U.S. credit rating even with the debt ceiling being raised. So whatever compromise that might or might not take place may not even be enough...
3: After a deal is or is not made and after the credit agencies react how will foreign countries act? Will China dump their bonds or will they stand firm? Japan has a lot too can they afford to lose the interest income with all their own economic problems? These and other countries have enough bonds that their actions could move the markets.

See what I mean about moving parts? For me, there are way to many "what ifs" and unanswered questions. We do not know what will or will not be done nor at what time this might occur let alone be able to guess the chain of events that will come later.

The thing is there will always be a crisis to worry about that an investor could be locked in permanent inactivity. They could also get stuck into a mentality of jumping in with money to beat the crowd and get rich.
I'll just sit back and watch for a bit. There will always be another trade tomorrow but if I am not careful I may not have a portfolio left for that tomorrow.


Weekly Activity
$100 deposit into Trading
$50 transfer from Savings to Trading
Purchase 8 shares of O @ $34.12

Model Portfolio Totals

Trading Account: $150

Investing Account: $895.03
Stock: $0
REITs: $276.32
     O: 8 shares
Bonds: $554.78
     JNK: 7 shares. ($1.78 total dividends)
     PCY: 10 shares. ($1.26 total dividends)
Maneuvering: $63.93

Savings Account: $250
Emergency: $250
Portfolio Protection: $0
CDs: $0
Precious Metals: $0



Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets

Investment: O - Realty Income Corp

Had a busy weekend manning a booth at a local festival for Heifer.org and spending time with family I didnt do my blog entry for the video...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

I've been invested with O for several years now and want to share some insight on that. The years where there was no growth in the dividend was rough to get through. Other companies were growing while O's dividend was lagging. Ok technically it grew but when it goes from $0.1445625 a month to $0.144875 its not really a raise its a gimmick to keep their streak.

Normally that is a concern for me but in O's case in handling the debt its understandable and it was reasons for protecting the investor (paying off debt before a credit liquidity crisis) and not something stupid like management messed up. My patience and faith is starting to be rewarded.

That is something that every investor will need to do. When do you bail out of a stock and sell and under what conditions. If we sell on every mistake made we wouldn't have any companies left.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Blog format update

Just some quick notes as I have some sharp eyed readers...

In my other portfolios I have rather complex and... well odd Excel spreadsheets. I haven't found a good way to share Excel on Blogger so I am having to use Google Spreadsheets. I suppose I could screenshot Excel and then post that but that is a bit more work then needs to be.
And really its probably for the best. My Excel spreadsheets were easy to follow only because I was the one to make it. Looking at it from anyone else's perspective I had to ask myself.... "What the @$#% is all this?"

So I am converting everything over to Google Spreadsheets but not all of the bookkeeping numbers are yet needed for the Model Portfolio. As they come up I will need to re-edit and alter the formatting of my existing formats. Note these will only be in the spreadsheets themselves not in the overall blog format.

For the Investing account I added a dividend tab. I wanted it to be in the same format as the main account summary page but Google Spreadsheets has a problem I didn't find out until yesterday. It does not handle a large amount of columns nearly as well as Excel. Eventually in a couple years I will have too many month columns and it will bog down and potentially crash. I figured I would save time and just start off with it having the rows as months.

Why bother tracking dividends on a monthly basis? Couldn't I just save time and columns some other way? As this is an income portfolio I need a "raw data" page where all the other calculations can take place. This will also make it easier to compare my numbers with my monthly broker statements so I can avoid as many mistakes as I can that I referenced in a previous post. As the goal of the Model Portfolio is to generate monthly income to live off of, keeping track of income on a monthly basis will show all sorts of things that a running total would not.

Lastly, I added a dividend calendar spreadsheet.  The first tab is the estimated ex-dividend dates to show me when I can no longer make an investment for a particular dividend. The second tab is the estimated payment date when I can expect to get the dividends into my accounts. Note these are estimated dates. Companies can and will fluctuate them.

I like to keep an eye on what companies have up and coming dividends to help me decide where to add to positions.  Let me tell you, there are few things more frustrating in dividend investing then buying a 20% yield stock on the ex-div date because you thought you had some more time. Now I can see what is coming up in the next week or two and research exact dates.
And if nothing else.... I am a man who likes numbers and graphs lol.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets

Type of Investments: 3 - REITs

REITs, Real estate investment trusts, act in many ways as a standard company however the few key differences can be important...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

REITs can bring in stability to a portfolio as far as income. The leases that are signed can last several years or 10+. These leases will spell out how much is owed and if the rate adjusts during the leases life. Unless a tenant walks out on a REIT, the REIT will have a known quantity on its income.

Most REITs will specialize in one sector. A retirement community REIT will have the vast majority of its real estate in buildings to cater to the needs of the elderly with perhaps some overlap in assisted leaving or medical office buildings. The main theme here would be health care.



Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Week 12 Deposit and Politics

Its important to keep up with politics and current events without becoming sucked into personal bias.

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

Well I see that youtube chose another great image for the thumbnail. Why do I never see other youtubers with this problem?

A little edit. With all the math and numbers that fly around with a portfolio mistakes will happen there isn't a way to get around that. Novels have multiple drafts and multiple editing passes to try to catch the mistakes. For financial books there are entire teams and departments to check and recheck things.

For me, I had the wrong dividend typed in here for PCY though my spreadsheet was correct. Just a good example to recheck your numbers each time between what you have vs what your broker has.

Its also a good way to make sure your broker is correct because not all of your bookkeeping errors will be with you. PCY always pays on the last business day of the month. That was Thursday June 30th. I checked that day but there was no payment. I waited until the morning of Friday July 1st and still nothing. I contacted their help desk chat and they cleared it up.

The deposit goes through their clearing company, Penson. Then it gets passed on to me. So in a few more  hours (about 9:00 am eastern) it will show up. It did but being in July I looked at the July time period of activity. I received the dividend because my cash was higher but it didn't list it in the activity section. I just magically got more money. I checked June's statement and they show that I received the dividend at 11:00pm.
It may just be me but if I don't have the money in my account until July, don't show record of it until July, and do not have access to said money until July; then I did not receive it in June. Its not a big deal its only one day, but the point here is that we have to adjust our expectations to match how our broker does things.

If I hadn't found both of these bookkeeping errors it would not have impacted my actual account dollar totals. However the longer it takes to find the harder it gets to actually find it. Months down the road where there have been lots of payments it could make it hard to spot.

I'm going to go back and edit past entries to make it match but I wanted to make mention of it. I'm not trying to hide anything or trick anyone here. Things like this will happen with just about everyone and its something that needs to be accepted and dealt with. If anyone is expecting this to be flawless then you will be disappointed.


Weekly Activity
$100 deposit into Investing
$1.78 dividend from JNK

Model Portfolio Totals


Trading Account: $0

Investing Account: $893.56
Stock: $0
REITs: $0
Bonds: $551.67
     JNK: 7 shares. ($1.78 total dividends)
     PCY: 10 shares. ($1.26 total dividends)
Maneuvering: $341.89

Savings Account: $300
Emergency: $250
Portfolio Protection: $50
CDs: $0
Precious Metals: $0


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets

Dividend Investing: 4 - Consecutive Years of Dividend Raises

I continue my series on dividend investing by looking at something I have talked a lot about in other videos, the consecutive years of dividend raises...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

I want to expand and clear up something I mentioned in the video. That was how a dividend company vs a non dividend company grows and expands their business.
Now I am not saying that non dividend companies expand recklessly. But when they choose to grow they are not restricted by having to increase the dividend the next year. So their moves can be longer term or if their expansion is not as profitable as they thought then no big deal, they will work it out later.

The dividend paying company though has to be sure it will start generating income to pay for the higher dividend. It could take a few years before any growth will see increased income from any one expansion of buying another company or building a new factory. This forces the company to plan out more so they have several projects in the pipe. They also have to really be sure that they are on target because if there are delays then they will not have enough growth to increase the dividend and investors could become concerned or start to sell.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Expected Returns in the Financial Markets

Making money is the goal when you are in the financial markets for whatever you are needing it for. How much can you make is the question...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

I didn't give a direct answer to the question. I really prefer to play devil's advocate and throw out varying ideas and viewpoints for each person to make up their mind. And in all honesty as I mentioned in the video, its going to vary by a lot between each person.

On one hand that may seem obvious but the person just starting out really needs to dwell on it for a bit. The 80%-90% of the people that fail are probably not going to have many veterans that have been trading for a lot of years. The beginning time for anyone in any trade skill, including trading, should be focused on education and getting experience. The money will come as an afterthought.



Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Week 11 Deposit

This week in addition to the deposit I have some updates on brokers and various websites I have been testing.

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

Weekly Activity
$100 deposit into Investing

Model Portfolio Totals
Trading Account: $0

Investing Account: $794.36
Stock: $0
REITs: $0
Bonds: $554.25
     JNK: 7 shares.
     PCY: 10 shares. ($1.26 total dividends)
Manuevering: $240.11

Savings Account: $300
Emergency: $250
Portfolio Protection: $50
CDs: $0
Precious Metals: $0

Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Earning Season

Its that time of quarter again when the new investor looks at stock options and starts seeing big (potential) profit in the Earning Season jumps in prices...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

I wish that  the Microsoft (MSFT) option trade that made me x7 my money had not been one of my first trades. Since it was it gave me a false sense of what the markets would be like. I even told myself "Oh this is easy!" It spurned me on to keep trying to duplicate it again and again.

Something I didnt go into detail about in the video but that makes a big impact to trading are the previous quarters estimates of this quarter. Companies will guess at how much they will make. Investors will then try to jump on that and beat other investors to the punch and the stock price will balance out to what that future news is going to be. This is called having the news "priced in".
Not only that but analyst "experts" will make their educated, and sometimes not so educated, guesses. If a company beats these guesses the stock will generally move up because it beat earnings. If they miss earnings then it will usually drop.

This really confused me when I started out. A company would grow their profit by 10% and the stock drops by 5%. How? Because everyone guessed they would grow by 15% so somehow this is a big terrible thing. The trader can get burned and its one more thing they have to research around earning season time.

To me the power of analysts is frustrating. Someone from Goldman Sachs or Citibank makes an announcement downgrading a company on fear of risk of potential difficulties, nothing even substantial, and a stock drops 5%-10%.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Dividend Investing: 3 - Yield and Yield on Cost

Yield and Yield on Cost are pretty similar in how they are calculated but the one difference is a big one...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

In the video I ended with saying that I don't want to pay someone $20 to get $0.66 a year back which is what happened with AOD. That's a 3.3% yield on cost but isnt that what I am doing now if I were to buy a JNJ or KO?

I am not buying today's dividend dollar payout I am buying the 15 year in the future one.
I want to stress this point because its THE #1 cornerstone of dividend investing. Its something I will be repeating over and over and over again probably to the point of beating it to death. I see too many investors missing this point that they don't even consider dividend investing. If it doesnt fit for a person's strategy that is perfectly fine but at least understand it enough to be able to make that decision.

Let's break down the math of my Coca-Cola comment in the video.
KO in June 1989 was around $4.80 with a $0.0375 quarterly payment (adjusted for splits). That's a 3.1% yield.
Today it goes for $68.48 and has a $0.47 quarterly payment, $1.88 a year. That's a 2.7% yield. A person only thinking about yield would probably have skipped it. Maybe even returned to KO and thought its still not paying much.
Yield on cost? That $4.80 spent is making $1.88 a year.... 39% yield on cost. Don't even get me started on if they had reinvested the dividends all those years.

So when I say I do not want to give someone $20 to get $0.66 back a year what I really mean is I want to give someone $20 and get $7.52 back a year (having bought 4 shares of KO).

Whose to say what will become of funds like AOD 20 years from now. All I know is that has cut its payment twice while KO and other companies have raised their payment. When I am jobless I don't want the worry of having to rebalance my bills after having took a paycut.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets

Week 10 Deposit and the first dividend

We hit some nice milestones with the model portfolio...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

On the weekly deposit and review entries I'll also be changing the format as time goes on and new activity starts to talk about. Since I have the investing tab at the top I didn't see a need really to list out each investment's dollar value.

This changing of data shows a bonus of sharing a blog with others. It makes me keep in mind that I am talking about this with others so I need to show whats important. It also makes me keep in mind to pass on the less important stuff. Otherwise this would turn into a daily blog and you guys would get drowned out with too much info.

Just like investing is a marathon, I am finding out blogging is too. Since this portfolio will take years to complete there is no need for me to stampede out a herd of videos and entries at full speed. I can see how people go too fast and get burned out and quit a blog. Then that leaves everyone hanging.
I still want to be here and share with you all the "I hit my goal and quit my job!" video.


Weekly Activity
$100 deposit into Investing
$1.26 PCY dividend received

Model Portfolio Totals

Trading Account: $0

Investing Account: $693.87
Stock: $0
REITs: $0
Bonds: $553.76
     JNK: 7 shares.
     PCY: 10 shares. ($1.26 total dividends)
Manuevering: $140.11

Savings Account: $300
Emergency: $250
Portfolio Protection: $50
CDs: $0
Precious Metals: $0



Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Investment Purchase: JNK

I made my second investment for the model portfolio this week...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

The blog entry is coming up a bit later then the video was published. It was a rather crazy week in redoing videos and learning how to edit. Plus I wanted to space out the blog entries and not do multiple ones a day.

At any rate, JNK. It has a nice high yield for a bond fund so why not put all my money there? Why waste my time with PCY that has a noticeably lower yield? Financial instruments have a high yield for a purpose. JNK trades 3.8 million shares a day so this isnt some hush hush secret investment that people don't know about. This yield is the yield because thats what the market has determined will pay enough for the risk. Or that the share price is high enough to risk because the higher that goes the more money per share is risked. If the market didn't think the yield was too high or the share price too high then it would be pushed up, plain and simple.

Here are the links to the funds discussed in this entry
JNK: Spdrs
HYG: iShares
PHB: Powershares


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.

Dividend Investing: 2 - Research

Starting out with investing has enough obstacles for the new investor that finding information to start the research process shouldn't be one of them...

EDIT: At the time this blog entry was posted I had a Youtube video here. That has been removed but I want the rest of my content to be remain. Nothing hidden no past mistakes ignored. All out in the open.

I was hoping to get this entry and video out on Wednesday but all that editing derailed that plan.
The duration in how long of a video it captures leaves something to be desired. At about the 8-10 minute mark it creates a file too big to handle and doesn't save. The screen capturing part of the video alone took me about an hour of redoing it trying to figure things out. The editing? Yeah for some reason 1 minute of screen capturing resulted in 100MB of file size!

In the end though I am really pleased how it turned out. The clarity turned out nice and when reformatting the data it compiles down to a very reasonable size. It's definitely something I have been meaning to do so I can share what I am looking at with you guys. Learning video editing isn't unlile learning investing and trading. You just have to roll up your sleeves and jump in to reading, learning, and testing.

As to the research process itself, I use all of these tools. Each shows different aspects of a company with some overlap but some uniqueness. The important thing is to get a real deep understanding of the company we might be investing in. This way there will be less chances of an "Oopps I didn't think of that before losing 50% of my money" moments.


Disclaimer: The investments and trades in my videos and blog entries are not recommendations for others.
I am not a financial planner, financial advisor, accountant, or tax advisor. The financial actions I talk about are for my own portfolio and money and only suited for my own risk tolerance, strategy, and ideas. Copying another person's financial moves can lead to large losses. Each person needs to do their due diligence in researching and planning their own actions in the financial markets.