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.