Stock Page Links: My Rants of the Week My Stock Portfolio My Stock Advice Articles
Stocks are what I consider myself to be a master in. I worked for the largest financial company in the world and learned a ton. The main thing I do now is help people for free. When I was in the business, I had to charge $350 just to sit down and talk to me. RIDICULOUS! The main thing I have about using a broker is that you don't need one! Everything has changed so much from technology that all one has to do is open their own online brokerage account and get started. Before I get into this discussion, I want to share a true story.
COOL STORY: One day, a company had a competition with its best brokers going against monkeys who randomly picked stocks out of the wall street journal. The brokers were allowed all the tools and research at their disposal. After a predefined period, the results were figured. Guess who or should I say what won. The monkeys ended up getting a greater returned based on pure guessing alone. The moral of the story is that anyone can play this game...so why pay someone who knows no more or any inside secrets to manage your money. Buy hiring an advisor, you increase the rate of time it takes to double your money and thus increase the time you have to work until retirement.
Other advice that I have been given by seasoned pros is this...do the opposite of what the public does and you will be successful in the long run. In other words, if there is a huge selloff of a certain stock due to bad press, this might be the right time to buy it. The thought being that the selloff was more than what it should of been due to the group mentality. I have followed this theory and I can say that most of the times, he is absolutely correct. Try it a few times and you will see what I mean. (I use yahoo stock portfolios for the pseudo-portfolios)
On to the stock advice that I am asked about on a daily basis. My main recommendation comes from uncle who enlightened me some years ago. The company he told me about is Amerigas (APU). They are practically a monopoly in the United States when it comes to propane. They fall under the description of Partnership and pay out 90% of their profit in the form of dividends every three months at a rate of rate of 8+%. Remember that this is tax free due to them qualifying under a Reagan act for natural resource companies. Now remember that past results don't guarantee future returns, but know that I have staked a large part of my family's savings into this company and have no plans on changing this anytime soon. Of course, you do not place all your eggs into one basket as any skilled financial advisor would tell you. And it is at this point, that I think of the monkey story above. I can give you plenty of my own opinions and you could through a dart at the WSJ and there is no better chance of me beating your returns. What I do is to try to maximize your returns while keeping your risk very low. I would be more than happy to discuss this further in the blog section of this site...just let me know what you are interested in and I will research it for free. All I ask in return is to help me grow this site into a profitable entity so it will last. This is most easily done my getting friends to visit.
At this point, I need to give you a reason to come back here...so here it is. If you ever wondered what the professionals own, this is your chance to find out. I will be posting one new stock every Sunday to my list of stocks I own and this is FREE advice to you. If you would like some personally help, by all mean ask me and I would be more than happy to try to help you out.
Rant Of The Week (5-16-10): You why financial advisors and stock brokers are loaded? Because people don't realize yet that they can do the same job that the pros do for free! Why do people give financial firms large percentages of there money in the form of manager's fee in portfolios when they can just research the makeup of that portfolio and buy the stocks themselves thus eliminating the 1-4% fees that they are charged every year? Ok Ok...I am done. :)
Below are some of the pages that contain the stocks that I personally own with some write-ups about them. Some cool stories from the old days are there as well. Enjoy and don't forget to pass the word.
Stock Page Links: My Rants of the Week My Stock Portfolio My Stock Advice Articles
MUST READ BELOW FOR AN EASY MONEY MAKING ACTIVITY SEARCHING WITH SWAGBUCKS SEARCH BAR!!!
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Many people don’t really follow their credit score until they apply for a loan of some sort. If at that time your score is too low, what can you do? One trick that is used is to have someone add you on to their credit card account.
The idea is to find a person who already has an established account with perfect payment history and have them add you on as a joint owner. At that time, the history of the account goes into your report, thus increasing your score dramatically. Just one more tip. Stop back for more.
The easiest trick is to actually piggy back someone else and get their good credit report put on your record. So if you have had problems and fixed them all or are coming out of a bankruptcy, then you have a person that has a credit card with no flaws add you as a joint owner. All of the credit history goes to your report jumping your score up quite a bit. Hope this helps.
Another thing you can do is dispute the black marks on your credit report. The company put them there needs to answer your dispute within a certain time frame or the negative marks are taken off your record and your score goes way up. These appeals cost man hours to these companies and not all businesses are willing to spend the extra money on them. Fingers crossed.
If you are like 90% of the people in this country, then you use Google as your main search engine. The other 10% use yahoo to find their information. But, what do they give us as users? Just quick results with Google and a nice homepage with news from Yahoo! My wife introduced me to swagbucks just over two months ago and I am ticked I didn't know about it before. It is a search engine which uses Google and Ask engines combined and then pays you to use their site. My initial thought was that it couldn't pay you that much. But I was wrong. I watched my wife earn over 500 swagbucks in a matter of eight weeks just by inviting 6 friends and all of them using the swagbucks search engine. This 500 swagbucks was then turned into $55 worth of gift cards from Amazon which she quickly spent. : ) Before you say that it isn't that much, think about a search engine giving you over $330 a year just to use them for searching. You can still use Google and Yahoo or Ask for that matter, but when you want to earn money, use swagbucks.The link down below is my referral link which will allow you to sign up and make some serious cash. I look at it this way, if someone says I will give you a free PS3 or Coach purse for using this search engine in addition to your normal routine, who would say no? There are no offers to fulfill and no hoops to jump through. It is like a slot machine, ever time you search, you have a chance of winning a range of dollar amounts. It will come in handy around Christmas time.
Check it out below and trust me, there is nothing to lose and only free money to gain. Have fun swagbucking!
UPDATE: I am getting quite a few people signing up and not doing this quite right. The easiest way is to download their toolbar which gives you a search box right on the top of your screen and then you don't have to go to their site to do the searches and make the money. It is the easiest money you can make. Remember the tips...in the morning and at night if you don't use it at all but still want the swagbucks. (see above article)
UPDATE 2: You can always get a swag buck by shopping or uploading videos. This is soooo easy to make a couple of bucks for Christmas. Join the fun!
Update 3: As of November, I have made around $600 in real spendable cash from Swagbucks. This search engine is by far the best thing I have ever stumbled upon. I can't stress enough that the toolbar is key to attaining the swagbucks everyday. Just make sure to use it in the morning and at night due to the fact it is partly based on time between uses. You will accumulate swagbucks very quickly if you follow my advice.
You can sign up using the banner below. I would have to say that this truly is the easiest way to make money doing what you do on a regular basis anyways. Thanks for looking and it is really easy to make some cash doing this. AND NO IT DOES NOT COST A PENNY!!!
Slick Budget
Life is full of opportunities...pick one and run with it. :)