Want to improve your market view?

Want to improve your market view?  MIT has some free classes that can help -
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/ .  Merry Christmas!

I still have a position in AAPL by the way.  Cheers.


Disclaimer: Please only use this information with a grain of salt and at your own risk / for educational purposes. I am not an investment advisor so please seek professional help if that's what you're looking for.

Twitter buzz

Twitter buzz is an interesting data point to look at for equities or other investment / trading vehicles. Microsoft's Fuse Labs has come up with some interesting ways to visualize this data. Cheers.
Disclaimer: Please only use this information with a grain of salt and at your own risk / for educational purposes. I am not an investment advisor so please seek professional help if that's what you're looking for.

It's been a while...

It's been a while since my last post.  This year has been a challenge for many traders and investors.  I've had a little success recently with AKRX and HALO.  AAPL still has a good long-term outlook in my view.  Good luck with your trading / investing.  Cheers.
Disclaimer: Please only use this information with a grain of salt and at your own risk / for educational purposes. I am not an investment advisor so please seek professional help if that's what you're looking for.

New position in AKRX

I sold my CPX position the other day for ~17% gain thankfully.  On Sunday, I narrowed down 166 potential stock buys down to 2 and then further to my new position AKRX.  I used a variety of tools for my research including: finviz.com, investors.com, yahoo.com/finance, and others.  Good luck with your trading / investing.  Cheers.

Disclaimer: Please only use this information with a grain of salt and at your own risk / for educational purposes. I am not an investment advisor so please seek professional help if that's what you're looking for.

CPX, ATML, BHI, and GSM

I hope that you had a nice Independence day holiday!

My current positions are CPX, ATML, BHI, and GSM.  Best of luck with your trading / investing!  Cheers.

P.S. This might be helpful to you for your stock screening - http://www.investors.com/offer/openaccess.aspx?src=HPSpotlightOpen

Disclaimer: Please only use this information with a grain of salt and at your own risk / for educational purposes. I am not an investment advisor so please seek professional help if that's what you're looking for.

VIX, Consumer discretionary, and 5 Year Tips

In these days of a choppy market, I've found it interesting to check out the VIX, Consumer discretionary versus Staples, and the 5 Year Tips (among other things...).
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$VIX&p=D&b=5&g=0&id=p65316112364

http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=XLY:XLP&p=D&b=5&g=0&id=p47459511499

"http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=STIP+Interactive#symbol=stip;range=1y;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=;"

http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=SPY&p=D&b=5&g=0&id=p95352020144

What are you looking at, or trading, these days?  Cheers.

Disclaimer: Please only use this information with a grain of salt and at your own risk / for educational purposes. I am not an investment advisor so please seek professional help if that's what you're looking for.

Current positions

It's been a while since I've posted last.  Things have been busy...

My current positions are HAL, CROX, and TSL.  HAL's earnings announcement is on 4/18.  Good luck with your investing / trading.  Cheers.

Disclaimer: Please only use this information with a grain of salt and at your own risk / for educational purposes. I am not an investment advisor so please seek professional help if that's what you're looking for.

Modeling equity prices moves with tips from Paul Wilmott

In Paul's book, Paul Wilmott introduces Quantitative Finance, he has a section on Stochastic calculus and how stock price charts can be modeled or approximated by using tools like Brownian motion with drift and lognormal random walks.  Don't worry about the math too much though.  His book comes with a CD-ROM that includes some spreadsheets that allow you to tweak the parameters of these tools to do your own approximations.  Check out my approximations for Apple below.  I have to admit this is going to take some practice for me to thoroughly understand this.  Cheers.

Disclaimer: Please only use this information with a grain of salt and at your own risk / for educational purposes. I am not an investment advisor so please seek professional help if that's what you're looking for.

WSJ The News Hub AM Report: Hot Business Issues on Capitol Hill

Here's an interesting video on current market conditions and what issues might be addressed by Congress.


Also, I sold my small position in CRUS and reinvested in AAPL.  CRUS still has potential but I just wanted to add to my AAPL position.  Cheers.
Disclaimer: Please only use this information with a grain of salt and at your own risk / for educational purposes. I am not an investment advisor so please seek professional help if that's what you're looking for.

My self-managed 401K return for 2010 is 41%!

I'm thankful to report that my self-managed 401K return for 2010 is 41%!  It's great to see that with some hard work that one can achieve a measure of success.  I feel a sense of relief getting a gain higher than my loss of 40% in mutual funds a few years ago.  I don't think I need help from a "professional" mutual fund manager any more. :)

I'll continue to share my progress and learnings.  Hopefully this will be helpful to others too.  Happy New Year!

My current positions are AAPL, ZAGG, and CRUS.  Cheers.
Disclaimer: Please only use this information with a grain of salt and at your own risk / for educational purposes. I am not an investment advisor so please seek professional help if that's what you're looking for.