12-25-2004 -- I don't always know what I'm going to type about here. Although I claim sanity, I have many thought streams coursing through my cerebrum at any given time. Some financial, some garden-oriented, some word/excel/powerpoint/edgar-ease/acrobat based (the day job), and some...well, we won't go there...they're not very G-rated. :-)
I cannot yet type about forex...although I have a gut feeling in which don't agree with the general opinion that the Euro (and other foreign currencies) will continue to rise in relation to the US dollar, I haven't done enough reading and comprehending to understand why I feel that way...other than the fact that I like to invest with a contrarian bent to my thinking and actions.
Forbes just published an article about Warren Buffet's forex trading. Granted, he's one of the world's elite bridge players and therefore is not truly tipping his hand to anyone...but supposedly he's still buying and renewing anti-dollar positions with an eye to a lower dollar:Euro ratio. He's recently made some $400+ million in currency-trade profits...but that's a fraction of Berkshire-Hathaway's $120 billion market cap...so it amounts a diversionary hedge for Mr. Buffet.
Nor can I talk much about recent stock market successes. Although QMCI is doing well, I sold a sizable position (sizable for me, that is...) in AEXCA (Ampex Corp) after it'd risen from 21 to 35...it has risen further, to 42.50. I just bought back in at 40, so we'll see if this low-float tape storage company, which is banking on its stable of patents to boost it's bottom line, is able to push into the stratosphere. But although I'm having long-term good feelings about RIMM, I bought that at 90 and it's now down to 82. I bought more at 82 (one of my critics considers my lack of stop-losses to be down-right stupid...quoting IBD articles about catching falling knives...)...but am wondering if quintupled profit, and strong foreign sales can move RIMM beyond certain US patent troubles.
AEXCA reminds me of several other low-float-but-now-sub-orbital stocks: that same favourite critic told me of ASVI, which is low-float but is riding the popularity derived from selling tractor-like vehicles and having Catepillar as a beneficial owner...
2-15-2005 -- I won't say much, as I need to post a blog entry devoted to today, but the text above was to be my Winter Holiday 2004 posting...and I haven't touch my blog since I started typing it. I was intending to segway into discussion about substance abuse, as some of my family has had problems about that. Although the only substance I abuse is Starbuck's coffee (I've recently attempted to switch to black tea, with varying degrees of success), I just had a beer (Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, my overall favorite), so I won't touch the substance abuse tangent for now... Suffice it to say, Happy (Chinese) New Year!
See my Valentines posting for more sagacious stock tips!
..phyllostachys.
Saturday, December 25, 2004
Sunday, December 19, 2004
Phyllostachys Four: Think and Grow Rich
Napolean Hill is one of innumerable people who have proposed schemes or recipes for the "get rich quick" ideals....except that he had personal research to back up his plan. Can you "think and grow rich"? See this review of Hill's classic self-help book:
"Think and Grow Rich
By Napoleon Hill
[a book review] by Michael C. Gray
April 24, 2001
When I meet with young people coming into public accounting, I'm stunned that they are unaware of many of the classics of success philosophy and motivation. One that should be in everyone's success library is Think And Grow Rich.
Andrew Carnegie was the Bill Gates of his day. He came to the United States from Scotland and made a fortune in the steel industry. When you use a public library, you can thank Andrew Carnegie, who became a great philanthropists and made donations for building many of the public libraries in the United States. He also made big endowments to Universities.
Andrew Carnegie also had the reputation of having more millionaires working for him than any other employer of his time.
Carnegie was fascinated with success and wanted to understand why some men became successful while others in very similar circumstances did not. So he commissioned Napoleon Hill to interview the nation's most successful men to find a success formula that would work for the common man. Hill interviewed 504 people, including Ford, Wrigley, Wanamaker, Eastman, Rockefeller, Edison, Woolworth, Darrow, Burbank, Morgan, Firestone, and three United States Presidents.
The process of conducting these interviews required an investment of twenty years of Napoleon Hill's life.
Hill distilled his findings into a 13 step formula, which was published in Think And Grow Rich.
Since Think And Grow Rich was first published in 1937, it has been used as a roadmap to achievement by countless individuals. (Incidentally, Melvin Powers initially built the Wilshire Book Company by getting the paperback publishing rights to Think And Grow Rich and making it a best seller.)
As you may gather from the title, a premise of Think And Grow Rich is the starting place for wealth is in a person's thoughts.
The source for most of today's motivational speakers remains Think And Grow Rich. So why not go back to the source yourself? Be sure to include Think And Grow Rich on your reading list."
[http://www.profitadvisors.com/growrich.shtml]
One of the greatest debates in today's society is the increasing, seemingly unbridgeable chasm between those we deem wealthy and those we deem poor. The only equitable way to address this debate and to bridge the chasm is to educate those who are poor on methods for altering their lot in life to better themselves and their respective families and peers. This education will not come in the form of schooling...but through one of the world's oldest arts, that of proselytizing - teaching by human contact, advertising and publication (in all forms of media) ideas relevant to changing one's knowledge and viewpoint, to be aware of the possibilities available for short- and long-term wealth and health creation.
Do you agree with this? Is this a hopeless and solutionless conundrum? Leave a comment... ;-)
..Phyllostachys.
"Think and Grow Rich
By Napoleon Hill
[a book review] by Michael C. Gray
April 24, 2001
When I meet with young people coming into public accounting, I'm stunned that they are unaware of many of the classics of success philosophy and motivation. One that should be in everyone's success library is Think And Grow Rich.
Andrew Carnegie was the Bill Gates of his day. He came to the United States from Scotland and made a fortune in the steel industry. When you use a public library, you can thank Andrew Carnegie, who became a great philanthropists and made donations for building many of the public libraries in the United States. He also made big endowments to Universities.
Andrew Carnegie also had the reputation of having more millionaires working for him than any other employer of his time.
Carnegie was fascinated with success and wanted to understand why some men became successful while others in very similar circumstances did not. So he commissioned Napoleon Hill to interview the nation's most successful men to find a success formula that would work for the common man. Hill interviewed 504 people, including Ford, Wrigley, Wanamaker, Eastman, Rockefeller, Edison, Woolworth, Darrow, Burbank, Morgan, Firestone, and three United States Presidents.
The process of conducting these interviews required an investment of twenty years of Napoleon Hill's life.
Hill distilled his findings into a 13 step formula, which was published in Think And Grow Rich.
Since Think And Grow Rich was first published in 1937, it has been used as a roadmap to achievement by countless individuals. (Incidentally, Melvin Powers initially built the Wilshire Book Company by getting the paperback publishing rights to Think And Grow Rich and making it a best seller.)
As you may gather from the title, a premise of Think And Grow Rich is the starting place for wealth is in a person's thoughts.
The source for most of today's motivational speakers remains Think And Grow Rich. So why not go back to the source yourself? Be sure to include Think And Grow Rich on your reading list."
[http://www.profitadvisors.com/growrich.shtml]
One of the greatest debates in today's society is the increasing, seemingly unbridgeable chasm between those we deem wealthy and those we deem poor. The only equitable way to address this debate and to bridge the chasm is to educate those who are poor on methods for altering their lot in life to better themselves and their respective families and peers. This education will not come in the form of schooling...but through one of the world's oldest arts, that of proselytizing - teaching by human contact, advertising and publication (in all forms of media) ideas relevant to changing one's knowledge and viewpoint, to be aware of the possibilities available for short- and long-term wealth and health creation.
Do you agree with this? Is this a hopeless and solutionless conundrum? Leave a comment... ;-)
..Phyllostachys.
Saturday, December 11, 2004
phyllostachys three: rhizomes and forex
I don't know much about rhizomes, aside from them being the pesky part of a running bamboo plant that you either find with a spade or with a sharp eye as it pokes its business end over a root barrier in search of greener pastures. But, I know even less about forex, or "foreign exchange", the "simultaneous buying of one currency and selling of another" [http://www.forex.com/history_forex.html].
That's the thing I love about the internet...if there's something you don't know about, do a Google search, and start across the next bridge of knowledge and understanding!
Although this may...
Darn! scooped by the WSJ again! :-)
WSJ - 12/14/04 - Personal Journal - "How Investors Are Playing the Weak Dollar" - Financial Services Offer Options Ranging from Currency Trading To the Purchase of Foreign Bonds.
More to come on your forex options, from Bamboo Thoughts.
..Phyllostachys.
That's the thing I love about the internet...if there's something you don't know about, do a Google search, and start across the next bridge of knowledge and understanding!
Although this may...
Darn! scooped by the WSJ again! :-)
WSJ - 12/14/04 - Personal Journal - "How Investors Are Playing the Weak Dollar" - Financial Services Offer Options Ranging from Currency Trading To the Purchase of Foreign Bonds.
More to come on your forex options, from Bamboo Thoughts.
..Phyllostachys.
phyllostachys two: tracking
It's been many moons since I've drafted a stock related e-mail. I've been a little reticent lately due to mixed returns and mixed feeliings about giving advice. I'm not an investment professional - I just have, from years of personal reading and trading, a certain knack for tracking along various trails of the market.
I've said before that I like using the resources of finance.yahoo.com for tracking portfolios. The site gives you a free set of information, albeit with quotes delayed by 15 minutes, that allows you to track individual securities along with related news posts from all sorts of media sources. If you're consistent about reading the news, you can often still find what I'll term stock arbitrage situations.
For example, I've been watching with interest the accretion of companies that is building MobilePro (MOBL.OB [finance.yahoo.com appends ".OB" to represent within its database the existence of the stock on the OTCBB rather than NASDAQ]). About two months ago, MobilePro, an emerging telecom and WiFi technology company, announced that it was seeking to acquire Davel Corp, an owner of some 25,000 payphones, out of Cleveland, OH. The morning of the announcement, Davel was trading at about $.0035....a very low price. As MobilePro had stated an intended purchase price of $.015 per share, I saw an obvious (though very speculative) chance to make at least a few bucks (i.e., a nearly instant four-fold return), and I immediately purchased some 13,000 shares at $.0035. That amounted to only about $60...but this stock had been trading rather thinly, at this low price, so a larger buy order might have spiked the price prematurely (also, for frequent traders, Fidelity's per-trade fee is $8.00, so the trade fee wasn't a huge issue). As it was, the stock moved up smartly later in the day, and over the next couple of weeks moved up to the target buy-out price of $.015. With the move up in price, volume also spiked, allowing me to sell with a comfortable profit at about $.0145. Pretty cool, even though the amount was small.
More recently (this past week, in fact), I started looking again at Research in Motion (RIMM), the Blackberry wireless e-mail device manufacturer, again. I'd reviewed RIMM about 15 months ago, when the stock was at about $6 (split-adjusted). At the time, I figured the stock was just too pricey to justify buying the stock. Now, it's selling at about $88. Hmmmm. :-)
So, although I just bought some RIMM, in the anticipation that they're hitting their appreciation stride, I watched the associated news blurbs about companies trailing on RIMM's coat-tails. Quotemedia, Inc., (QMCI.OB) is one such company. Now that Blackberry's (and similar competing devices) have readable color screens, various media companies will develop services to utilize the wireless color capabilities. Quotemedia delivers stock-related graphs, tracking lists, and instant prices to those of us obsessed with up-to-the minute trading info. QMCI.OB was trading at about $.30 earlier this past week. At the time of the announcement, I bought at about $.32...and just recently added to my position at about $.52. We'll see if this very lightly capitalized company has the resources to build a Blackberry clientele. :-)
..Phyllostachys.
I've said before that I like using the resources of finance.yahoo.com for tracking portfolios. The site gives you a free set of information, albeit with quotes delayed by 15 minutes, that allows you to track individual securities along with related news posts from all sorts of media sources. If you're consistent about reading the news, you can often still find what I'll term stock arbitrage situations.
For example, I've been watching with interest the accretion of companies that is building MobilePro (MOBL.OB [finance.yahoo.com appends ".OB" to represent within its database the existence of the stock on the OTCBB rather than NASDAQ]). About two months ago, MobilePro, an emerging telecom and WiFi technology company, announced that it was seeking to acquire Davel Corp, an owner of some 25,000 payphones, out of Cleveland, OH. The morning of the announcement, Davel was trading at about $.0035....a very low price. As MobilePro had stated an intended purchase price of $.015 per share, I saw an obvious (though very speculative) chance to make at least a few bucks (i.e., a nearly instant four-fold return), and I immediately purchased some 13,000 shares at $.0035. That amounted to only about $60...but this stock had been trading rather thinly, at this low price, so a larger buy order might have spiked the price prematurely (also, for frequent traders, Fidelity's per-trade fee is $8.00, so the trade fee wasn't a huge issue). As it was, the stock moved up smartly later in the day, and over the next couple of weeks moved up to the target buy-out price of $.015. With the move up in price, volume also spiked, allowing me to sell with a comfortable profit at about $.0145. Pretty cool, even though the amount was small.
More recently (this past week, in fact), I started looking again at Research in Motion (RIMM), the Blackberry wireless e-mail device manufacturer, again. I'd reviewed RIMM about 15 months ago, when the stock was at about $6 (split-adjusted). At the time, I figured the stock was just too pricey to justify buying the stock. Now, it's selling at about $88. Hmmmm. :-)
So, although I just bought some RIMM, in the anticipation that they're hitting their appreciation stride, I watched the associated news blurbs about companies trailing on RIMM's coat-tails. Quotemedia, Inc., (QMCI.OB) is one such company. Now that Blackberry's (and similar competing devices) have readable color screens, various media companies will develop services to utilize the wireless color capabilities. Quotemedia delivers stock-related graphs, tracking lists, and instant prices to those of us obsessed with up-to-the minute trading info. QMCI.OB was trading at about $.30 earlier this past week. At the time of the announcement, I bought at about $.32...and just recently added to my position at about $.52. We'll see if this very lightly capitalized company has the resources to build a Blackberry clientele. :-)
..Phyllostachys.
phyllostachys one
This blog is the first in a series of blogs generated from the blend of my personal reading, research, studying and general living. My current interests range from music by Third Eye Blind to Mozart, from bamboo cultivation to tai chi study, and from hard sci-fi (from Jules Verne to Halo 2) to tech investing. I blend these varied interests, and others, to make my life (along with work, a long daily commute, and family).
This blog will primarily consist of short investment newsletters, to be sprinkled with other items from my list of interests as I have time to add them. My life primarily consists of work, and a long daily commute to/from work, so everything else fills in the nooks and crannies as best they can.
As for the name of the blog? Phyllostachys is a species of bamboo consisting of about 30 family members. See: [http://www.tripplebrookfarm.com/iplants/Phyllostachys.html]. My personal favorite (and potential enemy, of course) is Phyllostachys Vivax, which has been growing in my garden for about seven years now, here in Western Pennsylvania, USA. My interest in bamboo springs from a joint interest in oriental philosophies & martial arts, and gardening. Asian culture refers to bamboo as the "old man"...presumably because the bamboo is always green and it lives for so long (many decades) before flowering, going to seed, and dying.
As I work on this blog, I'll seek to update my personal webpage, and dovetail its existence into this blog. :-)
..Phyllostachys.
This blog will primarily consist of short investment newsletters, to be sprinkled with other items from my list of interests as I have time to add them. My life primarily consists of work, and a long daily commute to/from work, so everything else fills in the nooks and crannies as best they can.
As for the name of the blog? Phyllostachys is a species of bamboo consisting of about 30 family members. See: [http://www.tripplebrookfarm.com/iplants/Phyllostachys.html]. My personal favorite (and potential enemy, of course) is Phyllostachys Vivax, which has been growing in my garden for about seven years now, here in Western Pennsylvania, USA. My interest in bamboo springs from a joint interest in oriental philosophies & martial arts, and gardening. Asian culture refers to bamboo as the "old man"...presumably because the bamboo is always green and it lives for so long (many decades) before flowering, going to seed, and dying.
As I work on this blog, I'll seek to update my personal webpage, and dovetail its existence into this blog. :-)
..Phyllostachys.
Friday, October 31, 2003
historical newsletter 1: Halloween, 2003
Before I get back into these amateur newsletters, via "bamboo thoughts", I'll relay previous letters...
==============
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 14:49:13 -0800
Friends,
This has been a weird Fall - that's the only way I can describe it.
Fire's in la-la-land, hurricanes over-running Western Pennsylvania
(albeit severely diminished), a very pink aurora borealis visible
from my backyard last night...and a stock market full of investors
wondering whether 7.2% GDP growth means a strong 2004 or imminent
increases in the Fed funds rate.
For the past nine months, semiconductors have led the NASDAQ from
zero to sixty in 4 seconds; while they look to continue on up, some
fear that they've come too far too fast (ISSI, LEXR, SSTI, SNDK,
etc). Data storage seems to have lagged the upswing a bit...and will
probably lag a little bit more (BRCD, MCDTA, EMC, etc.)...thought
Network Appliance has been staging quite a comeback (NTAP).
Small/micro caps have been doing very well and will probably continue
to do so...but there are so many, whom do you follow? (e.g., BCSI,
NSO, SOFO, etc.)
So, where will the action run next? Obviously in many directions:
as corporate/governmental spending picks up, telecom is rising,
network appliances are coming back and software is selling well. So,
just try to find the industries that you can understand (with a bit
of web-reading) and may be able to carry your boat up with the tide.
One of those, for me, is wireless products (wi-fi, GPS, etc.). I've
found three interesting "wireless" companies: At Road Inc (ARDI),
Proxim Corp (PROX) and WaveRider Communications Inc (WAVC.OB).
At Road weaves together GPS and wireless tech to assist companies in
managing their mobile workforce (truckers, etc.). Although ARDI was
recently beaten up by a Piper-Jaffray analyst rating, their rev's and
income (decreasing net loss) have been advancing (lessening) nearly
every quarter, and they have a nice debt:asset ratio. Proxim and
WaveRider both install Wi-Fi networks for companies and governments,
using a technology called non-line-of-sight wireless networking.
Proxim (Sunnyvale, CA), for example, bought out ORiNOCO (wireless
networking equipment) and has a contract to outfit Panera Bread
stores with Wi-Fi Hotspot networking. WaveRider, a Toronto company,
in the other CA, is selling it's tech to municipalities and others
looking to provide wireless internet access. Both PROX and WAVC are
in the penny-stock territory: sub-$2 prices and lots of
liquidity...but both are pure-play wireless concerns. ARDI is
currently at about $12.50 and has a much smaller float at about 19.5
m shares...which means to me greater potential for future splits as
the price moves higher.
As always, I've found that the greatest research tool around is
Finance.Yahoo.com. They've added technical charting and a pretty
decent stock screening tool.
Have a great Fall!
==============
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 14:49:13 -0800
Friends,
This has been a weird Fall - that's the only way I can describe it.
Fire's in la-la-land, hurricanes over-running Western Pennsylvania
(albeit severely diminished), a very pink aurora borealis visible
from my backyard last night...and a stock market full of investors
wondering whether 7.2% GDP growth means a strong 2004 or imminent
increases in the Fed funds rate.
For the past nine months, semiconductors have led the NASDAQ from
zero to sixty in 4 seconds; while they look to continue on up, some
fear that they've come too far too fast (ISSI, LEXR, SSTI, SNDK,
etc). Data storage seems to have lagged the upswing a bit...and will
probably lag a little bit more (BRCD, MCDTA, EMC, etc.)...thought
Network Appliance has been staging quite a comeback (NTAP).
Small/micro caps have been doing very well and will probably continue
to do so...but there are so many, whom do you follow? (e.g., BCSI,
NSO, SOFO, etc.)
So, where will the action run next? Obviously in many directions:
as corporate/governmental spending picks up, telecom is rising,
network appliances are coming back and software is selling well. So,
just try to find the industries that you can understand (with a bit
of web-reading) and may be able to carry your boat up with the tide.
One of those, for me, is wireless products (wi-fi, GPS, etc.). I've
found three interesting "wireless" companies: At Road Inc (ARDI),
Proxim Corp (PROX) and WaveRider Communications Inc (WAVC.OB).
At Road weaves together GPS and wireless tech to assist companies in
managing their mobile workforce (truckers, etc.). Although ARDI was
recently beaten up by a Piper-Jaffray analyst rating, their rev's and
income (decreasing net loss) have been advancing (lessening) nearly
every quarter, and they have a nice debt:asset ratio. Proxim and
WaveRider both install Wi-Fi networks for companies and governments,
using a technology called non-line-of-sight wireless networking.
Proxim (Sunnyvale, CA), for example, bought out ORiNOCO (wireless
networking equipment) and has a contract to outfit Panera Bread
stores with Wi-Fi Hotspot networking. WaveRider, a Toronto company,
in the other CA, is selling it's tech to municipalities and others
looking to provide wireless internet access. Both PROX and WAVC are
in the penny-stock territory: sub-$2 prices and lots of
liquidity...but both are pure-play wireless concerns. ARDI is
currently at about $12.50 and has a much smaller float at about 19.5
m shares...which means to me greater potential for future splits as
the price moves higher.
As always, I've found that the greatest research tool around is
Finance.Yahoo.com. They've added technical charting and a pretty
decent stock screening tool.
Have a great Fall!
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
historical newsletter 2: article mentioning SNDK
article mentioning SNDK, and personal commentary
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 05:40:46 -0800
Friends,
check this blurb out about Sandisk in specific and tech positions
generally. I'm really ambivalent about the market at this
point...maybe it's my biorhythms. :-) I've trimmed my SNDK position
at the recent high, by 75%, but have moved those same funds into LEXR
and FLSH (to build existing positions). SNDK has the dominant
position in the Flash ram industry (for pure plays, versus non-pure
plays like Intel and AMD), but LEXR and FLSH are building market
share (and revenue) quickly.
Also at this point I really like and have built my positions in both
BRCD and OPSW. Fidelity recently let slip that they've built their
position in BRCD to 7.5% of outstanding shares...and I think that
since the slide of BRCD lagged the down market, it's rise will lag
the up market (and, of course, following any earnings news).
Opsware, formerly Loudcloud (of Marc Andreesson fame), has come back
up from a low of $.35 (if only I'd bought then!) and similar to
Freemarkets is now priced near to their initial offering price.
Opsware does software for datacenters....and in fact used to run
datacenters but sold the hardware part of their business to EDS,
which included a 5-year contract to manage those datacenters for EDS.
I also like and have built position in BCSI (formerly Cacheflow).
They've come back nicely from a low of 2.50; but since their market
is extremely narrow (internet security devices) I can't recommend
them as anything more than pure speculation. ;-)
There's an interesting article in today's WSJ about market timing.
Although I talk "buy and hold", in today's market you can't
successfully surf the waves and troughs without blending "buy and
hold", "market timing", "gut feeling" and consistent research.
ttyl,
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 05:40:46 -0800
Friends,
check this blurb out about Sandisk in specific and tech positions
generally. I'm really ambivalent about the market at this
point...maybe it's my biorhythms. :-) I've trimmed my SNDK position
at the recent high, by 75%, but have moved those same funds into LEXR
and FLSH (to build existing positions). SNDK has the dominant
position in the Flash ram industry (for pure plays, versus non-pure
plays like Intel and AMD), but LEXR and FLSH are building market
share (and revenue) quickly.
Also at this point I really like and have built my positions in both
BRCD and OPSW. Fidelity recently let slip that they've built their
position in BRCD to 7.5% of outstanding shares...and I think that
since the slide of BRCD lagged the down market, it's rise will lag
the up market (and, of course, following any earnings news).
Opsware, formerly Loudcloud (of Marc Andreesson fame), has come back
up from a low of $.35 (if only I'd bought then!) and similar to
Freemarkets is now priced near to their initial offering price.
Opsware does software for datacenters....and in fact used to run
datacenters but sold the hardware part of their business to EDS,
which included a 5-year contract to manage those datacenters for EDS.
I also like and have built position in BCSI (formerly Cacheflow).
They've come back nicely from a low of 2.50; but since their market
is extremely narrow (internet security devices) I can't recommend
them as anything more than pure speculation. ;-)
There's an interesting article in today's WSJ about market timing.
Although I talk "buy and hold", in today's market you can't
successfully surf the waves and troughs without blending "buy and
hold", "market timing", "gut feeling" and consistent research.
ttyl,
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