Okay… I just purchased 68 Shares of TIBX (TIBCO SOFTWARE INC) at Limit Price of $6.38. The current trade price is 6.69 but I hope it falls a little tomorrow. The market was cold today so I’m not sure if it will reach 6.38, but we’ll see. TIBX has a strong managment team and came from a strong recommendation of some nation stock analysis. At the end of March they spoke about some big deals that didn’t look like they were going to close in Q2 and their stock plunged. But, after listening to a conference call from today they seemed pretty confident that some of the deals closed and expected revenues to be up comperable to where they were in Q1. I think the worst is already out there and the stock will gain ground after the Q2 earning reports.

      

Okay… so here’s what I’ve done. I just purchased a couple of options. Both were options for the stocks that I just mentioned. This allows me to leverage the amount of money that I actually invest. I can have the purchase power of a lot stocks, without the actual investment of a lot of money.

So, I’ve purchased a stock option of JP Morgan (JPM) for $37.50. The option was an order for 1 contract (100 shares) and the order price was $0.15 per contract ($15.00 for the 100 shares) plus commission. All options are exercisable until the third Friday of the month. I purchased mine to expire on the third Friday of June… June 17, 2005. That means if the stock gets to $45.00 I can purchase the shares at a discounted rate of $37.50.

To make this purchase I:

1. Went to my online broker and chose “Buy to Open”
2. Chose the number of contract I wanted to purchase (1 contract = 100 shares)
3. looked up the symbol for the exercise price and expiration date that I wanted
4. chose a limit order
5. gave the limit price that I was willing to pay for the contract
6. Chose the duration to be “Good until Cancelled”

It was actually quite simple. Now, I just have to make sure that the stock price rises past the actual break even point (all expenses divided by 100). My break even point is calculated by looking at all of my expenses.

Cost to purchase the option: $15.00
Cost of commission for purchasing the option: $8.25
Cost to Buy the entire contract: $3750.00 (exercise price * shares)
Cost of commission to buy the entire contract: $7.00
Cost to sell the entire contract: $7.00
—————————–
Total expenses of: $3787.25

Meaning that to break even, the stock must raise above $37.88.

The other option that I purchased was an option to buy Cimarex Energy for $40.00 before the end of the third Friday of June. I purchased one contract for $0.25 per share and total expenses will exceed $4047. So to break even, the stock must rise above $40.48.

Now, we did our research, chose our best players, and set them in the market. We can now hope the market treats them good! We’ll see in a month.

      

Okay. I’ve always traded stocks for the fun of it but I’ve decided that I want to start day trading as a hobby. Keeping up with the companies that I think will do great. I’ve compiled these companies through a list of other references. Here is a list of companies that I’m looking at buying.

Sony (SNE $37.70) – with the release of PS3 in Spring of 2006, the anticipation will keep rising until the release. The hype will rise and the first day sales will blow MS Xbox out of the water! Additionally, the demand for the Sony Portables continues to grow. Currently trading at 37.70, I truly expect this stock to raise to around $43 by the end of the first quarter in 2006.

Cimarex Energy (XEC $37.90) – this company is waiting for an acquisition to close. After the acquisition, Cimarex should be at the top of their game and an immediate increase. has been toying with a merger. I’m expecting the price of the stock to run toward $42.00 directly after the disclosure of the amount.

JP Morgan (JPM $35.80) – this company has been plagued by the market’s lack of faith in the merger between JP and Bank One. Although, there has been limited information released on this merger, a report I recently read from thestreet.com states that earnings could grow in the neighborhood of 20% in 2006!

Although the Sony P3 looks promising, I think the stock price may be overvalued as of today (according to some formulas that I recently ran using VectorVest.com).

      

This is an old betting technique that I learned from a friend. It leverages odds with the ignorance of most people. The best way to explain this is through a modern example.

Let’s look at the upcoming Mike Tyson/Kevin McBride fight. If you look in the paper or at a sports book, it looks something like this:

Heavyweight Fight – Washington DC 06/11/05 23:00 ET
Mike Tyson -1000
Kevin McBride +600

What this means is -1000, – refers to the fact that he is favorite, and + refers to the underdog… So, -1000 means you lay $1000 to win $100. And +600 means you lay $100 to win $600.

So, let’s take a gambling scenario and say you bet $1000 on the underdog, meaning you stand to win $6000 (a net profit of $5000). Then, you go to the bar and listen to your friends talk about Tyson being washed up and no good. You tout that he is the best there ever was and try to convince everyone at the bar to bet you that Tyson wins (straight up). So, in summary, you have $1000 on McBride with the sports book and $1000 on Tyson with your friends.

Now, lets say that Tyson wins.

1. You look cool in front of your friends and collect $1000 from them
2. You pay the sports book $1000

All in all, your net profit is $0

Now, lets say that Tyson loses.

1. You look like an idiot in front of your friends (until you tell them your plan) and pay out $1000 to them
2. You get paid by the sportsbook $6000

All in all, your net profit is $5000

Now, I know you think that finding someone to bet you $1000-straightup is hard to do but go to bars and you’ll find a lot of idiots with money they would rather burn. Also, sometimes you’ll find the ideal fight like Mike Tyson vs. Evander Holyfield.

      

Breaking Vegas is a great television show that I record on my TIVO every Tuesday night on the Discovery Channel. (A good overview of the show and it’s upcoming titles can be found here) This show highlights some of the most novel cheaters in the history of Vegas. Of the three I’ve seen, I’ve been really suprised to see how they get out of the business. You’d expect that most of these people get black-listed using the well-known Las Vegas blacklist but in actuallity these people usually end up quitting!

Sure, they get a little heat from the pit bosses but at the end of the game, it ends because they’re tired of it! I’ve spoke with many poker players at casinos that play to make a living! They usually look about 20 years older than they actually are, black lungs, grey hair, and see day-light every 3 days… it’s rediculous. I’ve got freinds that would die to gamble everyday for the rest of their lives, but stories and life experiences have taught me that the grinders live no life of envy.

I love to gamble and hate to lose. That’s why I continue to play the game. I hate playing games that I lose at. So, I either keep trying until I get better or give it up all together. In January of 2005, I lost at the casino for a record setting 3 times in a row. I realized that I wasn’t getting any better so I decided to give it up. Not give up gambling, but at least give up learning consequences at the casino.

Since leaving the casino I hope to find a couple of tips that will allow me to win at gambling more consistently. This usually means taking advantage of other people’s ignorance or human error. But, always remember that a life of gambling is no life to desire. Even the people who win on a consistent basis end of leaving it.

      

I was trying to think of the next position that we (iProv, LLC) need to hire. I thought sales would be really nice because it takes so much of my time. But then I realized. I’ve been really great at sales and really bad at sales. The difference wasn’t me… not directly.

The difference between me being a great salesman and a bad salesman was my product knowledge and the confidence in my product. We can’t expect a great salesperson to sell our product if they don’t know what our product is or don’t understand the real use of our product.

This really clicked on me when Dan Wilson tried to tell me ump-teen ways on how to sell a service to Arkansas Minority Health Commission. He had all the sales techniques in the world but he had no idea on what he was selling or why the product was usefull.

Instead of hiring sales people who need to be trained, its more beneficial to invest in marketing and advertising that can eliminate the prospecting. Sales and marketing allows the advertisment (press release, magazine ad, television ad, radio ad, etc.) to prospect for you.

Let’s face it a lot of energy, time, and money has to be invested into a new employee before he is ready to run out the door respresenting you company. So save your money, payroll tax expense, training time, and phone bills by hiring Marketing and PR firms rather than having to train Technology Sales People.

      

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