Everyday I get spam that tells me what stocks I should buy. It’s a good thing that my spambayes throws these away b/c I would probably lose a lot of money.

Here is a guy that keeps track of the latest spam stocks…. it’s pretty neat and shows you have horrible these companies have been performing. Out of the 35+ stocks that have been sent to him, only one has actually been a winner. You can get better odds at Vegas.

http://www.spamstocktracker.com/

Any company that thinks trying to spam “the hottest company on Wall Street”, is bound for failure, under poor management, and should be shorted as soon as possible.

Dear Publicly Traded Companies:

It is a bad idea to send Spam to potential investors.

Your friend,
The Common Internet User

      

I am now the owner of a new duplex and an apartment complex… not a bad deal. Just thought I’d keep you posted.

      

Well, we pitched an offer on the apartment complex and one of his duplexes. He took it… Now, that sounds like a good thing except now we have to convince a bank that we can make the payments. Since the building has 9/12 apartments rented, I think it’s a sure deal. But, we’ll see what the bank says. I’ll be tied up the next couple of weeks trying to sweet talk banks, boasting about my past accomplishments, and gathering random statistics (banks find statistics interesting).

To get the bank on my side, I’m going to have to establish a partner that has credibility or a relationship with the bank. Since Sam showed me the property and we’ve been looking for a project we would both enjoy, I thought it would be a good starter. In general partnerships are really inefficient and generally rob you of your hard-earned money. But, sometimes you can’t do everything yourself.

It’s all about “resources”. To accomplish anything you need resources. Resources could be time, people, an extra hand, etc. If you have everything you need, why establish a partnership? Money is a substitute for almost all resources (money is also a resource itself). If you need extra people, you can pay someone to help you… no need for a partnership. In general, your only partner should be the partner that provides you money… which in most cases is the bank. Or, if you need a partner because the bank wants more people to kill if you don’t pay them.

Do you have a great idea? Go to the bank and get a bunch of money. Then, pay someone to work with you. You don’t have to convince them that the idea will work. You don’t have to consider their thoughts when you want to make an aggressive decision.

PS… I’m glad I have great partnerships that do nothing but help me!

      

Well, Sam showed me some apartments for sale and we’ve made an offer on them. It looks like he may accept it and now the hard part comes. We’ve got to find a finance partner (aka “a bank”). I think we’ll start by visiting bankers that know us. The apartments are 12 units and have a current income potential of around $45K per year. All but 3 are currently rented and he has given us the promise that by the time he leaves all 12 will be “rentable”.

I’ll keep you posted.

      

A covered call allows you, as an owner of a stock, to sell at a specified price.

For instance, let’s say you buy 100 shares of NT and it’s trading at $3.21 and you write a covered call for December at a strike price of $4.00. If you are more than happy to sell at $4.00 and you don’t think it will ever get exercised… now’s the time to write a covered call.

1. You get the premium (let’s say $250) and get to keep the premium regardless of what happens.
2. Remember, you wrote it at $4.00, giving anyone who purchased a call the “option” to purchase the stock at $4.00.
• If it get’s to $4.50
1. You get to keep the $250 and you sell your stock at $4.00 giving you a gross of $400 + $250. And a net sell of $650 - $321 = $291.
• If it get’s to $3.00
  1. You get to keep the $250 and they never buy your stock… But it doesn’t matter… you sell it as a market order anyways

Worst Case Scenario: The stock tanks to $1.00 and you get to keep the premium but it doesn’t even begin to offset the loss

      

In the course of trying to figure out this futures game, I’m posting a little guideline to buying or selling Options.

When buying or selling options you have four choices stated below:

Buy to Open
Buy Calls to Open is the right to purchase a fixed number of shares, at a fixed price, before a specified date in the future from the seller (writer) of the option.
You would choose this option if you are looking to purchase an option. For instance, you think MSFT (currently trading at 25) will go to 30, so you go and buy the MSFT option using this buy to open option and hope to hit 30. In this case, you would “buy to open” a “call” and the price you would pay would be the “ask”.

Buy Puts to Open is the right to sell a fixed number of shares, at a fixed price, before a specified date in the future to the seller (writer) of the option.
You would also choose this option if you are looking to sell an option tha tyou think will go down. For instance, you think MSFT (currently trading at 25) will go to 20. So, you go and buy the MSFT option using this buy to open option and hope to hit 20. In this case, you would “buy to open” a “put” and the price you would pay would be the “ask”.

Sell to Open

Sell Calls to Open create an option position whereby the seller (writer) would receive premium income from the buyer in exchange for the obligation to sell/deliver a fixed number of shares, at a fixed price, for a specified amount of time to the buyer. You can only sell calls as an opening contract if the stock is long/purchased in the account before the sell.
You would also choose this option if you are looking to sell an option that you think will go down or stay the same. For instance, you currently own MSFT and it is currently trading at 25. You don’t think it will get to 30. So, you write an option and recieve a premium. Then, you hope it doesn’t get to that price. So, you go and write the MSFT option using this sell to open option and hope it stays the same or drops. In this case, you would “sellto open” a “call” and the price you would be asking for the “ask” price.

Sell to Open Puts create an option position whereby the seller (writer) would receive premium income from the buyer in exchange for the obligation to buy/receive a fixed number of shares, at a fixed price, for specified amount of time to the buyer.
You would also choose this option if you are looking to get a premium by promising a stock owner that you will buy shares at a specific price. For instance, you get paid a premium of $50, but the owner of the stock says, if the stock drops to 20, you have to pay me 25. Then, you hope it doesn’t get at or below 20. In this case, you would “sellto open” a “put” and the price you would be asking for the “bid” price.

Buy to Close
Buy a Call to Close will close out, terminate or offset the initial open contracts to the extent of the number of contracts closed out.
Note: Scottrade does not allow buying puts to close, because we do not allow selling puts as an opening transaction.

Sell to Close
Sell a Call to Close will close out, terminate or offset the initial open contracts to the extent of the number of contracts closed out.

      

Well, I’ve learned something about the company that I’ve been executing my trades through. Aparently, if the underlying stock is $0.25 above the strike price at time of expiration, the system will automatically execute the trade. Additionally, if you buy the stock option and the stock starts going up, you can sell the option for more than you paid for it. But, you then loose the right to execute the contract.

I’ve also learned something else, if you want to execute the option before the expiration date, you can do so at anytime. Remember, a call option is the right to purchase a set amount of stocks on or before a specific date. But, you cannot place a “limit order” for a purchase price. For instance, here is an email that I sent and recieved from Scottrade.

—–Original Message—–
From: Scottrade Customer Support [mailto:support@scottrade.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 6:28 PM
To: RJ Martino
Subject: RE: Acct: 53938090

Dear Mr. Martino,

Thank you for your email. Options cannot be exercised online. If you wish to exercise an option, you must contact your local branch office with your exercise request. There is no system to set your options to exercise when the underlying security reaches a particular price. The previous email reply was assuming that you wanted to sell your option contracts themselves, not exercise them.

Please let us know if you have any additional questions or comments.

Sincerely,
Kevin Kohler
National Service Center Broker

Scottrade, Inc.
Scottrade has been named Highest in Investor Satisfaction With Online Trading Services Five Times in a Row by J.D. Power and Associates. For award information, visit www.jdpower.com.

—–Original Message—–
From: RJ Martino [mailto:rjmartino@iprovonline.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 5:14 PM
To: Scottrade Customer Support
Subject: RE: Acct: 53938090

I understand limit orders but I want to know how I can set a limit order to “execute” my options contract.

I want to execute one contract (.XECFH) if XEC reaches $42.00. How would I do that?

RJ Martino [rjmartino@iprovonline.com]
iProv, LLC [www.iProvOnline.com]
ETAS 551
2801 South University Avenue
Little Rock, AR 72204
ph. (501) 683-7229

      

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).