May 4th, 2012 | Add a Comment
In the last few months I have been asked way too many times for a referral to or advice on how to pick a stockbroker. My first thought is always that I am glad the people asking realize they just want help managing their investments. It is definitely a good thing to focus on what you are good at and be willing to spend the money for someone to do the things that you are not good at. This is the basic economics that Adam Smith explained. Usually the people asking have looked around on the web already yet have been generally shy to ask their close friends for the same advice. For some reason our culture makes it hard to talk about real money matters with friends and family. Usually that is because those conversations lead … Read entire article »
Filed under: ESPP, Investing, stocks
April 30th, 2012 | Add a Comment
A lot of people know I am not a huge fan of market analyst ratings. Early on in my exploration of the market I thought I wanted to be an analyst as I thought that these people were paid to do great research and really dig deep on companies. I really enjoyed my time as an industry analyst over at Ferris Research and thought that stock market analysts had similar roles. I understood they were financed by the companies they were analyzing, but never thought that the lack of integrity because of that financing would be so poor. Obviously I never went that route.
Instead I dump the money I save up into the investments I research through my ESPP and more sophisticated transactions. Usually this ends up being in areas of … Read entire article »
Filed under: Banking, ESPP, Investing, stocks
March 19th, 2012 | Add a Comment
Following up from my last post in the series 5 Investing Lessons From Chris Sacca, I came across this article that Jeff Bussgang wrote on lessons for startup entrepreneurs. Reading the article, there were a few key points that Jeff points out as important for startup entrepreneurs. These are great for the MBAs Fred was speaking to and entrepreneurs, but it is interesting the insight that Fred is providing into his thoughts on investing and how relevant they are to investors in public companies.
Let’s look at each of the key points and how they are relevant to retail investment decisions.
Lesson #1 – Embrace Failure
Fred observed that failure is typically a valuable and powerful experience—forcing introspection, humility, and an extra drive to prove something to others. He observed that the entrepreneurs he … Read entire article »
Filed under: Entrepreneurship, ESPP, Investing, Startups, stocks
January 24th, 2012 | Add a Comment
Ok, I get it. The account you have at Fidelity where your ESPP shares are dumped each quarter doesn’t allow option trading. Now you read my post on how to sell covered calls against your shares and are lost as to how to make that happen in your account. I thought about this and have been pretty hesitant to walk through the steps to make this work for everyone… If I have to walk you through how to make this happen in your account, are you really ready to start trading options? Well,. being a consultant though I guess I can’t help myself. Selling covered calls isn’t exactly putting on an Iron Condor or Butterfly option strategy. It is simply saying that you already own shares of a firm and … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, Covered Calls, ESPP, Investing, Options, Profit, stocks
January 16th, 2012 | Add a Comment
This seems to come up a lot in large companies and having been on the end of not knowing what to do as well as currently being on the end of having some thoughts about different strategies to manage ESPP participation, I thought I would share with everyone. I won’t say that I know everything about investing or managing an ESPP… but I definitely have been using a solid strategy that makes sense. The basic principles of the investment strategy are:
Sell covered calls against the ESPP shares
This puts cash in my account that I can use to invest elsewhere
Ensures that if the stock is sold, it is sold for a profit higher than the 10%
Collect the dividends from the shares (Assuming your company pays dividends)
This provides money to be invested … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, Covered Calls, ESPP, Investing, Options, Profit, stocks
December 17th, 2011 | 1 Comment
I don’t know if any one else has noticed the trend in retail investment advances that have been taking a crack at Wall St. lately – but I think we can forget what value the Occupy Wall St. movement will provide and start looking at what people with productive skills and a desire to change the world are trying to do. Over the last year I have seen a number of great products come out that are focused on reducing the cost and increasing the efficiency of middle class investors. Of course all while taking some of the money (the fees at least) out of Wall St. I am not talking about peer to peer lending (I have been playing with those groups for a while and am not sure … Read entire article »
Filed under: Banking, ESPP, Investing, Options, Profit, Startups, stocks
