Investing | Josh Maher's Blog

The Difficulty of Pursuing Your Ideas

February 13th, 2012 | 1 Comment

I recently came across this story on TechCrunch about Fitbit’s new $12m business Fitness Tracker Fitbit Raises $12M To Market New Wi-Fi Enabled Smart Scale, Aria. Like all ideas, someone else thought of this one well before Fitbit thought it up. In fact when I thought it up eight years ago, I probably wasn’t the first to think it up either. But being a relatively good idea that I thought I had at the time, seeing this funding got me thinking. Why didn’t I pursue that idea further seven years ago? Whether you are an entrepreneur, an intrapreneur, or even a wantrapreneur. When you have ideas that you think are good, what holds you back from pursuing them? Is it fear, is it being lost at where to start, or is it … Read entire article »

Filed under: career, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Investing, Startups, Technology

Does The Mode of Communication Matter?

February 6th, 2012 | 1 Comment

Communication is at the heart of all things in life… finding the love of your life, raising a round of financing, getting a promotion, or enjoying life with friends and family. Some of those communications are obviously more critical than others and some are more time sensative than others as well. Living in a world where corporate training dollars fuels the research and instruction that permeates our training attention we are all well aware of the communication styles that research such as Myers-Briggs brings us. This is good and we all make efforts to adjust what we are saying depending on the type of person we are talking to (more data/less data, small talk/straight to the point, etc.). All of this focus on communication style seems to skip the relevance of … Read entire article »

Filed under: career, Entrepreneurship, Investing, RealEstate, Technology

ESPP Options – Account Configuration

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

You Have An Employee Stock Purchase Plan Now What?

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

Insider Buying

January 2nd, 2012 | Add a Comment

Insider buying is a rarely understood indicator of what a stock or market is doing. This is usually due to the fact that there is so much insider buying and selling as a part of compensation plans and on behalf of management who have shares of their firm managed on their behalf. Thinking about insider buying and selling, it should be pretty obvious that if the buying and selling is directly attributed to a manager’s unscheduled decision, the actions are pretty indicative of what that manager’s views are about their business and the market that the business is operating in. This story by Mark Hulbert discusses this concept in more depth with the view that Professor Nejat Seyhun indicating that the performance is forward looking 12+ months and not shorter term. Interesting … Read entire article »

Filed under: Accounting, Investing

Retail Investment is Changing

December 17th, 2011 | Add a 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

Charlie Rose Interviews Seth Klarman

December 1st, 2011 | Add a Comment

If you are interested in value investing, this is definitely a must watch! This is the same Seth Klarman that sells his book Margin of Safety: Risk-Averse Value Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor for $800-$1200… … Read entire article »

Filed under: Investing, stocks

The Bear Market Cometh?

October 27th, 2009 | Add a Comment

Well now that we hit our magical 10k number (again) and the big market makers had a chance to take some profits, some wonder if we’re on the verge of a bear market, and others (like last time we hit 10k) think we’re on our way to 14k… Whether you are optimistic or not about the market, the next few weeks will be telling (probably a good time to take some profits if you’re in the market and wait) We are starting to see the tails of housing not making the comeback we all were anticipating and consumer confidence eroding (now at the lowest point it’s been in 26yrs). This consumer confidence problem is a big deal, especially when combined with continued declines or stagnation in the job market. The consumer … Read entire article »

Filed under: Banking, Investing, Seattle