Options | Josh Maher's Blog

Retail Investment Decisions

June 25th, 2012 | 1 Comment

Tweet There as been an increasingly interesting discussion about how retail investment is changing. Leigh Drogen (one of the guys behind Estimize), Josh Brown (Stocktwits blogger), and now TechCrunch posted a peice last week from Nick Shalek. Everyone is debating the disruption of retail investing from the likes of Wealthfront, Betterment, FutureAdvisor, etc. I have looked at all of the platforms in the past and they seem to do a good job matching the capabilities of the average broker out there. Go work with an “advisor” from Morgan Stanley and they’ll walk through all of the same risk profiling for the person looking to invest their money and then kindly recommend a nice Morgan Stanley fund that matches the profile. I haven’t exactly been shy about how crappy a deal this kind … Read entire article »

Filed under: Covered Calls, ESPP, Investing, Options, Profit, stocks

Momentum Investing and Social Media

April 16th, 2012 | Add a Comment

Tweet If you don’t get momentum investing, aren’t good at it, or just don’t believe in it… I have a question for you. Do you use twitter, stocktwits, or any other social media tool? Do you leverage the power of the people to filter the best news ideas, comments, and links and still don’t get why momentum investing works? I am a value investor 90% of the time. I love picking through SEC filings, CEO comments, competitive strategies, and business models to search for businesses that are selling for pennies on the dollar. Occasionally I jump on a momentum play and lose my shirt because I am just crappy at timing those things. I get the fact that momentum investing is jumping on the bandwagon for as long as the bandwagon is … Read entire article »

Filed under: blogging, Investing, Options, Profit, stocks

ESPP Options – Account Configuration

January 24th, 2012 | 1 Comment

Tweet 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 | 3 Comments

Tweet 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 | 1 Comment

Tweet 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, ESPP, Investing, Options, Profit, stocks

Retail Investment is Changing

December 17th, 2011 | 2 Comments

Tweet 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

The market’s influence on everyday life

May 25th, 2011 | Add a Comment

Tweet As I have been getting better at trading and investing, I have been finding that I am doing things different in life and examining all decision making processes a little different. As I keep getting better and better and learn to trade different timeframes and asset classes, I continually am finding that what I am learning in the market is providing me insights into my own personal comfort level in life, how to evaluate other people, ideas, companies, news, politics, etc. The list just keeps going. Really everything that I used to know in life has been affected by my experiences over the last eight years of going from knowing nothing about the financial markets to doing a fair amount of investing and trading (and at least beating the returns … Read entire article »

Filed under: Banking, Covered Calls, ESPP, Investing, Options, Profit, stocks