Stocks | Josh Maher's Blog

Investment Advice, Stockbrokers, and Financial Planners

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

The Ethics of Analysts

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

Momentum Investing and Social Media

April 16th, 2012 | Add a Comment

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

5 Investing Lessons From Howard Lindzon

April 2nd, 2012 | Add a Comment

Howard spews investing advice every Monday (usually), he talks about the individual companies he invests in all the time on StockTwits and isn’t shy to discuss his reasoning behind each of those picks. As you may have picked up on, the Investing Lessons series that has looked at Fred Wilson and Chris Sacca focuses on lessons that we can take back and incorporate into our own investment strategies. While it may be great to follow Howard into some of his picks (like Pabrai, I’m a fan of cloning great ideas), I think it is more valuable to learn from his examples and discussions about how he invests. Howard recently popped up in a foundville interview and provided some insights into himself and his thought process. Thinking through the lessons we can learn from … Read entire article »

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Investing, Profit, stocks

Are You Losing Money?

March 26th, 2012 | 1 Comment

You pay on average 1-2% in fees to someone else just so that they can manage your money. This means that even if they are great at managing your money, you are going to lose between a third to a half of your potential earnings over a 30 year timeframe. Of course the research shows that you are likely paying a crappy manager to manage your money in the first place considering the larger money managers significantly underperform independants. Which means that you are likely able to match or beat their performance with minimal effort. Why do I say that you are going to lose 30-50% of your money? It is pretty simple compounding interest math. As your investment grows, the schmuck you are paying to manage your money earns more money. The tough part … Read entire article »

Filed under: Investing, Profit, stocks

5 Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson

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

5 Investing Lessons From Chris Sacca

March 12th, 2012 | 2 Comments

There is a lot of hype around venture capitalists, the VC 10x return requirements, their high flying exits when companies like Facebook IPO, and their exclusive carried interest income that is barely taxed. It is certainly well deserved hype, there is a lot of money to be made (and lost) in venture investing, what is interesting though is that the basic principles used in venture investing are principles that any investor can and should use. Have a look at this recent report on GeekWire on the returns of venture captialists, you will see an obvious trend that VCs returns are long term and not short term. The thought here is that these returns are based on longer term fundamental or value investments and not shorter term momentum or technical investments. … Read entire article »

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Investing, stocks

The Most Important Online CRM and Social CRM Apps

March 7th, 2012 | Add a Comment

You thought I was kidding when I said that the Salesforce.com’s strategic advantage in the CRM space was quickly disapearing? Have a look at this infographic that specifically addresses the Online and Social CRM space. There is a growing number of apps that are coming out. Looking at the innovation that is happening from older and newer companies it is hard to see how Salesforce.com will survive as an unprofitable company in this business. Of course that is why Salesforce.com is trying to move into other businesses (where the competition is tougher and the margins are lower)…. CRM Apps Social CRM … Read entire article »

Filed under: Innovation, Investing, Microsoft, Startups, stocks, Technology