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March 12th, 2010
Posted in Must Bookmark | No Comments »
March 12th, 2010
Last August I blogged here about Dean Foods. My numbers in that post were obviously wrong in hindsight, and I’m down about 7% today on that investment. But…Today I was looking at my WallStreetSurvivor portfolio where I bought earlier, and am doing worse. So I started looking into selling when I ran across one article making a buy recommendation, and askStockGuru had this to say today:
Retracement Trade: Consider buying when the price retraces around 14.6. Consider selling/shorting when the price approaches 17.83.
I notice that intraday trading fluctuates widely, So I am looking to buy at 14.3 and sell at 17.6 to recoup my losses and have something to hold onto afterward. Let’s see how this one works out.
Posted in Investment Diary | No Comments »
March 11th, 2010
I recently received an email I believe was intended for my joke blog, but I took it up seriously. Below is the thread with names removed:
I’m not good at calculating these high numbers….but sure makes ya scratch your head!
Working in the oilfield with others such as myself and a wealth of combined experience we understand the accuracy of the following.
A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year.
A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons a year.
So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline
consumption by 320 gallons per year.
They claim 700,000 vehicles so that’s 224 million gallons saved per year.
That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.
5 million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption.
More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars
So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million.
We spent $8.57 for every dollar we saved.
I’m pretty sure they will do a great job with our health care though.
Yup, those numbers are about right. Only thing is, saving spending on oil had nothing to do with the program. The program had to do with stimulating the economy by propping up an industry that was almost bankrupt, making the politicians look good by showing improved consumer spending and a rise in the stock market based on false recovery numbers and reduction in unemployment growth by employing those auto workers a few weeks longer.
The real number to look at is what the consumer that got cash for the clunker got out of it. Saving 320 gallons per year at 2.89 cents per gallon = $896 per year. A crappy car after the rebate is still about $10k financed. With an average credit rating, you will get it at about 7% and being the average desperate person you go for 6 year financing. That is $170.49 per month, or $2045.88 per year. The first 2 years are almost pure interest, so for the first two years you throw away $1149.88 per year for the privilege of improving the lifestyle of someone who owns Ford stock (do you?).
Of course, for those who were going to buy a car anyway, it was a great boon, however since sales increased by ~70%, that is darn few. The funniest part is that the cash for clunkers rebates were smaller than the manufacturer’s rebates that were suspended during the program and cost the dealers more, resulting in laying folks off locally instead of just in the car building states.
See today’s Non Sequitor for a perfect illustration of the whole concept 
Cheers!
I’m not good at calculating these high numbers….but sure makes ya scratch your head!
Working in the oilfield with others such as myself and a wealth of combined experience we understand the accuracy of the following.
A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year.
A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons a year.
So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline
consumption by 320 gallons per year.
They claim 700,000 vehicles so that’s 224 million gallons saved per year.
That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.
5 million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption.
More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars
So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million.
We spent $8.57 for every dollar we saved.
I’m pretty sure they will do a great job with our health care though.
Tags: cash for clunkers, interest, oil
Posted in Money Funny | No Comments »
March 10th, 2010
A Foolish pick from a tease for the Stock Advisor newsletter sniffed out by the Stock Gumshoe. As coincidence would have it, there was a big jump in it today (or the Gumshoe is getting a lot more readers).
I’m going to lay back until the excitement dies down and look at VDSI again.
Tags: Motley Fool, newsletter, stock gumshoe, VDSI, Watch List
Posted in Trades | No Comments »
March 9th, 2010
The Fools are all excited about it, and the quick numbers look good, but it concerns me that they had a big rise last quarter on a tax windfall. Plus, their receivables are way up last quarter, too.
And their website is a bandwidth hog (I’m in a hotel with minimal connectivity on a wireless card).
I see this as a take over play like DEBS (a Foolish find that made me a few bucks), except they don’t have a dividend to entice me, so I’m going to lay back and wait for them to get close to $1 per share than over $2.
Tags: CAPS, Fool, JOEZ
Posted in Trades | No Comments »
March 6th, 2010
I generally hate procrastination, especially when I do it. But now and then it works in my favor. In this case, I am catching up on emails from the last couple of months, and was reading a Motley Fool article. They mention one of their Hidden Gems picks (for free!) and I go to look into it, seeing that it just tanked from panic selling the day before. The pick is Dynamic Materials Corp. (BOOM). I have made money more often than not from following Foolish advise, and if I were up enough to take a higher risk tolerance I would buy immediately rather than setting a watch for drops and limit buy a little lower than Friday’s 14.27% drop.
Tags: BOOM, Motley Fool, Watch List
Posted in TANSTAAFL | No Comments »
March 1st, 2010
I was all set to place a limit order on SMED when I read a comment on the CAPs board. Now I will wait longer and lower to re-evaluate.
Posted in Investment Diary | No Comments »
February 25th, 2010
The banks responded to the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 (Credit CARD Act) by cutting the credit line of everyone below a 900 rating. With their credit limit cut by 50 – 70%, why is anyone not linking this to the drop in consumer confidence? Oh, and they took that last chance to up the interest rate on all those cards and then canceled all of the low-interest offers. Apparently the idea is that if you punish the masses they will complain to the government to be abused the old way instead of the new way.
I still go by the theory that conspiracies aren’t real because those who are suspected of conspiring are too stupid to do so.
Posted in Non-Investment Stuff | No Comments »
January 27th, 2010
Though I’d really rather be like Jimmy, I never learned to play an instrument and my singing voice frightens small animals. So I will try to settle for Warren on a smaller scale with Canadian National Railroad (CNI). At least they are confident according to last night’s article stating they would be buy share back and increasing their dividend.
askStockGuru today recommends the entry point of 51.61. I’m going to go for the Monopoly™ bid and shoot for 49.67.
Tags: buy back, CNI
Posted in Dividend | No Comments »
January 27th, 2010
Yes, I confess that I bought more today. It will either rebound at some point and turn a nice profit or go the way of my Circuit City Crap. The difference is, CC managed itself out of business where BBI is fighting a perception on Wall Street. NetFlix is an alternate model rather than a direct competitor. Anytime your not sure, look at Gamefly vs Game Stop. I’d rather pay a couple bucks more to touch and feel something before putting up money for it! Especially when my dollar is more important to me since I don’t know how long I will have it.
Tags: BBI
Posted in Investment Diary, Portfolio, Trades | No Comments »
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