Stocks holding nicely :)

Well, as I expected Apple managed to stay above 140. I actually bought more with all the cash I had on hand and then resold later in the day for a quick gain :)

Google's up and as long as Yahoo stays in the 23's I'm up nicely over the last couple months. Fyi, I re-entered the market in June after taking about a year off to concentrate on "real work" :)

This week should be a telling week to see if people stay in the stock market after the large drop of last week. I'm pretty sure they will, but if not, that would be a great time to load up on some less expensive buys.

I would say that the large drop was more a function of the fact that there were several large gains prior to it, rather than an indication of doom as some would say.

Good luck and God bless to all!

Maybe I spoke too soon :)

Apple has flown down to briefly under 140. My short options are 140 for my personal account and 145 for my IRA account. I put them higher for the IRA because I essentially was wanting to buy in, so I just wanted the stock :)

I'm a huge long term fan of Apple though, so if I have to buy I'll be happy since I know it is a good stock that I can hold for a long time with no worry.

Still, I prefer to make the quicker profit from my short options, but the strategy I have is to make money with the short options or buy stock that I like. So, my loss is mitigated by the fact that I'm getting the stock I wanted at a discounted rate.

And, the odds of Apple staying down for long, are slim to none in my opinion.

Grandmother visiting!

We picked up my grandmother and my aunt from the airport on Friday evening. Its been really good thus far, we have done a lot of stuff. That makes them happy and my wife happy since "doing stuff" is pretty much her favorite thing :)

It looks like the 3 main stocks that I'm currently following are up this morning, Yahoo (down overall of course :)), Apple, and Google.

I'm down over 2 points on Yahoo in my IRA, but other than that everything is going very well. And, I don't declare a profit or loss until I close the position, so I'm hopeful :) And, fortunately I've been able to sell covered calls that have mitigated part of my loss.

I've been working well toward my goal of getting the Series 63 done. I should be ready by the end of the month, as desired, and will then sign up for the test.

Apple does well!

Apple reported excellent earnings and went slightly higher than their all time high. That allowed me to liquidate the few 120 short-puts I had for a nice profit. And, it allows me to be a little more aggressive now that the market has shown strength again.

I had a terrificly hard leg workout last night. A friend of mine remarked that she thought the look on my face after the completion of each rotation was "priceless".

For reference, I've let myself get out of shape over the last 5 years. I was 190 and pretty fit and now I'm 240 and not nearly as fit. So, I decided to hire a personal trainer on June 11th and that has been working well thus far. They recheck your "stats" on a monthly basis and after the first month I had lost 2 pounds of fat. However, I gained 5 pounds of muscle so I gained 3 pounds! But, I truly felt a ton more fit, which I think is important.

In this monthly segment, I have been trying to eat less and my goal is to lose 4 pounds of fat and gain 1 pound of muscle. That will get me back to my original weight and then from that point, I hope to start dropping weight!

Peace be with you!

Another Day

Not much of note today, but a few random personal musings...

I follow the Tour de France pretty closely and, being an American, really root for the US and Discovery Channel. Well, after today's race it looks like Discovery Channel will not have the overall winner. They look guaranteed to win the team competition, which is sort of cool.

My Grandmother comes to visit on Friday. I'm looking forward to that! She raised me for years, so we are very close.

I've been on the sidelines with the stock market for the three days of this week. Everything is just too volatile for my tastes right now. Once Apple reports tonight, the market should calm down and either completely tank or stay steady, is my guess.

But, I tend to try to eliminate guessing from my stock market decisions. I always assume I don't know what is going to happen day-to-day. I just buy or sell based on the overall worthiness of a company.

I'm sort of hoping that Apple disappoints slightly just because it will reduce values across the board in tech once again and that will allow me better entry points and safer strategies over all. I doubt it will though as Apple routinely blows away expectations :)

Good luck to all, and praise to the Lord.

Stacie is back!

Stacie is back and life is getting back to normal again. Stacie always makes me a lunch, which is great because last week I was either starving or eating way too much all week because I didn't have someone else thinking about my food for me.

We also went house hunting on Saturday. It was pretty fun, we found several that were nice houses. One of which, I'm really sold on, but Stacie isn't sure the yard is large enough and it might actually be "too big" if you can imagine that :)

Stacie will be looking at more houses this week and then we'll probably re-visit the decision process at the end of the month, as my Grandmother and aunt are coming to visit this weekend.

Well, the next event I'm looking at stock market-wise is the earnings report of Apple. Hopefully it is great, but either way, I should be able to make few dollars on it or buy it for a reduced amount.

My IRA transfered :)

I now have short put selling privileges for my IRA account. That is good, as it should be just another tool that I can utilize to increase my earnings. In the IRA there is no margin though and you cannot sell puts that you can't cover via your cash on hand. So, "over risking" isn't possible.

Google is way down today, however, still not low enough for my short 490 puts to be valuable, so that turned out to be a great trade :)

Today is option expiration so that's great also, as all my short options will expire out of the money :)

I don't like "earnings month" anyway. Way too much volatility for my taste. Yes, I can make more on my short puts, but I would prefer to make far less, but with less chance of 7%+ moves (in either direction) in a single day.

Stacie returns today, so that is terrific also :)

With thanks to Jesus,
Barry.

Another good market day!

I made a quick turn around on some uncovered Google puts! I held only what I can risk when they announce earnings. Whenever there is an "event" on the horizon I make sure not to hold more uncovered puts than I can afford to completely buy.

A good work day as well. Nothing spectacular, but some good progress.

Stacie returns tomorrow which is really the highlight of today! I really miss her. She is so awesome!

I praise God for the many blessings I have been given!

A nice gain in the stock market

My uncovered put options on Yahoo turned out to be a good deal. They went from $0.20 per share on July 25 Puts down to $0.05 today even though the stock went down. Naturally, it is due to the fact that the earnings are out and they are bad but not terrible. :)

The great thing is Yahoo doing terrible, which I'm sure is caused by Google being so awesome, caused Google to go down. That allowed me to re-open my uncovered puts on Google also, which I had closed last week for a nice gain. Now, I re-opened again at a higher price than last week :) A small risk if Google tanks, but I don't see Google tanking worse than Yahoo. That would pretty much shock the world.

Course Study Books!

The course study books for the Series 63, 65, and 7 have arrived. I will dedicate an hour or so per day to reading and studying those.

My current goal is to be ready to take the 63 by the end of the month. Then, hopefully the 65 in another 2 weeks, and the 7 by the end of August.

That may be too quick, but I figure I better aim high and 2 weeks is a heck of a lot more time than I spent on any of my college courses :)

I haven't checked in on the scheduling of the courses so that may delay my actual taking of the tests.

In other work, I have started transitioning out of my current gig, which should be a fun stage as I work hard for them and also carve out a little time for my new gigs :) I love that stuff!

My wife is in Colorado setting up stuff for our property there. I miss her greatly.

I've been very blessed in my life and I give all the glory to Jesus.

Week without my lovely wife :(

Well, today begins my week without my lovely wife, Stacie. She has gone to Colorado to set up a property we bought a couple months back to be sold or rented.

Without Stacie around life is pretty tough. She does a ton for me and her sweetness and cuteness make me extremely happy!

On the business front, I spent a little time over the weekend setting up for my foray into professional stock brokering and so far so good. I've been studying the initial material and also setting up some computer stuff for my benefit.

Since Stacie is gone, I intend to spend extra time working and studying this week, so hopefully it will be a very fruitful week.

With Jesus,

Barry

Blogs I follow

I figured I'd put shout outs to the blogs that I regularly follow:

worshipwell.blogspot.com (The Perimeter Church blog.)

http://beanie11111.blogspot.com (Some good stock info. He tends to focus on option buying.)

http://explosive-stocks.blogspot.com (Some more good stock info. He covers a lot of stocks so it is a good site to find other of the diamonds that are out there.)

http://bradfallon.com (A former business partner of mine that has some good info about Search Engine Optimization)

http://freeiqtips.com (A guy I met doing business. Dan has some good info about affiliate marketing.)

http://lvblog.blogspot.com (A guy that posts exact trades on his site and the performance by month. It should be interesting to compare with.)

I'll add others in the future as I see others that I would like to follow.

About Me

I received a comment on my first blog post so I figure it is probably time to start placing "adsense" on my blog :)

I grew up in a very small reservation town in North East Montana named Poplar. Check it out on Wikipedia and you will see it is a pretty rough place.

I went to college at Rose Hulman Institute of Technology and graduated in 3.5 years with a BS in Computer Science.

I then moved to Southern California and worked as a programmer for 7 years before starting my own software business with Garett, my cousin and business partner for the last 6 years.

I was married 3 years ago to a beautiful wife named Stacie. She is terrific in every way!

I currently live in Atlanta and attend Perimeter Church. Randy Pope, the head pastor, is really a terrific man of God and is exceptionally wise.

Serving Jesus is very important to me and (hopefully) it impacts everything I do in life and business.

I enjoy playing sports, particularly volleyball and basketball, and hanging out with my wonderful wife.

First Blog Post

I've been a part of the Internet as a programmer for over 10 years and I figured that one day I would have to start a blog to stay "hip".

Well, that day is today, July 12, 2007.

I will be posting primarily about my business life, including my stock investing, my business dealings, and the various programming projects that I become involved in.

Right now, I'm actually starting to use part of my spare time to study to get my Series 7 stock broker license. First I'll get my Series 63, then Series 65, and then I'll find a local brokerage to sponsor me for the Series 7.

I think it will be a lot of fun and maybe will lead to some profit or business ideas or opportunities.

Thanks, and my God bless you.