This article originally appeared in the Motley Fool. It’s estimated that just 8% of Americans actually succeed in keeping their New Year’s resolutions. If you really want 2017 to be the year you get on top of your finances, here are four promises you can’t afford to give up on. 1. Get out of debt If… Continue reading “Still Time To Keep Personal Finance Resolutions”
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I wasn’t really expecting to spend much money this week.
What I really wanted was to replicate last week and to do that for the remaining 51 weeks of 2017.
Back in the days when I did initiate lots of new positions, if you go all the way back to 2015, it always seemed as if money was burning a hole in my pockets or that maybe I believed that cash was only good to wipe one’s butt.
That’s pretty far from the truth, but that’s what it looked like and that’s what it felt like, even though I know myself pretty well.
So no one was more surprised than me, after having toiled hard to raise cash reserves for about a year and finally getting to a point that I felt was good enough to be prepared for whatever awaited, that within 30 minutes of the opening bell I had already opened 2 new positions.
I’m still of the mindset that I would like to see my existing positions get used on a much more frequent and regular basis through the sale of calls, but I just couldn’t resist this morning. Continue reading “Spending Money”
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There’s really no reason to be surprised, but I woke up this morning realizing that earnings season has to be starting soon.
As if it ever really ended.
What really makes things different this quarter is that Alcoa, even though it has now been out of the DJIA for a little while, is no longer the official/unofficial start to earnings season.
The official start of earnings season honors went to JP Morgan after Alcoa left the DJIA, but Alcoa still came first.
No more.
This week, earnings start for real on Friday morning, with JP Morgan getting things started and Alcoa doesn’t announce until a full 11 days later.
It’s a whole new world order.
I was greeted this fine snowy Sunday morning with a very nice Tweet.
What was also very nice was not having to write an article in a rush to meet an unclear deadline in order to get potentially time sensitive material posted.
Or, for that matter, writing it at all.
My response to the Tweet was that 300 of those articles was enough and so I then did what was the only seemingly natural thing. Continue reading “It Really Shouldn’t Come As a Surprise”
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I didn’t vote for Donald Trump, but I really can’t wait until he steps into the Oval Office.
It’s not that I suddenly find myself agreeing with whatever Donald Trump believes, although it is hard to tell what he really believes, it’s just that I think that he will bring out the best in people.
He will do that at the same time that he has shown that he can bring out the worst in people.
You can’t disagree with Hillary Clinton’s reference to “deplorables,” although you would really have to question both her estimate of how many of Trump’s supporters really did fit into that category, as well as simply questioning her judgment in making the comment, itself.
By the same token, there are clearly “deplorables” on the other side of the political spectrum and in that group I might include those who have a hard time accepting the fact that Donald Trump will be our next President.
My father used to always say that “money brings out the best in people and the worst in people.”
For years, I thought that his lack of command of English as a language caused him to use the conjunction “and” when he really meant “or.”
It was only a few years ago that I realized that he said exactly what he meant.
Money can bring out both the best and the worst in someone and I think that Donald Trump will do the same with our elected officials.
Some, unfortunately, will feel even more emboldened to act in a ridiculous manner, while others are going to realize that the only way to move the nation forward is to come to some reconciliation across the aisle.
Remember when there were actually moderates in both parties who could stand one another professionally and personally?
Donald Trump may be the enzyme that brings them back together again.
Continue reading “Will Common Sense Make a Comeback?”
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Following a pretty good day today, where we really did come close to the mystical 20,000 level of the DJIA,. there was a big surprise after the closing bell.
The surprise that came can give you just a little idea of how well anyone really knows what’s truly going on.
If you were following the market today, you may have noticed that national retailers were really strong.
In fact, I took the opportunity to sell some calls on a couple of lots of Macy’s shares that have been sitting around uncovered for the past week or so.
I like to at least consider selling calls, even if the strike price isn’t something to really make me salivate, as long as the shares are moving strongly at the time.
That described Macy’s, as it was more than $1 higher earlier in the trading session.
While I didn’t think about selling calls on Coach, Kohls, nor Abercrombie and Fitch, they too were all strongly higher during the day.
You may also remember that I sold calls on The Gap, yesterday.
Then a funny, well maybe not too funny thing happened after the close.
The bottom fell out as Macy’s and others reported the not so good Christmas sales news.
Sales stunk.
Not only did sales stink, but guidance was moved lower.
How could that be? Especially as the economy is supposedly heating up?
So we await tomorrow’s Employment Situation Report and will be left to wonder, if the news continues to be good, just where people are spending their money.
The obvious answer is that they’re doing it on Amazon or they’re just not spending it on old fashioned things like sweaters and place settings.
Maybe they’re spending it on streaming data plans. Continue reading “Santa Steals Away Joy from Retailers”
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EFFECTIVE FEBRUARY 1, 2017, MONTHLY TRADES AT A GLANCE WILL NOW BE ACCESSIBLE THROUGH THE MAIN MENU USING THE “MONTHLY TRADES” PULLDOWN
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What a way to start the new year.
Not even close to the way 2016 started, but then again, 2016 wasn’t all that bad.
Right?
For a little while it looked as if 2017 was going to start off with a major disappointment as the market decided to do something that it hadn’t done for a while.
In fact, it hasn’t really happened since we accepted the fact that we were getting someone very unexpected as our new President.
What happened today was that the stock market actually followed oil, again.
That was the story for most of 2016 and the story worked out pretty well, as long as you didn’t sell your oil losers in 2015, or repeatedly went back to the literal and figurative well in pursuit of the gains.
Even though there wasn’t too much evidence that the rise in oil prices was actually tied to increasing demand, the stock market just looked at a year of slowly, if not steadily increasing oil prices, as a good thing.
Who would have guessed? Continue reading “Let the Partying Begin”
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