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How did I earn...
Quotation: Given a Shovel, Americans Dig Deeper Into Debt
July 22, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Be the first to leave a comment
“When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.”
Quoted in “Given a Shovel, Americans Dig Deeper Into Debt“, article in New York Times, July 20, 2008.
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Trying Adsense Again!
July 20, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Read this comment
Yes, it’s true. I’m trying Adsense again as I’ve been getting a decent CTR with the ad links. I’ve also added a small Adsense Block on the right, and an Adsense Search page.
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The Bear is here: Are you still bullish?
July 19, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Be the first to leave a comment
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DotCom Carnival - July 23rd 2008
July 18, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Be the first to leave a comment
Welcome to the July 23, 2008 edition of dotcom carnival. We’d like to focus on special dotcom type businesses for this review of the articles. We’ve selected the best of the articles based on our BlogCarnival Criteria.
- Alex_Sysoef presents Blog Templates For WordPress Review posted at WordPress Web 2.0 How-To Spot-er, saying, “Web design for WordPress always comes down to evaluating which Blog Templates (or what is commonly knows WordPress Themes) fit your needs the most! This review of available options for choosing best blog template for your WordPress will concentrate not only on their visual appeal (web design factor) but also functionality!”
- Bizlike presents China Business Watch:Make Money with China Business Watch: Startups Are Afraid of Other’s Generosity? Maybe posted at China Business Watch:Make Money with China Business Watch. This introduces a controversial topic in the online business world: free vs. paid.
- Cindy King presents Sunday Book Review - Mastering Online Marketing posted at Cindy King, saying, “Mastering Online Marketing starts off with a few of the principles in The E-Myth. There is a Business Mindset Self-Assessment Test and a Marketing Mindset Self-Assessment Test. At the end of each of these chapters a check list helps you to clearly identify your action plan. Your action items are business focused.”
- Hendry Lee presents Building a Long-Term Blogging Business: How to Thrive in the Information Age (Part 1) posted at Blog Building University, saying, “If you think passion has nothing to do with business and making money, think again. This blog post will change your perspective.”
- Marcus Hochstadt presents Freebie Seekers posted at Marcus Hochstadt, saying, “Freebie seekers are everywhere. But did you know that they can literally destroy your Internet business success?”
- Prashant Shukla presents Deposit Articles - Read the the best and latest articles on the web. posted at Sherry Frewerd, saying, “Deposit Articles is a powerful article directory. Specially developed and categorized for the web masters and online community to read latest articles on diversified topics and to provide them all sort of contents for their websites as easy and convenient as possible.”
- R.Pettinger presents Full Time Income from Part Time Blogging? posted at Net Writing, saying, “My own story of making money online”
- Scott Allen presents James D. Brausch, Glyphius and Shilling posted at About.com Entrepreneur’s Guide, saying, “Be careful about the gurus you choose. Some of them engage in “black hat” marketing practices, which may bring short-term results, but eventually backfire.”
- Steve Faber presents The Steps to Starting an Internet Business posted at Home Based Business Success, saying, “The proper steps to take when starting your online business. One key to financial freedom is to have multiple streams of income. You online business is another one of those income streams. Don’t make a misstep when starting it. Here’s what to do.”
Please check the latest carnival submissions if you wish to submit. That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of dotcom carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.
Technorati tags: dotcom carnival, blog carnival.
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Should I have stuck with those old stocks…? Let’s See.
July 18, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Be the first to leave a comment
Just occasionally in the heat of compulsive decision making, one loses the grand perspective! Really. In 1998, I started trading in the US stock market, I still remember the trepidation and fear that accompanied my first online stock purchases. In those days, I was a Motley Fool reader and bought some suggested stocks based on their ideas. It was a fairly decent portfolio that I purchased for about $8357.84.
Today, I was going through records today of my first stock purchases and here is what I bought in 1998…
The first column is the number of stocks, the stock symbol, the price I paid, the trading cost and the total costs.
| 18 | GM | 56.5625 | 9.99 | -1028.12 |
| 11 | JPM | 86 | 9.99 | -955.99 |
| 14 | MMM | 70.1875 | 0 | -982.63 |
| 23 | MO | 42.6875 | 9.99 | -991.8 |
| 10 | DELL | 58.5 | 9.99 | -594.99 |
| 10 | DELL | 59.6875 | 9.99 | -606.87 |
| 14 | ATHM | 73.2344 | 9.99 | -1035.27 |
| 25 | CAT | 42.4375 | 9.99 | -1070.93 |
| 25 | IP | 43.25 | 9.99 | -1091.24 |
| Total | -$8357.84 |
I don’t know how I would have fared in the long run otherwise as I had to sell my stocks then repurchased others… I’m pretty sure my track record isn’t that good. But let’s see if I had just forgotten them for 10 years. What would they be worth now?
The list: ups and downs!
ATHM is now worth $0 … ah, those tech stocks. Can anyone remember what happened to ATHM? I sold out before taking a small loss. I noted that price, because I can’t remember what happened to them after that. All prices are calculated at today’s rates (obviously volatile).
The first column is the number of stocks, the stock symbol, the current price per stock, the total accured dividends, and the total value of the purchase as of today.
| 18 | GM | $13.14 | $590.90 | $827.42 |
| 33 | JPM | $39.94 | $460.02 | $1,778.04 |
| 28 | MMM | $68.49 | $420.56 | $2,338.28 |
| 23 | MO | $20.46 | $2,265.94 | $2,736.52 |
| 40 | DELL | $24.41 | $0.00 | $976.40 |
| 28 | ATHM | $31.75 | $0.00 | $889.00 |
| 50 | CAT | $71.15 | $432.00 | $3,989.50 |
| 25 | IP | $23.21 | $262.50 | $842.75 |
| Total Purchases | $14,377.91 | |||
Overall, if I had done nothing in the past ten years, I’d have made over $6,000 on just those stocks, including splits, dividends and spin-offs. If you look at the stocks, you’ll see that that there is a HUGE divergence of performance over the past ten years,
Would I have beaten the Dow Jones?
As it so happens, the DIA ETF started trading the same quarter, so I’m able to track the performance of buying this ETF. (In fact, I did buy it at one point.) Anyway, using a notional monthly average, I’d have been able to buy 106 shares in DIA in 1998. Adding dividends to the total, I’d have made $14,286.68 in those years, so I’d have beaten the stock market but not by much!
Sobering Reality
In reality, I bought and sold more stocks than I remember, I rode the bubble and the coming collapse. Then I failed to sell as stocks tumbled. I then lost ‘interest’ and just sat there stuck in the headlights. Since 2003, I’ve been pursuing a more dividend focused story than ever, and today’s research really shows that dividends would have accounted for over 30% of the total gains! That’s not to be sneezed at.
I’ll be detailing much more after the blog’s reorganization… yes, I’ll be having a stock blog! Stay tuned.
Any stock stories to share?… do drop by!
This story has been edited three times for inappropriate formating, replacing/removing the chosen Flickr images (not properly licensed) and tidying up formatting.
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