Some people say making the first $250,000 is the hardest.
I can say it took the longest part of my life. Over two decades.
Monday, June 17, 2019
Saturday, June 15, 2019
New Opportunity
This week I received an e-mail from my broker.
They wanted me to sign up for their program to lend my stock to other clients who are shorting the stock.
So a little suspicious of the offer. I called my broker by their regular number.
A piece of advice, check such offers are genuine with your broker, opening access to your account is not a good idea, so I wanted to know that this offer was genuine.
Turned out it was a genuine offer.
Read What are the risks of Loaning your stocks to a broker to short?
When I spoke to the representative from my broker on the telephone. He was able to confirm that the offer was genuine. I was very happy to sign up. Loaning stock to your broker to pass on to short sellers can earn you cash.
The process is:
A short seller needs stock to sell.
The Broker finds stock
The broker Borrows the stock from an account
Places cash equivalent to the stock price, plus a little extra into an escrow account.
Loans the stock to the short seller.
The short seller drives down the stock if they can.
The broker then either buys back the stock for me as a lender at a new low price or gives me back the stock. Plus I have been given cash in the form of a percentage of the charges made on the short sellers charges.
I am paid a daily rate for the loan of the shorted stock. This can range from pennies to several hundred dollars depending on the value of the stock, its scarcity and the possible cost of recovery.
The daily rate of payment accrues for the period of the loan and once per month on a set date my broker will pay this cash fee into my brokerage account to re-invest.
At all times the stock remains mine, though I lose voting rights and any dividend payable is paid from the brokers account not by the company.
At present within opening this account I have two stocks taken into a loan position. They only pay a few cents a day because I only have small positions. But they could make a nice little return since both only pay a dividend in December and January so even the few dollars that will accrue will add nicely to my expected returns for June 2019 and maybe for the rest of the year, if these stocks are favorites of the short sellers.
Thanks for reading. Don't forget to like or share this post and
Take a look at : What are the Risks of Loaning a Stock to your Broker?
 |
| Wall Street Bull Sculpture. |
They wanted me to sign up for their program to lend my stock to other clients who are shorting the stock.
So a little suspicious of the offer. I called my broker by their regular number.
A piece of advice, check such offers are genuine with your broker, opening access to your account is not a good idea, so I wanted to know that this offer was genuine.
Turned out it was a genuine offer.
Read What are the risks of Loaning your stocks to a broker to short?
When I spoke to the representative from my broker on the telephone. He was able to confirm that the offer was genuine. I was very happy to sign up. Loaning stock to your broker to pass on to short sellers can earn you cash.
The process is:
A short seller needs stock to sell.
The Broker finds stock
The broker Borrows the stock from an account
Places cash equivalent to the stock price, plus a little extra into an escrow account.
Loans the stock to the short seller.
The short seller drives down the stock if they can.
The broker then either buys back the stock for me as a lender at a new low price or gives me back the stock. Plus I have been given cash in the form of a percentage of the charges made on the short sellers charges.
I am paid a daily rate for the loan of the shorted stock. This can range from pennies to several hundred dollars depending on the value of the stock, its scarcity and the possible cost of recovery.
The daily rate of payment accrues for the period of the loan and once per month on a set date my broker will pay this cash fee into my brokerage account to re-invest.
At all times the stock remains mine, though I lose voting rights and any dividend payable is paid from the brokers account not by the company.
At present within opening this account I have two stocks taken into a loan position. They only pay a few cents a day because I only have small positions. But they could make a nice little return since both only pay a dividend in December and January so even the few dollars that will accrue will add nicely to my expected returns for June 2019 and maybe for the rest of the year, if these stocks are favorites of the short sellers.
Thanks for reading. Don't forget to like or share this post and
Take a look at : What are the Risks of Loaning a Stock to your Broker?
Friday, May 3, 2019
Welcome To The "New" Investor Pages
In the last four months I have been a little busy, working my way through two classes at my local community college.
Luckily for me that time has seen a big rise in the stock markets, so my investments have been left well alone.
So here we are now in the month of May. The May Flower is in bloom at home in England and there is some relief from the Fall and Winter gloom of last year.
Except for one little thing I decided to do in December 2018. Remember those days and weeks in the run up to Christmas 2018?
Wow what a few weeks that was. Everyone was looking to Santa Claus for a rally. By Christmas Eve most people had given up on poor old Santa. Except for me that is.
On Christmas Eve I went all in with my accrued cash on the SPY. I bought, doubling my holding in the SPY ETF.
I couldn't resist. Santa Claus comes on Christmas morning and there he was handing me a bundle of stock at New Year Sales prices!
So in I jumped. I am so glad I did. Of course it could have all gone wrong. The nay sayers were all around. The sky was falling and I was gambling. Yes I was gambling. The gamble has paid off. I am not ashamed to say so. I have called a market low, it happens from time to time with someone. This time I got it right. It will probably never happen again in my lifetime.
But this time I can say I called it.
Good enough for me. Did you call a bottom on Christmas Eve or maybe 10 years ago?
Tell me about it.
Thank you for reading thus far, Pilgrim. I hope that you will continue to come back and follow my investing journey.
I also have a book tip for you. Take a look at "Dividend Investing" A new book published in March. The book gets a 4.8 approval rating out of 39 reviews on amazon and most people say that it gives excellent ideas on how to build a dividend paying portfolio from scratch in easy to understand language. Take a look here.
Luckily for me that time has seen a big rise in the stock markets, so my investments have been left well alone.
 |
| Hawthorn Blossom AKA May Flower |
So here we are now in the month of May. The May Flower is in bloom at home in England and there is some relief from the Fall and Winter gloom of last year.
Except for one little thing I decided to do in December 2018. Remember those days and weeks in the run up to Christmas 2018?
Wow what a few weeks that was. Everyone was looking to Santa Claus for a rally. By Christmas Eve most people had given up on poor old Santa. Except for me that is.
On Christmas Eve I went all in with my accrued cash on the SPY. I bought, doubling my holding in the SPY ETF.
I couldn't resist. Santa Claus comes on Christmas morning and there he was handing me a bundle of stock at New Year Sales prices!
So in I jumped. I am so glad I did. Of course it could have all gone wrong. The nay sayers were all around. The sky was falling and I was gambling. Yes I was gambling. The gamble has paid off. I am not ashamed to say so. I have called a market low, it happens from time to time with someone. This time I got it right. It will probably never happen again in my lifetime.
But this time I can say I called it.
Good enough for me. Did you call a bottom on Christmas Eve or maybe 10 years ago?
Tell me about it.
Thank you for reading thus far, Pilgrim. I hope that you will continue to come back and follow my investing journey.
I also have a book tip for you. Take a look at "Dividend Investing" A new book published in March. The book gets a 4.8 approval rating out of 39 reviews on amazon and most people say that it gives excellent ideas on how to build a dividend paying portfolio from scratch in easy to understand language. Take a look here.
Wednesday, November 28, 2018
I Am Still Invested.
Hands up everyone who has found this year tough to call?
After my last post the stock market took a tumble, I was also tied in to a lot of stocks because of uncertainty over a forced move of some of my accounts from 'Sharebuilder' to 'E-Trade'. In the end this movement of my accounts did not take place until the end of October and was not completed entirely until mid November.
IIn the transfer period I had to forgo all my dividend reinvestment plans, also sell fractional shares at not the best time and then learn to use a whole new trading system at possibly the most turbulent period of the markets.
Of course in this I was not alone. Thousands of other Sharebuilder customers were in the same position.
I had never bought into all the FAANG stocks as a group. I owned them in the XLK and XLY exchange traded funds. Buying a few XLC stocks in August with the proceeds of sales of partial shares forced by the selling of my accounts to E-Trade last Winter.
The only one of the FAANG stocks I owned and still own is Apple (AAPL) despite it's recent fall in October and November from $230 to about $170 I still like the company and as a long term holder I have my average cost at just $100 I am still looking at good long time returns on the stock and I have been here before several times with Apple. I think it will grow back into the Trillion dollar company it was in the late Summer, not overnight of course but in the next few years.
Overall because of the lack of the FAANGs and other volatile stocks, my portfolio has been quite robust. Losing only 0.6% for every 1% fall in the value of the S&P 500 ETF (SPY). I also own SPY in in my retirement account as a long term core holding.
Now though I have all my DRIPs back in force and am looking forward to a good December dividend payout adding some good, less expensive stocks to my portfolios.
This month I have also been reading this book. I have found it very informative so if you would like to follow the link and purchase a copy for yourselves I would be grateful as you would be supporting this blog.
After my last post the stock market took a tumble, I was also tied in to a lot of stocks because of uncertainty over a forced move of some of my accounts from 'Sharebuilder' to 'E-Trade'. In the end this movement of my accounts did not take place until the end of October and was not completed entirely until mid November.
IIn the transfer period I had to forgo all my dividend reinvestment plans, also sell fractional shares at not the best time and then learn to use a whole new trading system at possibly the most turbulent period of the markets.
Of course in this I was not alone. Thousands of other Sharebuilder customers were in the same position.
I had never bought into all the FAANG stocks as a group. I owned them in the XLK and XLY exchange traded funds. Buying a few XLC stocks in August with the proceeds of sales of partial shares forced by the selling of my accounts to E-Trade last Winter.
The only one of the FAANG stocks I owned and still own is Apple (AAPL) despite it's recent fall in October and November from $230 to about $170 I still like the company and as a long term holder I have my average cost at just $100 I am still looking at good long time returns on the stock and I have been here before several times with Apple. I think it will grow back into the Trillion dollar company it was in the late Summer, not overnight of course but in the next few years.
Overall because of the lack of the FAANGs and other volatile stocks, my portfolio has been quite robust. Losing only 0.6% for every 1% fall in the value of the S&P 500 ETF (SPY). I also own SPY in in my retirement account as a long term core holding.
Now though I have all my DRIPs back in force and am looking forward to a good December dividend payout adding some good, less expensive stocks to my portfolios.
This month I have also been reading this book. I have found it very informative so if you would like to follow the link and purchase a copy for yourselves I would be grateful as you would be supporting this blog.
Thursday, February 1, 2018
Twenty-three Percent Profits Last Year
Last year was a good year. No I am not talking about tires on the road, though I did go on a 16 state, 6,000 mile roadtrip from California to Illinois and back via the Grand Canyon, the hot and humid Midwest and the Great Salt Lake.
The last year from February 1, until January 31 2018 has seen my portfolio grow by a decent 23%.
This was almost all due to prudent re-balancing at the beginning of the period and then just leaving things alone. No trading for the most part.
Remember trading costs money and that can quickly burn away any profits.
I did take some profits, for instance recently I trimmed back on Starbucks to leave me holding a small number. This rump of shares will keep me interested in the company but I have now removed all my original investment.
As you might say, the remaining stock is house money and I see no harm in letting the house money ride in this case.
I also added a little cash to buy in Boeing (BA) back in August when the stock was hovering around the $100 mark. I liked it because of the name, it is an engineering specialist with a good track record across several core competances, Aerospace and defence to name just two. So that was a nice little punt, which has paid big bucks subsequently.
I also held my favorite bank ETF and utillities. Giving a reasonable return on investmen.
Walt Disney (DIS) also saw some weakness at varying time over the year and allowed me to increase some of my holdings in that company as it fell into the nineties.
Most of the other gains were in the area of re-invested dividends. My average dividend yield last year was 2.15% Enough to give a inflation beating return in cash.
The last year from February 1, until January 31 2018 has seen my portfolio grow by a decent 23%.
This was almost all due to prudent re-balancing at the beginning of the period and then just leaving things alone. No trading for the most part.
Remember trading costs money and that can quickly burn away any profits.
I did take some profits, for instance recently I trimmed back on Starbucks to leave me holding a small number. This rump of shares will keep me interested in the company but I have now removed all my original investment.
As you might say, the remaining stock is house money and I see no harm in letting the house money ride in this case.
I also added a little cash to buy in Boeing (BA) back in August when the stock was hovering around the $100 mark. I liked it because of the name, it is an engineering specialist with a good track record across several core competances, Aerospace and defence to name just two. So that was a nice little punt, which has paid big bucks subsequently.
I also held my favorite bank ETF and utillities. Giving a reasonable return on investmen.
Walt Disney (DIS) also saw some weakness at varying time over the year and allowed me to increase some of my holdings in that company as it fell into the nineties.
Most of the other gains were in the area of re-invested dividends. My average dividend yield last year was 2.15% Enough to give a inflation beating return in cash.
Friday, February 3, 2017
Locking in Profits
In recent months I have seen lots of my stocks break out of their usual ranges. One such stock was CSX, a railroad company.
I had bought CSX way back around 2007, it has been a reasonable dividend payer and I reinvested my dividends and the stock moved up and down in a range from $19 at the time of purchase to the mid $30's for most of the time.
In a recent burst of activity however the stock reached $47 and so I took the opportunity this week to sell some of my holding to recoup my initial investment.
I sold just over half of my holding leaving me with stock in my portfolio. Taking the recent profit means that I returned a little more cash to my pocket than my initial investment of $1,000
It is always nice to take a profit like this and is a good way to increase ones portfolio.
With the profits I added to my retail exchange traded fund investment, XRT.
I see a volatile future to the markets and I have reduced most of my individual stock investment in retailers as individuals to zero. To add some depth to a risky area of my portfolio I decided to invest in a ETF which covers the retail sector instead. Risking less volatility in the long run.
In the interest of openess I hold stock in CSX and XRT. This post is not intended as financial advice it is just a diary of my own investment strategy and you should seek advice from a professional investment planner if you are uncertain as to investment strategy.
I had bought CSX way back around 2007, it has been a reasonable dividend payer and I reinvested my dividends and the stock moved up and down in a range from $19 at the time of purchase to the mid $30's for most of the time.
In a recent burst of activity however the stock reached $47 and so I took the opportunity this week to sell some of my holding to recoup my initial investment.
I sold just over half of my holding leaving me with stock in my portfolio. Taking the recent profit means that I returned a little more cash to my pocket than my initial investment of $1,000
It is always nice to take a profit like this and is a good way to increase ones portfolio.
With the profits I added to my retail exchange traded fund investment, XRT.
I see a volatile future to the markets and I have reduced most of my individual stock investment in retailers as individuals to zero. To add some depth to a risky area of my portfolio I decided to invest in a ETF which covers the retail sector instead. Risking less volatility in the long run.
In the interest of openess I hold stock in CSX and XRT. This post is not intended as financial advice it is just a diary of my own investment strategy and you should seek advice from a professional investment planner if you are uncertain as to investment strategy.
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Book Review: The Perfect Bet
I am sure that you, like me, have been told that investing in the stock market is little more than gambling. Well in his book 'The Perfect Bet: How Science and Math are Taking the Luck Out of Gambling" Adam Kurcharski looks at the history of ideas such as probability theory, chaos theory, mathematics and even the building of atomic bombs have led to changes in betting and in how modern stockmarkets work.
I personally do not agree that investing is a form of gambling there are too many differences in the ideas of the two motivees. Gambling and investing do have similar intangible links though, they both involve markets and as such you are playing a role in their movements. The second is that you are playing on your information against everyone else in the market playing with their information.
Kucharski is a wonderful writer and explains a complex situation very well, a mathematician and statistician himself he draws on history and a broad knowledge of many intertwined disciplines, including physics, mathematics, economics and computer science.
Though the main thrust of the book looks at several gambling systems including blackjack card counting, horse racing, and roulette systems. He points out flaws along the way but extracts the golden nuggets of fact based ideas that they produce. So for instance card counting does work, but it is time consuming to build a knowledge system that allows you to make the system pay with multideck dealing and limited betting practices to not draw attention to the fact you are card counting.
But then he turns to other areas of the gambling idea. Trying to beat the house is nigh on impossible, like beating the market in investing. But the weak link in the houses chain and in the market is that players, investors, punters or marks play at different levels of skill and with differing levels of information.
There is the investors strength, bringing together knowledge both of the market and the players in the market leads to arbitrage situations. The point where one stock or one side of the bet is skewed. That is where the skilled gambler and investor can step in to buy. That is The Perfect Bet.
This book is a solid read. I enjoyed reading it from cover to cover in just a few hours. It is similar to A Random Walk Down Wall Street In that psychology plays a huge role in outcomes, but Kucharski then looks at robots and time which adds even more complication to strategies which are employed. So here he moves from gambling to the stock market. There we face the ever growing influence of automated trading. Both the stock market and gambling markets are at the mercy of the arbitrage robots. Bots can be looking and dealing with millions of trades per second. In the time it takes you to blink a bot will have dealt in thousands of trades, you cannot even hope to beat a bot that is on an arbitrage deal.
So in conclusion this book might seem to be merely about gambling systems and their mathematical histories, but it is a worthwhile read for any investor in the stock-market too. If only to see why you cannot win in the short term arbitrage trade. Read what others say about 'The Perfect Bet.'
 |
| The Perfect Bet |
I personally do not agree that investing is a form of gambling there are too many differences in the ideas of the two motivees. Gambling and investing do have similar intangible links though, they both involve markets and as such you are playing a role in their movements. The second is that you are playing on your information against everyone else in the market playing with their information.
Kucharski is a wonderful writer and explains a complex situation very well, a mathematician and statistician himself he draws on history and a broad knowledge of many intertwined disciplines, including physics, mathematics, economics and computer science.
Though the main thrust of the book looks at several gambling systems including blackjack card counting, horse racing, and roulette systems. He points out flaws along the way but extracts the golden nuggets of fact based ideas that they produce. So for instance card counting does work, but it is time consuming to build a knowledge system that allows you to make the system pay with multideck dealing and limited betting practices to not draw attention to the fact you are card counting.
But then he turns to other areas of the gambling idea. Trying to beat the house is nigh on impossible, like beating the market in investing. But the weak link in the houses chain and in the market is that players, investors, punters or marks play at different levels of skill and with differing levels of information.
There is the investors strength, bringing together knowledge both of the market and the players in the market leads to arbitrage situations. The point where one stock or one side of the bet is skewed. That is where the skilled gambler and investor can step in to buy. That is The Perfect Bet.
This book is a solid read. I enjoyed reading it from cover to cover in just a few hours. It is similar to A Random Walk Down Wall Street In that psychology plays a huge role in outcomes, but Kucharski then looks at robots and time which adds even more complication to strategies which are employed. So here he moves from gambling to the stock market. There we face the ever growing influence of automated trading. Both the stock market and gambling markets are at the mercy of the arbitrage robots. Bots can be looking and dealing with millions of trades per second. In the time it takes you to blink a bot will have dealt in thousands of trades, you cannot even hope to beat a bot that is on an arbitrage deal.
So in conclusion this book might seem to be merely about gambling systems and their mathematical histories, but it is a worthwhile read for any investor in the stock-market too. If only to see why you cannot win in the short term arbitrage trade. Read what others say about 'The Perfect Bet.'
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