Friday, November 30, 2007

OK, now for a break

So, I get it. Enough about the stocks for the weekend. Busy weekend ahead. The older boys are starting indoor soccer tomorrow. This is the first season of indoor, though they have both been in outdoor before. Then we are going to get a real tree tomorrow, in lieu of Sunday (wintry mix?). So I guess Sunday frees up for some football....
Shipoopi?
JC's first word was uh-oh, very fitting. His third word, though, was football. (Second was simply ball). He seems very enthralled by football and cheers for the teams as they run the ball. He even seems to pick up when an incompletion occurs, because he says " Ohhhhhhhhhh". I am completely fascinated by his interest at 17 months. He now can say a version of touchdown and raises one or both of his arms. It is damn cute.
My other two are not too interested in football just yet. Though my wife and I have brainwashed them to like the Ravens and Broncos. They are also brainwashed by their teachers to like the Eagles, so needless to say, they are confused as to who to like.
The same situation happens in baseball with the Yankees, Orioles, and Phillies.
They like the Blue Rocks too (Wilm.'s AA team), but that is okay since it is the hometown team, right?
Well sort of.
At any rate, things are going well. I saw an old buddy from MBNA (yeah, that place) and he talked about maybe wanting to go back. But it's simply not the same after BofA took over. I think he wouldn't like it nearly as much as he did before.
I suppose after 15 years of working for the same place you will feel attached when you helped it grow from a fledgling company to a mega-corporation. I guess that is the nature of change, right?
Just remember the good times >;)
(note the sarcasm).
Well, my wife is off to a show with a friend (girl... giggity). So I get to spend quality time with my best buddies and watch the taped shrek-the-halls, eat ice cream, and party. Party time at the Kuntz household.
Later out there folks,
-K

P.S. More stock stuff to follow next week, I promise.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

See?

Alrighty then! I don't mean to gloat, but talk about CBH pulling through. In the last five days it corrected from the $35 range to nearing $40. Sell at $40, buy at $35-$36. As many times as possible between now and March.
Anyway, another fine pick is NUAN. They are a voice communications company that has deals with Tom-Tom and other card manufacturers. Get this: You can say your destination to the device and it will then map it out. How cool is that? Well, NUAN (Nuance Communications) makes that possible.
Check them out as a buy in the $19 range and a superbuy at the $18 range.
PCU (Southern Copper) looking to make a comeback.

On a completely unrelated topic. Superbad comes out on DVD soon. Buy it, rent it, whatever. Funniest goddamn movie I have seen in a while. I laughed the entire time. It is written from the vantage point of a pubescent-teen-male-just-about-to-graduate-high-school point of view. That explains why my wife wasn't that amused by it. I, however, found Mclovin to be the funniest character since Napolean Dynamite. Kudos to a quality comedy. Perhaps this wasn't the greatest 9-yr. anniversary movie to see.....

Well, nothing much else new around here. Trying to blog and work on a side project of mine own. Not sure of the value of it. Certainly not a quit-your-day-job type of thing. Perhaps it will have no takers. We'll see. I found a need I couldn't fulfill online and decided to make my own. While doing it, decided I could maybe try this out as a thing. Not finished. Got a bit of coding to do.
Let y'all see it when done (whenever the hell that is).

Well, much love to my homies...
-K

P.S. Oil barrel prices drop: XOM makes more money. Watch for record 1Q08 earnings if the price keeps dropping....Good buy? You decide. I vote yes to high dividends and great returns.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Hey

So, buy or hold. I fear the market is on a down turn. And it might last for a while. Warren Buffett recommends ETFs for a reason. Basically, you can buy into a large chunk of stocks and sit on it. (Not figuratively or literally).
For an uninformed investor, guessing timing and which stock is most likely to recover is hard. I can't say. The only real factor here is oil prices that can turn in our favor. All else is not looking good. Housing bad, credit crunch bad, war bad. Our only economical saving grace will be lower oil barrel prices. Some experts think it can happen. Gas Buddy <--Interesting site. Allows you to plot up to 6 yrs. gas price history. Plot the U.s. price vs. oil prices. See how the margin (gap between the lines) pull away very wide lately? That means one of two things: speculation on the price of crude oil is way out of line and large correction will happen soon. (Say yeah for everyone, incl. our economy.) Or it could mean gas at the pump will spike to $4 this winter.(Boo for everyone but the conservationists who will love the drive for green tech.
(Please check out links to Popular Science in previous post for something to hope for)
All in all, stay the course. Nothing has come out to drive things either way. Consumer confidence dip did not substantially impact market today, leading me to believe we are in a temporary plateau.

Otherwise, things are fine for me. Not much new.
Hope all of you reading this are alright!
Amusing Filipino humor

Hang in there for now!
-K

Monday, November 26, 2007

Welcome Back

Hello out there again!
I had a decent Thanksgiving. Thankfully for us we went to my wife's uncle's house for Turkey day. He is an Ear-Nose-Throat Dr. and was able to check out my oldest son's illness. He had strep. After finding a Rite Aid that was open all day on T-Day and getting a 'scrip for amoxocillin, B was on the road to recovery. What a trooper. He was clearly in pain and tired. So he slept a lot during his time off. I have to say, though, that he could've have been much worse for the illness.
As for the rest of the family, we had a good time. I didn't actually eat any turkey,
I had a whole lot of food, though.
Not much else interesting going on. Kind of wish I had some external money coming in from outside, moonlighting type of work. Not sure how that would happen. Things like that don't really find me.
Anyway, the market has been a real bummer. I am fearing that it will get much, much worse before it gets better. I am going to try an bail out of some of my stocks as soon as they see the light of day (a.k.a. a profit, even if small). I fear the U.S. economy is on the way to a recession.
Interesting topic, talk about making money. Usually, before a corporate acquisition, the company being acquired goes through a somewhat predictable cycle. (So does the buyer... we'll get back to that in a moment).
The news hits the street and the company being bought is at say $38/shr. The acquisition specifies a buy-price of $42/shr. Therefore, once can assume that the stock will reach $42 in value. This causes an immediate jump in price to near, but below, the target buy-price. See this graph as an example:
CBH gets bought
Notice the upswing after the acquisition news came out in the beginning of October. So over time CBH falls back in line with the market. But remember, come March when the acquisition happens (and possibly upon the news of the approval by the OCC), the stock will convert to TD Banknorth stock at the equivalent of $42/shr. At a current price of $65/shr. that means you would get somewhere in the ballpark of .65 share of TD per share of CBH. Near the acquisition date, though, the trading price will be pretty close to the sale price.
As an example, see MBNA. Notice that after the large drop (due to them severing more people than expected in March), the stock recovers back to the $21.50/shr. range. Then, after the announcement of the acuisition in June, the stock spikes to near the $26+ acquisition price, dips a little and then closes above $27 around acquisition time. So you can time the buy between the announcement and the actual sale to make a "guaranteed" return. As an example, buy CBH at $35 now and sell prior to the March conversion at $40-$42. Easy money right? It gets sweeter...
Post-conversion the acquiring company always drops. Why? Because of valuations. TD made $4 billion in 2006. If it now has acquired CBH, that means more shares outstanding (based on the above ratio). So, initially, the stock price will plunge as the earnings/shr. looks inordinately low. Over time this will correct itself. See Bank of America's share price around the time of the MBNA acquisition:
MBNA sinks another profit
Notice the large drop around July 1st, when the acquisition went through. (Also notice the recovery by the end of 2005, once merger and speculation details settled out and the profits started to roll in).
Bottom line is this:
1. Buy CBH LONG now at the basement price of $35/shr.
2. Sell CBH LONG at $40-$41 around the end of February, beginning of March
3. Buy TD Banknorth (TD) SHORT around the beginning of March
4. Sell TD Banknorth (TD) SHORT after it's drop has begun (perhaps wait a week or two to maximize profits)
5. Buy TD Banknorth (TD) LONG directly after your SHORT sale.
6. Sell TD Banknorth later, once it has recovered and gone up.

This will net you some $$. Just review the MBNA-BAC merger and others to verify.
Don't know what buying/selling SHORT is? Check this out: Shorting


OK, so enough of that. I am looking into trying out for the Series 7 certification, since I seem to have an interest in investing and providing advice.
Well, have fun out there.
Talk to you all soon!
-K

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Hello

Hey everybody out there.
Not much new. Just looking forward to Turkey-Day. I hope everyone has a good day and a "gobbles" down some food.
Hope all is well out there.
Later,
-K

Saturday, November 17, 2007

If it were me....

So I got the question of where to put a chunk of money in today's market. I will tell you that I was in the same predicament about 2 weeks ago with my rollover from my cbh 401k. Here's the deal:
A lot of people will tell you to invest in the market more as it drops. I think that is a partial truth, as you can never predict accurately the end of the drop. It is a catch 22 in that the prominent folks who put it out there where the end is directly affect the end by influencing people about where the end is. So, if you tell people a stock will go up, it might just do that for the sole reason that people will buy it based on your advice (higher demand=higher price). That's why a lot of people out there can be right about price increases when they are the cause. That is why the SEC has some pretty clear guidelines on public advice and insider trading.
So here's my 2 cents. I took a chunk and invested it in two locations: Diamond Offshore and Target. Why? Because Target is awesome and we all know it and will continue to have shoppers due to its price advantage and friendlier atmosphere than Box-Mart. Diamond offshore books contracts for 10 yrs. providing drilling equipment to large oil companies at around $500,000/day. You do the math. This thing will continue to be a dividend-ATM for years and years. Plus oil will continue to get more and more expensive and harder to find. A boon just happened for the fine country of Brazil:
Brazil finds oil, moves to Beverly Hills
As a result, the deep-sea rigs that only a couple of companies (DO included) can supply will become hot commodities.
Outside of indiv. stocks, which I don't recommend if you do not know how to read a financial statement, don't follow business news, and don't care to, you should consider either specialty funds or exchange-traded-funds (a.k.a. ETFs). Look into iShares, which has a whole series of S&P matching funds based on the lesser S&P indexes. For example, they have growth, aggressive growth, small-cap, etc. based on the S&P categorizations. Let's face it, S&P has been doing this forever and everyone always compares their funds to the S&P. That has to tell you something. No one ever compares to the DJIA, as they are so skewed to manufacturing and American Classic stocks like GM, Ford, etc. (The hell with those guys).
In addition, look for funds that are based off of commodities, like metals, corn (in high demand due to spike in ethanol production), petroleum, and other industrials. In a recession, commodities continue to hold value, particularly gold, since they are tangible goods. I would say that since gold is at a record high, perhaps that should be shied away from. Sure it can go 10 $1000/oz., but it could also fall back to $250/oz, like it did in the early 80's shortly after its last record runnup.
So, depending on where you have your money, choose funds appropriately. If there is a price or load advantage to pick one run by the same company that holds your IRA, that could be a good bet. If not, look to low-cost fund providers like Vanguard, ETFs, and others like Fidelity.
Be cautious of expense ratios as those eat into returns right from the get-go and impact you long term.
Does that help? If you are looking for specific stocks, I like/hold these myself in various accounts and would recommend them:
DO - Diamond Offshore (oil rigs for deep sea exploration)
PCU - Souther Copper (as the name suggests it is mining)
TGT - who doesn't know Target????
BAC - banking without as much sub-prime impact as other large; solid div.s, solid earnings. Hey they are brutal, so you know they rake in the cash
INTC - in price war, but clearly beating up AMD. Look for them around $20 and then buy
XOM - We all know exxon mobil makes more money than anyone. Consistent dividend; oil production development that will yield volume results in the next year to year and a half will increase earnings.
SGP - pharma giant that produces consumer goods out the ying-yang. constant earner and dividend payer


As for ETFs: small cap or aggressive growth (there is overlap here). Because institutions can not invest large amounts of money in small-cap stocks, they are largely for small-time traders like us. Think about it: if a company has a million shares of stock at $25/shr., someone large cannot invest more than $12.5 million without becoming the largest shareholder and as a result literally run the company. Plus, if they buy large quantities of stock in a single run they will drive the price up ridiculously high. So small-caps go untouched because large funds are not in the business of owning companies nor investing small amounts of money. That's where we can play. Do your research, though. Once bitten twice shy for me. I would be cautious with this. It is like gambling, since a small company that folds up generally has no divisible assets left after creditors and you will get nothing.
Shit, that happened to me in 2001 with MCI (worldcom) and they were huge! I couldn't even get the share certificate to use as TP, since the cost to print it would exceed its actual value.

Hope this helps!
-K

P.S. I am not a certified advisor and have no expertise at all. If you listen to me you will lose money. Hope that covers me for my liability ;)!!

Friday, November 16, 2007

Hello there!

Hey,
Van, happy to hear about the kids comin' to town. You will be a happier and healthier spirit for a while. Like having your batteries recharged.
Dave, I know man. Doesn't it seem like you work to live and then live to work? Like some kind of vicious cycle. The great thing about life is the in between. Loving, living, relaxing.
Don't under-estimate the power of a kid-hug.
On other news, turkey days snuck up on me and I am now starting to get excited. It means I can be thankful for surviving another year and had that many more hugs and love to savor.
Nothing to report on the market. It hit a 10-yr low today. wtf?
Well, folks, that's what gambling is all about. Legal or not, right?
Hope all is well out there in the rest of the land.
Couple of fascinating articles about the green-tech wave:
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/green/item_59.html
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/innovator_2.html
These people rock and will change the face of energy in the next 2 years. I just hope an pray big business doesn't get to them first.
Later,
-K

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Sick.

OK, so I got it. And I feel like crap. So it'll be brief tonight before I get some early shut-eye. Baby sick again, wife still sick, and now me. Hangin' in there, but drawback of contracting: nowork=no$. So, I am bearing through as much of the work days as I can fever.
ON another note, worried about damn stove. Made beeping and gave a "fault error". Upon dissection and further inspection, small burnout spot on the inside of the digital display. Translation: use it and endure the incessant beeping or buy the new display (hereto discontinued by the fine folks at Sears) that I found at one single place after googling the 'net. Sounds risky. Beeping isn't that annoying is it?
Who needs a damn stove or range anyway. Nuke the crap.
Well, I need to go rest.
Have fun out there world. Try to blog more later when sane.
-K

P.S. Bad market: big up then big down. I am getting seasick. I think I'll just close my eyes and wait.

P.S.s. Experts >;) are more and more convinced that gas prices will drop, barring an Iran invasion. Some crazy nuts think as much as a 30-40% drop. I wouldn't be surprised if they are right a year from now, but only if Bush doesn't do anything stupid. (I guess you could assume we are doomed)

Perhaps this should be illegal:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=92d_1194493089
as should this:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=76d_1194360708 {Gosh darn funny. Can you make fun of the man, he gets a lot of poon.}

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Hello, common sense, where art thou?

OK:
So nothing much has changed in the economy, but today is a huge up-swing in the market. Is that because of the drop in oil prices? Maybe. But maybe the market is this roller coaster as everyone tries to time the market. Well folks, the downswings in the market have been getting deeper and wider (larger drops and longer depressions).
Why is this? Well, because there is not an infinite amount to be made. For every $ made, someone is losing a $. Common sense. We need to work on the problems with the economy before we hope to make more money overall.
Here are some common sense ways:
1. End the war-gusher. Yes folks, we tapped the jugular here and are pissing away money and more importantly lives. What do we expect will be gained anyway? Love the troops, hate the war.
2. Housing. Let's all buys homes we can afford. Let's afford the homes we have. Elaborate financing is a house of cards. All us sensible people knew that.
3. Cars: fuel efficiency, reasonable sizes, car pools. Those are the ways they did it in the 70s.
4. Stocks. Invest in some stocks that you think will last. Now, one can never see the future on this, but pick solid picks like Target, Exxon Mobil, and others. What about Schering-Plough? They will always sell us their OTC medicines and we will always need them. Good earner.
5. Save, save, save. Nothing beats saving to prevent your default on loans. Having a nest egg at a nice place like ING helps. (Ask me how, I'll send you a link and we'll both earn some $$)
6. Love your job. If you don't try, how can you complain about not getting the money "you deserve". The key to wealth and success is hard work. Less than 10% of the most wealthy Americans made their money through hard work. Particularly the Warren Buffetts, the Bill Gates, and the Steve Jobs.
7. Use your mind and your intellect. Don't impulse shop, don't impulse invest. Both are bad money-losers.

Okay, enough of that. Hard day. Everybody is recovering from sicknesses in the family and I had to mow the lawn in the dark. It needed it. It had been 9 weeks! Then running around for dinner and stuff. I am tired, tired, tired. But, need to push on 'cause there is too much to do.
Well, I'll add to this later (if I find the time.)
Hope all are well out there in the real world!
Big hello to all my buds and any wandering eyes out there.

Thanks for listenening!
-K

Big picks coming through this week: bank stocks! (Told you.) Expect more from them. Look to big commodity earners like RIG, DO, XOM, and PCU. They are big earners and paying large dividends.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Virus


So, This weekend was extremely tiring. 80% of the fam was sick, incl. me. My infant started us off on Wed. last week, then it was my 4 yo on Thursday, then my wife on Sat. night. Meantime, I have been fighting off the fevers and cold stuff. I am not allowed to be sick, as someone has to take care of the others. Miraculously, my 6 yo didn't get sick yet. My baby is almost fully recovered and the 4 yo is on the mend. But my wife had a 101.4 today on the ear thermo. That left me running around doing all the normal 2-person tasks. I am pretty damn tired.
All that running around just reminds me how hard it must be for single mothers or fathers. How dare the republican right laid into single mothers in the late 80's. You try wiping your baby's ass while carrying your feverish 40 lb. 4 yo in your arms, all while sporting your own fever. Not too easy. I can't imagine how it must be. 'Course I had to take care of the wife as well. My oldest helped me clean the play room, his bedroom, and (god bless him) he tried to sponge the table off as well.
I rewarded him with his favorite special treat: three musketeers bars. He helped me make it through the weekend and even went online, printed, and colored a get well sign for his mommy. How nice is he? Better than me. I didn't do anything super special for her.....
Well, a new work week begins. This one will be interesting I suppose. I am really hoping that I get picked up full time. We'll see. Last week was bad for the stock market :( But I am holding for now and have either commodities-based stocks (gas, oil, copper, etc.), target (LOVE Target!!!), and some banking. YES, banking! You watch these banks make their money back without breaking a stride or lowering a dividend. How? Easy: someone will be financing the foreclosures, the purchases of the foreclosures, and the forclosed-people's new homes. It will end up evening out in the end. Good time to get in on some all-around banking funds or ETF's to avoid any single source of risk. Need a cheap place to start? Check out ING. Email me and find out how you and I can make money by you opening an account. Low auto-investment downpayment and low continual contribution. Cost of bring lunch vs. eating out for a month. Good stuff.
Well, that's all for now. For anyone out there reading this: hang in there. Love you all. Ya, I do!

For now,
-K

Monday, November 5, 2007

Hello again


Hello again out there!
How's it going. Fun weekend. We had some final soccer games for the kids, some birthday parties, and other fun this weekend. It was pretty crazy, but in a nice way.
This upcoming weekend will be crazy too, as we're taking the family to B'more for a engagement party. It will be nice, though, that the in-laws will be there to assist with the kids. That makes it easier for me to enjoy the basics: eating, talking, socializing.
As for the week, it will be an interesting one. Many deliverables this week at work and of course the people who need to provide me stuff are late. Isn't that always the way it is?
I like the talk to my old CBH friends. I miss everybody there. I cannot say I miss the commute, gas prices, tolls, etc. But I miss the folks I worked hard with over the last 2+ years of my life. I am much less stressed out at this job and I LOVE picking up and dropping off the kids. Very fulfilling to me.
And I guess that is what it is all about, huh?
Stock market down this week, but no worries. It is all about people worried about banks. Well folks: banks will recover. Remember, they have money, they make money, and they acquire money. They will be fine. Amazes me to think that some of the larger ones are losing $11 BB in bad debt. That is more than everybody you know will ever make. And they will lose it and bounce back. Amazing. Sometimes you have to wonder how the f these banks got so large in the first place.
Hey, it is there fault for extending risky loans and the consumer's fault for taking them. If everybody lived within their means, there wouldn't be any problem now.
Anyway, enough of the ramblings.
Check out the picture above. Me looking kinds of homely, getting a hug from my little guy.
Well, that's all for now.
-K

Friday, November 2, 2007

Halloween


Hello out there trick-or-treaters, sorry for the delay.
Halloween was fun, though I missed Brendan and Mateo's parade at school. I had a moved conf. call that unfortunately made me miss. One other side-effect of only being a contractor.
So, my wife took the kids (all 3) and I stayed home to hand out candy. I got to read about a third of Cell by Stephen King, which is a book more back to his horror-movie type of roots. So, on Halloween night, that was a treat. I was surprised by the sheer number of 12-15 yr. olds who were out treatin'. They were mostly nice, though some of the kids were "hootin and hollerin" as they walked down the street. No matter, though, they weren't paperin' and weren't eggin' so it could be so much worse I suppose. Didn't get that many overall treaters' so I got some good reading done. (and sampled some candy.... to ensure freshness).

Work was okay, got some spread for helpin' out a friend on the side. That was nice. I like moonlighting quite a bit. Wish I could get more. To quote the Wedding Singer: "No, sir, I have no experience but I'm a big fan of money. I like it, I use it, I have a little. I keep it in a jar on top of my refrigerator. I'd like to put more in that jar. That's where you come in."

Well, there's like only two people who read this. So Hi Dave and Hi Van. Funny that you are both CBH folks. Hope all is well out there. Hang in there both of you. I know you are both going through hard times in different ways, but remember this: "Keep your pecker hard and your powder dry and the world will turn." (anyone know that one. from one of my top 10 movies of all time --see below)

It's gotta be true. How could it not???

Miss you guys.
(Go Broncos!)
-K


My top 8 action/warmovies in no particular order. Its hard to rank greatness on this scale and only 8, not 10 because its late and I'm tired....:

* Pulp Fiction What now? Let me tell you what now. I’ma call a coupla hard, pipe-hittin’ {fellas}, who’ll go to work on the homes here with a pair of pliers and a blow torch. You hear me talkin’, hillbilly boy? I ain’t through with you by a damn sight. I’ma get medieval on your ass.
* Platoon (yeah, that's the one above.)
* Tombstone I'm your Huckleberry. Why, that's just my game.
* Apocolypse Now I love the smell of napalm in the morning..... .....smells like victory
* Goodfellas The way I see it: everybody's gotta take a beating sometime.
* Full Metal Jacket The deadliest weapon in the world is a marine and his rifle. It is your killer instinct which must be harnessed if you expect to survive in combat. Your rifle is only a tool. It is a hard heart that kills. If your killer instincts are not clean and strong you will hesitate at the moment of truth. You will not kill. You will become dead marines. And then you will be in a world of shit. Because marines are not allowed to die without permission! Do you maggots understand?
* Black Hawk Down "When I get home and people ask me,'Hey, Hoot, why do you do it, man? What are you? Some kind of war junkie? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you. And that's it. That's all it is."
* Gladiator Today I saw a slave become more powerful than the Emperor of Rome.

More top 10 lists to come. 'night!