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Greetings From Venice

 

From a secret beach location, I bring you this authentic piece of sunny, spicy, and hip, Venice Beach, California.

 

I’m going to put some thoughts and comments on investing here because I’ve been thinking about how the landscape is changing for the small investor. The Internet that is supposed to be the great equalizer is still a place where the little guppies mostly get pushed around, by the bigger fish. Most of the valuable business information around is within the walled gardens that are either too expensive for, or plain inaccessible to, the small investor. One good place to start is http://www.investopedia.com.

 
March 19

Short bank stocks

If the President, (particularly this one, but any POTUS) feels the need to come on TV like Bush did last week, and tell me that the economy is better than some people are saying…  Well, I’m just saying that I think the only thing we can be sure of is that the economy is much worse then what people are saying…

Now this week Bear Stearns goes down.  I'll short GS, because I think it's going ot $80...



4:34 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

January 18

Cabin Deworsification

I recently purchased a cabin in the mountains of Southern California.  Now before you start saying to yourself, "A cabin is not an investment and has no place in a portfolio", I didn't buy the place to make money.  No, the cabin is not an investment in the traditional sense.  Readers and followers of the "Rich Dad" books and games will correctly identify the cabin as a liability rather then an asset.   I'll discuss the motivations and rationale for the cabin another time.

 

 I have a full-time, regular day job.  I have a nice, but not huge, portfolio of Stocks, Bonds, Mutual Funds, Bond Funds, and ETFs.  Meanwhile, the cabin is Real Estate, and it does compete with dollars that I could have otherwise spent elsewhere.   I do intend to diversify into investment Real Estate...  and the cabin will no doubt divert at least some of my attention from that.  The cabin, I should mention, was a real fixer that's only about 70% done.

 

What has me thinking about this was a recent showing of an old home in my area that has been converted to a duplex.  The whole house needs restoration before it's really habitable.  After the walk through with my agent, I mentioned that restoring the old structure could be fun, and if the price was right, the potential was there.  Mrs. Shred turned to me and said "So what are you saying?   You've grown tired of the cabin before it's done?  Now you want to move on to another project?”   So that got me thinking, "Am I deworsifying my portfolio by having the cabin?"  Deworsification is a concept that I've borrowed from Peter Lynch.  He describes it as a company spending its excess cash on ill-advised acquisitions rather then dividend payouts or stock repurchases.



4:28 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)


 

Valueline has an interesting article on chasing Private Equity targets at http://www.valueline.com/news/fund070130cw.html


Visit our friends at:
http://www.play20in30.com

 

 Shred

VeniceBeachSand.com

 

info@venicebeachsand.com

 

I'm at the beach anyway right now, so the best way to reach me is to come on down the boardwalk, stroll along the playa.  We're here somewhere, where the cerveza's cold, the air is crisp, and cops are hassling the street vendors.  Bring your bikes, blades, and boards, and we'll see you here.


 

Checkout Blackle.  Keep in mind that small changes can have a large impact when spread out over vast audiences.  Google get's revenue from lots of eyeballs, but doesn't charge or pay much per eyeball.  Stands to reason that a small savings in energy for each one of those eyeballs could add up to great things too:
 
http://www.blackle.com/about/
Saving energy one search at a time

The problems of the small business person extend to the general area of conducting business as well. Once are that the internet can help you catch up in is in drafting routine business agreements and contracts. Say you need a Stock Purchase Agreement, an Executive Employment Agreement, or a Royalty Agreement for your business. You could pay a lawyer, but that’s expensive and time consuming. Small law offices may not have access to same resources as the larger ones, so the bill will include more time for research and drafting. Large law firms are an option, but they’re expensive, and it’s hard to get the attention of the really experienced attorneys.
 

 

 

check this out:

 
Xobni is inboX spelled backwards.  I'm still testing this, but I've found that's it's a great way to tease out interesting connections between mail 'conversations' and contacts. 

Finding Business Documents
One great source of documents is the SEC. There are hundreds of thousands of documents in the SEC archives that have been filed as part of the public record. You can browse much of this info at www.edgaronline.com. The problem is that the documents there are sorted by company and are buried within the mandatory filings. There are ways around that, and I'd start with www.findlaw.com.
 
Many of these documents have been written by large and respected law firms. These can be used as a jumping off point that can save you hundreds or thousands of dollars. Get the document, modify it to fit your situation, and then send to your attorney for review. Documents like this can be used as competitive research as well. Imagine how being able to see the types of terms that the other company is willing to accept might ease the negotiations a bit.

 


Checkout www.edgaronline.com for access to these documents


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