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Driven to Succeed
This is a private website founded in memory of Claire Dahl, business entrepreneur, artist, wife, mother, and catechist. Establishing the CLARAROSEDAHL SCHOLARSHIP FUND
Nobody ever receives a bill for their treatment
Nobody is going to manage your money the way you do. Manage your own money. This website will provide comprehensive and sophisticated viewpoints on investing. Each individual should look to many different sources before making their own decisions.
Investment Principles
DIVERSIFIED PORTFOLIOS / Market Updates below
Most people will follow this rule. Buying stocks covering different sectors of the market. For example, the bank stocks, the tech stocks, defense stocks, energy, and healthcare. All stocks will be affected by internal and external events. The mindset is when one sector goes down the other will go up. You can have bonds, stocks, and cash (fixed income). Finding a good brokerage firm, opening up your own account, and managing your own money, is what you should be focused on. There are many brokerage firms to choose from, Charles Schwab, Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, and others, most now are commission free. Every company has their own particular software or trading platform. They are all usually user friendly. When opening an account you can utilize their software by setting up a stock watchlist that you can view in realtime. Then you can familiarize yourself with buying and selling securities and start building a portfolio, whether it be stocks, bonds, CD's or other assets. There is so much competition that most of the time you can call them and they will help you through some of their software applications.
ASSET ALLOCATION AND RISK MANAGEMENT
Investing is a state of mind. It takes alot of discipline. The general rule is to buy when there is a correction or pullback in the market. Most investors will never buy when the market is overvalued. They will wait, for however long it takes. So when choosing an entry point be aware of how much volatility you can handle. Make sure there is enough capital available to add to the portfolio when there are corrections in the market. It is important to have money in fixed income such as bonds or CD's. Look at different sectors of the market and see which companies offer dividends, so you are generating income while your stocks are going up. The FANG stocks, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google have high valuations, no dividends, and are extremely volatile, but they will continue to grow. Another alternative is Electronic Traded Funds (ETF)'s which are in reality a type of diversified portfolio ready made. A specific ETF will hold multiple stocks in a specific sector. For example, the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) div $5.62 per sh per yr. holds most stocks listed on the S&P 500. The only drawback is if one stock goes down, it can bring the rest of the fund's valuation down.
STOCK MARKET RESEARCH
Earnings reports, dividend dates, upgrades, and downgrades can be catalysts for the market, and it is important to be aware of these factors. There are many websites that provide information. I personally like the, New York Times, Wall St Journal, CNBC.com, Bloomberg Technology, Stocktwits, Motley Fool, Seeking Alpha.com (News), Yahoo Finance and Cheddar TV. Also, RTT News (Business) Click on calendar, will give the latest updates on buybacks, earnings reports, and so forth. It is important to note that earnings dates can change even last minute, so one must have access to the latest updates. I have been involved in investing for years now and there are 4 people I would like to recommend. They have all written books and are usually right on the mark, involving financials only: 1) Warren Buffet, Suzie Orman, Jim Cramer, Kevin O'Leary and Marcus Lemonis.
LONG TERM GROWTH
Markets are cyclical. There may be a few years when it may be a bear market where you can accumulate shares, so that finally when a bull market appears you can reap the benefits. Some people in this scenario may trim the portfolio and take some profits. If you are in for a long term investment it may be wise to hold on over time and collect the dividends. Purchasing dividend yielding securities by gradually accumulating them over time, when there are pullbacks. Each quarter you should be examining your portfolio and making the proper adjustments.
WALL STREET GLOSSARY
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) which was founded in 1792 is located at 11 Wall Street, N.Y.C. In the 1980's with the advent of electronic trading it became necessary to build two centers across the Hudson in New Jersey. 1) The NYSE Data Center in Mahwah, is where many Wall Street transactions take place. A majority of the trading handled by computers. 2) The Equinix NY4 Data Center in Secaucus, is a large scale complex, handling millions of servers, representing 49 exchanges, trillions of dollars in equity, with the ability to connect globally. The Nasdaq is located at One Liberty Plaza, N.Y.C. Alot of people get this confused with the Nasdaq Market which is located at 4 Times Square, where only their commercial offices and TV studios are located. Acronyms: 1)The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is an index which measures the stock performance of 30 large companies on the U.S. Stock Exchange. 2)The S&P 500 Index measures 500 large companies on the U.S. exchange. 3)The National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Exchange (NASDAQ) relatively new (1971) established electronic trading through an automated network of computers instead of the trading floor. 4) Blue Chip stocks get their name from the highest valued chips in a poker game. These are large, financially sound, multinational companies, dominant in their industry, usually offering dividends. 5)The Chicago Board Option Exchange (CBOE) Volatility Index (VIX) calculates expected price fluctuations in the S&P 500 over 30 days. A low current VIX usually indicates strong volatility, followed by a selloff. 6) Price to Earnings ratio (PE) is the current stock price divided by its earnings per share. Often on CNBC you will hear them say a stock is trading 20X earnings, this means it has a P/E ratio of 20. If a stock is $40 and its earnings are $2.00 per share, its trading at 20 times earnings. (PEG) factors growth in the equation. It reflects forward times earnings. As of this date 1/17/20 Apple's (AAPL) P/E ratio is 26.60. 7) An Advanced Depository Receipt (ADR) is a receipt issued by a U.S. Depository Bank representing a number of shares invested in a foreign company. This enables you to purchase foreign stocks not traded on the U.S exchange. A U.S. bank serves as an intermediary and charges an ADR management fee, most times quarterly. For example, if you buy a stock such as Alibaba (BABA) which is a Chinese company, a U.S. bank will charge an ADR fee once a year to administer the holding. This fee is relatively a small percentage of your shares and does not outweigh the dividends or profits you are making. 8) Initial Public Offering (IPO) The first day a private company offers shares on the stock market to raise more capital. 9) Capital Gains Tax This is a tax that is levied on any profit from the sale of shares. Short term is if you hold on to the shares for less than a year. This will be taxed as ordinary income. Long term is for more than a year, and can run 15% to 20%. This is based on your income. If you sell some shares at a loss you can use this amount to offset your gains on your tax returns. I will be referring to some of these terms in my future updates.
JUNE 2024
STOCK RECOMMENDATIONS
.STZ JPM NEE RTX AAPL (MA) (MSFT) (FB) (PYPL) (AMZN) (V) /(NVDA) On March 16, 2019 I published my stock recommendations, if you added them to your portfolio, you are doing well. Microsoft (MSFT) March/2019 $112 to December/2020 $222 - dividend $2.04 up, now $2.24 per share, per yr. UTX merged with Raytheon Technologies (RTX), $57 to $71, div $2.94 now $1.90. Apple (AAPL) had a 4 for 1 stock split on 8-28-20, up $176 to $132 - div $3.08 up, to 82 cents, Visa (V) up $150 to $218 - div $1.20 up $1.28 per yr, Mastercard (MA) up $224 to $356 - div $1.32 up, now $1.76, Nextera Energy (NEE) had a 4 for 1 stock split up $188 to $77 - div. $5.00 to $1.40, J.P. Morgan (JPM) up $103 to $127 - div $3.60, Nvidia (NVDA) up $160 to $522 - div .64 cents. Constellation Brands (STZ) Jan/20 $193, Dec/20 $219 div $3.00. Stocks without dividends. Facebook (FB) up $169 to $273. Alphabet (GOOGL) up $1,150 to $1,752 Amazon (AMZN) up $1,686 to $3,256, Salesforce (CRM) $159 to $222. Alibaba (BABA) (ADR) up $176 to $232. PayPal (PYPL) Jan/20 $112, Dec/20 $234. If your invested hold on to what you have. You have to ride out the volatility. You have to manage your risk appropriately. So with any type of volatility, you can feel secure with your well balanced portfolio. My recommendations have good business models, high growth, low risk, low debt, and cash rich balance sheets. So you can add them to your portfolio in small increments.