Did I get your attention? Good! Because what I am posting is quite important. I briefly heard last week a report on CNBC about the net worth of the members of congress. The headline for them was about the how many members were in the top 1%. Since I am not one to rely on my memory to give the accurate details, I found a USA Today article that reflects that story on CNBC. The title of the article is 57 members of Congress among wealthy 1%.
Now that statistic may be considered interesting, but I personally wasn't all that impressed. The one that really caught my attention blows a whole in the assumption that I made in my August 8, 2011 post entitled August 2011 Budget Bill: Where the US Government Went Wrong and reiterated again in my October 11, 2011 post entitled Again, Why Politicians Should Take a Pay Cut.
Apparently not all politicians are well off, but 5% of them are financially STUPID! Out of the 530 members of congress, 28 of them have a net worth of 0 or less. That's right! When you take the value of their assets and subtract their liabilities, the result is that they are not even treading water. Of these 28 members of congress, 4 are breaking even and the rest are drowning in debt. One is even over $4 million in the hole. That's right! $4 MILLION. And of all people, it is Democrat Alcee Hastings of Florida. But don't get too proud Republican readers. First runner up is Republican Stephen Fincher of Tennessee, with over $3 million.
To round out these statistics, let me mention that 12 of these fiscal idiots are Republicans and 16 are Democrats. I was actually surprised to see any Republicans this low in the list considering their mountain top cry for fiscal responsibility. Taking this into consideration, I don't see how anyone can side with one party or another about achieving fiscal responsibility. With only a marginal deviation, both sides of the aisle are equally inept about fiscal issues. And then today, the Super Committee "throws in the towel" in regards to coming up with a plan. Just sad.
My opinion, congresses first step should be to eliminate their own dead weight. Drop the bottom 28 members of congress and make it IMPOSSIBLE for a fiscally irresponsible person to even run for congress. They are a waist of tax payer money. Then they can take the pay cut I previously mentioned.
That is my opinion, you can take it or leave it.
Disclaimer: See bottom of page. http://investorsopinion.blogspot.com
Monday, November 21, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Portfolio Update
It has been way too long since my last post, and there is a lot to cover. So without further ado, I will get right into it.
As a result of all the European debt issues, on November 4th I STC my position of CPLP call options I BTO on October 20th. The result was a loss of ~57%. Since then, CPLP has continued to decline, and I sold my entire position on November 15th. That sale resulted in a loss of ~39%, not taking into account any of the dividends I received in the past or the dividend I received on November 16th. After doing that I continued looking at the chart for CPLP and it is channeling slightly to the upside. I might consider buying a couple Call options slightly out of the money and way out in time and wait to see if there is one of those pops that CPLP has done in the past. But at the same time, I finally learned what it means to compare PEG ratios, and apparently CPLP is over priced. So with this new knowledge, I found a couple of really "cheap" stocks in comparison that also pay dividends, GLNG and TDW.
Back on October 14th, I rolled an AAPL Call option to a higher strike price that profited me enough that I would be playing with the houses money. On November 7th I rolled this option out for another month, but unfortunately AAPL has been on the decline. Right now the AAPL Call option I own is almost worthless. At this point only a little of the profit from the original AAPL Call option position remains. I don't think I will be doing anymore rolling of this option. If it does not start rebounding, I will accept the loss.
On November 16th, I BTO positions in IWM and GLD. The plan with these is to build up positions that reflect the four asset classes. IWM for the broad market of stocks, GLD for gold, and in time, with the execution of my open order that is still pending a lower price, TLT for long term treasury bonds. The forth asset class is cash which remains in my account for the purpose of selling put options against. This is an imitation of the American Asset Management investment portfolio owned by Julian Rubinstein. And if I can hold to my plan, I should be able to produce better than his 9% a year track record.
Finally, on November 18th, I sold my lossing position in DWA. The final result of this was a loss of ~43%. As was mentioned with CPLP, I found out that the PEG for DWA indicated that it was over priced. On top of that the expectation I had that people would spend more time in theaters than traveling was too ambitious in these turbulent times. However, my research did reveal that there are two stocks in the same industry that are doing well, CNK and RGC. These two are the theaters that DWA movies play in. Despite the disappointing attendance in comparison to previous years, they both have nicer earnings than DWA. On top of that, they both pay a dividend. I might take a position in either or both stocks at some time in the future.
That is my opinion, you can take it or leave it. Disclaimer: See bottom of page. http://investorsopinion.blogspot.com
AAPL - Apple Inc.
BTO - buy-to-open/bought-to-open
CNK - Cinemark Holdings Inc
CPLP - Capital Product Partners, LP
DWA - Dreamworks Animation SKG
GLD - SPDR Gold Trust
GLNG - Golar LNG Ltd.
IWM - Ishares Russell 2000
PEG - Price-to-Equity by Growth Rate ratio
RGC - Regal Entertainment Group
"rolled" - (rolling) - to sell-to-close one position and buy-to-open another position in the same group of options to take profit or extend risk.
TDW - Tidewater Inc.
STC - sell-to-close/sold-to-close
As a result of all the European debt issues, on November 4th I STC my position of CPLP call options I BTO on October 20th. The result was a loss of ~57%. Since then, CPLP has continued to decline, and I sold my entire position on November 15th. That sale resulted in a loss of ~39%, not taking into account any of the dividends I received in the past or the dividend I received on November 16th. After doing that I continued looking at the chart for CPLP and it is channeling slightly to the upside. I might consider buying a couple Call options slightly out of the money and way out in time and wait to see if there is one of those pops that CPLP has done in the past. But at the same time, I finally learned what it means to compare PEG ratios, and apparently CPLP is over priced. So with this new knowledge, I found a couple of really "cheap" stocks in comparison that also pay dividends, GLNG and TDW.
Back on October 14th, I rolled an AAPL Call option to a higher strike price that profited me enough that I would be playing with the houses money. On November 7th I rolled this option out for another month, but unfortunately AAPL has been on the decline. Right now the AAPL Call option I own is almost worthless. At this point only a little of the profit from the original AAPL Call option position remains. I don't think I will be doing anymore rolling of this option. If it does not start rebounding, I will accept the loss.
On November 16th, I BTO positions in IWM and GLD. The plan with these is to build up positions that reflect the four asset classes. IWM for the broad market of stocks, GLD for gold, and in time, with the execution of my open order that is still pending a lower price, TLT for long term treasury bonds. The forth asset class is cash which remains in my account for the purpose of selling put options against. This is an imitation of the American Asset Management investment portfolio owned by Julian Rubinstein. And if I can hold to my plan, I should be able to produce better than his 9% a year track record.
Finally, on November 18th, I sold my lossing position in DWA. The final result of this was a loss of ~43%. As was mentioned with CPLP, I found out that the PEG for DWA indicated that it was over priced. On top of that the expectation I had that people would spend more time in theaters than traveling was too ambitious in these turbulent times. However, my research did reveal that there are two stocks in the same industry that are doing well, CNK and RGC. These two are the theaters that DWA movies play in. Despite the disappointing attendance in comparison to previous years, they both have nicer earnings than DWA. On top of that, they both pay a dividend. I might take a position in either or both stocks at some time in the future.
That is my opinion, you can take it or leave it. Disclaimer: See bottom of page. http://investorsopinion.blogspot.com
AAPL - Apple Inc.
BTO - buy-to-open/bought-to-open
CNK - Cinemark Holdings Inc
CPLP - Capital Product Partners, LP
DWA - Dreamworks Animation SKG
GLD - SPDR Gold Trust
GLNG - Golar LNG Ltd.
IWM - Ishares Russell 2000
PEG - Price-to-Equity by Growth Rate ratio
RGC - Regal Entertainment Group
"rolled" - (rolling) - to sell-to-close one position and buy-to-open another position in the same group of options to take profit or extend risk.
TDW - Tidewater Inc.
STC - sell-to-close/sold-to-close
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