Investment 101

Not a bad week, but not a good one either. Market had a good week and I posted a slightly worse then market week. Had I not increased my cash position I would have matched the S&P 500 or beat it slightly. I need to add a new position and lower my cash position, haven't figured out what yet.

1/29/2006

S&P 500 - up 1.76%
Nasdaq - up 2.52%
DJIA - up 2.25%
Me -up 1.71%

No changes in this week's holdings.

Current Balance - $9,812,363

Well that was a crappy start!

S&P 500 - down 2.03%
NASDAQ - down 2.99%
DJIA - down 2.67%
Me - down 3.52%

Here's the changes, I'm dropping both banks and adding Walmart and Clorox. Reduced my shares of Apple, Volvo and Toyota. Increased my shares of Altria and Apache. Also increased my cash position.

Current Holdings

Cash - $1,124,788

APA - 16000 - 1,185,440
CVX - 16000 - 977,920

CWTR - 45000 - 909,000

NUVO - 20000 - 311,400
AAPL - 5500 - 418,495
INTC - 25000 - 544,000

MO - 18000 - 1,347,120

VOLVY - 16000 - 740,640
TM - 7000 - 717,920

WMT - 15000 - 675,000
CLX - 12000 - 696,000

Total - 9,647,723

Drastic times call for drastic measures. With the impending Fed rate hike and missed earnings this week, I may have to shift some of my holdings around. If I scale back and go more conservative in the short term, I'll be looking to add some or all of YCC, CLX and WMT. Will probably reduce my stake in COF, DB, INTC and one of the automakers.

and brace yourself! This could be a horrific day on Wall Street, the Nikkei dropped like a rock last night and IBM, Intel and Yahoo all announced they missed earnings. This could get ugly. Yes, Intel is INTC, so Stock Market 1, Brad 0. Analysts are predicting anywhere from a 4-10% near-term downswing in the market, I assume this is 1st quarter this year.

Many important companies are reporting 4th quarter earnings this week. Fed Res meets soon and speculation is they will raise rates now and possibly in March. Got to figure out if this is good or bad for banks? I am assuming bad. A portion of my holdings are banks, but Deutche Bank and Capitol One should be hit less by Fed Rate changes then most other banks. Deutche Bank is German and Capitol One is known for having higher lending standards then most credit card companies and therefore maintain lower interest rates.

Did a little work over the weekend and have come up with my initial holdings. One rule that I did not point out earlier, is that I will not own more then 3% of the outstanding shares of any company.

Indexes closing prices as of 1/13/06:

S&P500 - 1287.61
Nasdaq - 2317.04
DJIA - 10959.87


My Holdings 1/15/2006
Symbol - Price - Shares - Total $

Cash - $582,863.00

APA - 71.37 - 14000 - $999,180.00
CVX - 60.36 - 16000 - $965,760.00

DB - 103.69 - 7300 - $756,937.00
COF - 86.64 - 9000 - $779,760.00

CWTR - 32.56 - 30000 - $976,800.00

NUVO - 15.42 - 20000 - $308,400.00
AAPL - 85.59 - 11000 - $941,490.00
INTC - 25.79 - 25000 - $644,750.00

MO - 76.44 - 13500 - $1,031,940.00

VOLVY - 48.80 - 22000 - $1,073,600.00
TM - 104.28 - 9000 - $938,520.00

Total - $10,000,000.00

And we are off! I am planning on expanding into more small cap stocks, but have not had the time recently to research them, so for now we stick to mostly the big boys.

Well, I forgot my username and password for this blog as I went to log in today and realized that I hadn't written it down. The survey is out and I have received a few responses so far. Thank you to anyone who has responded.

I am starting to do some research on companies for this blog and will have my initial positions posted before tradng begins on Monday. My positions will be based on Friday's closing price as well as the portfolios comparison to the benchmark indices.

Within this blog I will mention what I have personally bought and sold for my personal account and whether I took a gain/loss.

Week of 1/9/06

Bought - AXP and CWTR
Sold - VOLVY(gain), BBY(gain) and CQB(loss)

If you are reading this post, then you have probably received an email from me with my 2006 Investment Survey. I am sending out the survey today to at least 12 lucky participants. Hopefully I will receive responses within a week and will be able to post statistics from the survey here. Obviously, the survey is anonymous to everyone except me and any information will be treated as confidential.

What to expect in this blog!!!

I will start with an account balance of $10 million and update my holdings weekly. At the bottom of the update will be an account balance, % gain/loss and comparison to the 3 major indices. S&P 500, DJIA and NASDAQ

In the future, with the help of my friend Pete and if I start doing well, hopefully there will be a podcast available ;)