Illuminati Investments

Systematic Corruption

2011-12-06T09:23:00.000-08:00

At what dollar-value would you sell your ethics?

Inside Job (2010) - the systemic corruption of the United States

Barbarians at the Gate: The leveraged buyout (LBO) of RJR Nabisco

2011-11-27T05:26:00.000-08:00

Barbarians at the Gate: F. Ross Johnson, the CEO of RJR Nabisco decides that the time is ripe to take over his own company and enlists American Express. This kicks off a tide of other firms swarming in to tender offers. The outline of the film follows the actual takeover of the RJR Nabisco empire in a tongue in cheek way.

What Does Leveraged Buyout - LBO Mean?
The acquisition of another company using a significant amount of borrowed money (bonds or loans) to meet the cost of acquisition. Often, the assets of the company being acquired are used as collateral for the loans in addition to the assets of the acquiring company. The purpose of leveraged buyouts is to allow companies to make large acquisitions without having to commit a lot of capital.

Investopedia explains Leveraged Buyout - LBO
In an LBO, there is usually a ratio of 90% debt to 10% equity. Because of this high debt/equity ratio, the bonds usually are not investment grade and are referred to as junk bonds. Leveraged buyouts have had a notorious history, especially in the 1980s when several prominent buyouts led to the eventual bankruptcy of the acquired companies. This was mainly due to the fact that the leverage ratio was nearly 100% and the interest payments were so large that the company's operating cash flows were unable to meet the obligation.

Too Big to FAIL - Blast from the past

2011-11-27T03:12:00.001-08:00

"Too big to fail" is a colloquial term in regulation and public policy that refers to businesses dealing with market complications related to moral hazard, macroeconomics, economic specialization, and monetary theory.

According to this theory, certain financial institutions are so large and so interconnected that their failure will be disastrous to an economy. Proponents of this theory believe that these institutions should become recipients of beneficial financial and economic policies from government central banks to keep them alive.

Stealth Marketing

2011-11-14T06:49:00.000-08:00

THE JONESES

An awesome marketing movie. The Joneses work for LifeImage Enterprises, a stealth marketing company.

So, the Best Animated Business TV Show is…

2011-11-14T06:46:00.000-08:00

South Park Season 13 Episode 3,Margaritaville

Simply a better version of Wall Street 2

Goldman Sachs Global Rage Fund

2011-11-13T11:38:00.000-08:00

Dear Investor:
Up until now, Goldman Sachs ($GS) has been silent on the subject of the protest movement known as Occupy Wall Street. That does not mean, however, that it has not been very much on our minds. As thousands have gathered in Lower Manhattan, passionately expressing their deep discontent with the status quo, we have taken note of these protests. And we have asked ourselves this question:

How can we make money off them?

The answer is the newly launched Goldman Sachs Global Rage Fund, whose investment objective is to monetize the Occupy Wall Street protests as they spread around the world. At Goldman, we recognize that the capitalist system as we know it is circling the drain – but there’s plenty of money to be made on the way down. The Rage Fund will seek out opportunities to invest in products that are poised to benefit from the spreading protests, from police batons and barricades to stun guns and forehead bandages. Furthermore, as clashes between police and protesters turn ever more violent, we are making significant bets on companies that manufacture replacements for broken windows and overturned cars, as well as the raw materials necessary for the construction and incineration of effigies.

It would be tempting, at a time like this, to say “Let them eat cake.” But at Goldman, we are actively seeking to corner the market in cake futures. We project that through our aggressive market manipulation, the price of a piece of cake will quadruple by the end of 2011.

Please contact your Goldman representative for a full prospectus. As the world descends into a Darwinian free-for-all, the Goldman Sachs Rage Fund is a great way to tell the protesters, “Occupy this.” We haven’t felt so good about something we’ve sold since our souls.

Sincerely,
Lloyd Blankfein
Chairman, Goldman Sachs

Freakonomics

2011-11-11T11:18:00.000-08:00

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime? Published in 2005, Freakonomics became an instant worldwide cultural phenomenon, and spent more than two years in hardcover on the N.Y. Times best-seller list. It has sold more than 4 million copies and has been translated into 35 languages.

Haven't read it yet? Don't worry. Here's the documentary.

Interested in business movies? If yes, click here; if no click here, if indifferent, click here

Binary Options Trading

2011-11-08T01:27:00.000-08:00

Binary options trading is an exciting way people with limited capital have been able to make money in the stock market.

A binary option is a type of option where the payoff is either some fixed amount of some asset or nothing at all. The two main types of binary options are the cash-or-nothing binary option and the asset-or-nothing binary option. The cash-or-nothing binary option pays some fixed amount of cash if the option expires in-the-money while the asset-or-nothing pays the value of the underlying security. Thus, the options are binary in nature because there are only two possible outcomes. They are also called all-or-nothing options, digital options (more common in forex/interest rate markets), and Fixed Return Options (FROs) (on the American Stock Exchange). Binary options are usually European-style options.

For example, a purchase is made of a binary cash-or-nothing call option on XYZ Corp's stock struck at $100 with a binary payoff of $1000. Then, if at the future maturity date, the stock is trading at or above $100, $1000 is received. If its stock is trading below $100, nothing is received.

For a Binary Options Trading Tutorial, click here.

Oh My That's AWESOME

2011-11-06T11:21:00.000-08:00

Innovation

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought." — Albert von Szent-Gyorgy

http://www.ohmythatsawesome.com/

what is sleepyhead?

2011-11-06T10:57:00.000-08:00

Sleepyhead: Motion Doodle

sleepyhead helps you:

fall asleep faster
sleep sounder
wake up refreshed

The network of global corporate control

2011-10-26T10:25:00.000-07:00

Abstract

The structure of the control network of transnational corporations affects global market competition and financial stability. So far, only small national samples were studied and there was no appropriate methodology to assess control globally. We present the first investigation of the architecture of the international ownership network, along with the computation of the control held by each global player. We find that transnational corporations form a giant bow-tie structure and that a large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions.This core can be seen as an economic “super-entity” that raises new important issues both for researchers and policy makers.

5 Shocking Rules for Investing in Today's Volatile Market

2011-10-26T09:59:00.000-07:00

The 5 Rules

Rule #1: Why you shouldn’t buy any stock in the S&P 500 index!

Rule #2: Why you must ignore the asset allocation rules you’ve been conned into believing!

Rule #3: Why you must avoid the majority of mutual funds (they’re risker than you think--learn why)!

Rule #4: How you can protect yourself from the #1 threat to your money in the next 30 days!

Rule #5: The only stocks you should invest in today. These “shadow” stocks beat the market 14-to-1 over the last ten years!

A Tale of Two Markets

Most investors don’t realize this, but there are really TWO stock markets out there.

Are you investing in the right one?

The first market is the one that institutions and most mutual funds invest in. This is the market where giant, large capitalization companies live. This is the market Wall Street hypes ‘til it’s blue in the face.

And, unfortunately, this is the market that most individual investors choose to invest in.

They invest in this market because the investment press, most investment books, investment advisors, and even their friends all urge them to.

This is the market where individual investors end up chasing stocks AFTER Wall Street, institutional investors, and large mutual funds have already driven a stock’s price artificially higher. This is the market that has gone nowhere for the last decade and destroyed the nest egg of tens of thousands of investors.

Following the herd into this market is the biggest threat to your wealth today...

Rule #1: Why You Shouldn't Buy Any Stock in the S&P 500 Index

You see, almost everything you read is authored by, influe

nced by, or in the interests of institutional investors. Yet the needs of institutions and big money managers are far different from your needs.

Wall Street and its hoards of institutional investors are primarily concerned with not doing worse than their competitors, so they focus on the short term becaus

e they want to keep their jobs.

They MUST buy the stock of large companies, like those found in the S&P 500 Index, because smaller companies don't have enough stock to satisfy th

e enormous needs of giant institutions. In fact, many mutual funds have rules forbidding them from investing in anything but large cap stocks.

This, coupled with a short-term focus leads the institutional marketplace to make very different decisions about buying and selling stocks than any rational long-term individual investor would make. In a nutshell, the performance of any large cap stocks you may own are subject to the whims and control of big institutional investors.

Here's the game they play. The large institutions and brokerage houses tout these large companies because they underwrite them and mus

t continue to support them because they have a vested financial interest in driving their stock price ever higher. So they push them to individuals like you and me - just before the floor falls out.

In this market, you are a pawn in Wall Street's big money game. That's just one of the reasons we advise investors like you to avoid large cap stocks like those found in the S&P 500 Index.

But there is another market. A market we have mined successfu

lly over the last 10 years to deliver a stunning 430% return while the S&P 500 returned just 30%. I'm going to tell you about it in just a moment, but first let me tell you why you should ignore everything you think you know about asset allocation.

Rule #2: Ignore the Asset Allocation Myth

If you've ever opened a financial magazine, talked with a broker or financial planner or listened to any financial "expert" on TV, you've surely heard the typical asset allocation recommendations.

They'll say something like: at age 50 you should be 10% in cash, 25% in bonds and 65% in stocks (divided among different capitalizations, different countries, value versus growth, etc.).

Those of you, like me, who have been around for a few years may remember Adele Davis, the famous nutritionist. When she lectured she would invariably get questions like "How good are fruits and vegetables for me?" and she would reply: "Which fruits? Which vegetables?"

Along those lines, when it comes to generic asset allocation recommendations, I would say: "Which stocks, which bonds?" Talking about allocation without knowing which stocks and which bonds is meaningless.

Show me a portfolio with 65% in a stock index fund and 35% in a bond index fund, and I will be able to show you a 100% stock portfolio that is less risky and a 100% bond portfolio that is more risky!

Same goes for the hogwash you hear about growth stocks versus value stocks as an allocation consideration.

Come on now! Someone has gone to the trouble of dividing all stocks in half, based on various criteria and calling half of them value and half growth. And then they suggest you divide your holdings according to this definition.

I am a value investor, and by my criteria, not more than 15% of the stocks out there should be termed value stocks. I have friends who are momentum investors and they wouldn't call more than 15% of the stocks growth stocks. If you're diversifying using all those stocks in the middle, you may not be diversifying at all.

Since we are on the subject of risk and diversification, let's take a moment to discuss one more of those rules for protecting your portfolio in today's turbulent times.

Rule #3: Avoid These Mutual Fund Traps

We recognize that many investors do not have the time to manage portfolios of individual stocks or bonds so they turn to mutual funds.

But all too often, they invest in the "me too" large-cap funds that pull you into the institutional market. A market that we've already illustrated is bad for the individual investor.

Index funds are another popular choice, but they too are riskier than you think!

It may seem strange to you that a portfolio of 500 stocks would be riskier than a smaller portfolio of stocks chosen for risk reduction. But consider this: In the S&P 500 index, the top 10 stocks account for 21% of the portfolio.

On top of that, many of the largest stocks are in the same industries - further reducing diversification and increasing risk. Remember all the financial stocks that imploded over the past few years? And the tech stocks before that?

And index funds are among the best of the funds investing in large companies. Most other funds have the same problems, plus higher management and transaction costs.

Now, mutual funds DO have a place. But your focus should be on funds that concentrate on risk reduction or small and mid-cap stocks or funds that have a truly unique approach. Helping investors like you uncover funds that do just that is one of the many things we do. Our easy to follow model mutual fund and ETF portfolios safely keep you out of the institutional marketplace and serve as a quick guide to the kinds of funds you should be paying attention to.

You can get complete unlimited access to these portfolios free - I'll tell you how in just a moment. But first let's talk about the biggest threat to your wealth today...

Rule #4: Protect Yourself from the Biggest Threat to Your Money Today

Investors are faced with a daily barrage of business news. There's keen competition over who can break the story first. Who can come up with the "catchiest" headline.

The clear inference is that the news matters - that keeping abreast of the news, especially as it relates to one's holdings, is one of the keys to investment success.

I disagree. In fact, today's 24-hour financial news cycle is one of the biggest threats to your long-term investing success - especially in today's volatile market! Almost everything the daily media reports on from an investment perspective is guesswork, speculation or hype. This-never ending reporting cycle causes many investors to make decisions at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons. Regrettably, institutional money managers know this and appreciate the fact that the investor's missteps help them build profits - day in and day out.

As an investor, you only need to pay attention to the handful of true big surprises that are reported on over the course of the year. Not the never-ending flood of routine daily news that is insignificant and meaningless in terms of real impact to your portfolio.

In truth, most news only serves importance for PR firms, journalists, day traders and TV reporters because it gives them a means of making a living. But to the long-term investor like you, it is little more than filler and noise.

What makes the impact of news even more nebulous is this: There is almost always both good news and bad news about a stock. In addition, the news story itself almost always has both a positive and negative aspect.

It is a myth that what's reported by the financial media is factual. Over the years we have been conditioned by Wall Street and the financial media to believe that stocks move up and down for identifiable and reportable reasons. What passes as facts are likely guesses that may or may not be pertinent to a particular stock or the direction of the overall economy. What can be said with confidence is that the one thing that is not random or irrational about the market's performance is its basic, underlying, 100-year entrenched uptrend.

A Smarter Way to Invest
(Beat the Market 14-to-1)

Over the last 10 years, AAII has used the investing rules in this report to deliver a stunning 430% return while the S&P 500 returned just 30%. We did it by ignoring the herd mentality on Wall Street, and instead investing in the "other" stock market.

This market is made up of companies with small to medium capitalizations and solid underlying values. There are none of the sluggish large-cap stocks that the institutions are stuck with. There are also none of the start-up companies without earnings that are only suitable for venture capitalists.

It's the market where "Shadow Stocks" live.

Rule #5: Use Shadow Stocks — The Secret to Beating the Market

If at the end of 1940 you had invested $1,000 in the stocks of the S&P 500, you would now have $1,330,777 (reinvesting dividends and ignoring taxes). Not bad.

But if you had invested the same $1,000 in Shadow Stocks, you would now have $13,798,707!

Shadow Stocks are small-company stocks with underlying values that are overlooked by institutions and not covered much by analysts. And they can make a truly life-changing difference in your investing results.

Is the U.S. in a Debt Spiral?

2011-06-08T01:27:00.000-07:00

Many Americans feel the recession will soon pass and things will get back to normal. Unfortunately, we may be witnessing the early stages of a breakdown of the U.S. economic system. The inforgraphic below goes over what would happen to the United States economy if it were to have a massive failure.

Consulting: Kazi Consulting Group

2011-06-05T23:17:00.000-07:00

KCG is a management and marketing consulting firm. We collaborate with clients to identify their highest-value opportunities and address their most critical challenges to ultimately transform their businesses. KCG looks beyond standard solutions to develop new insights, mobilize businesses, and drive innovation.

Core Services

• Business Registration

• Business Incubation

• Business Consulting

• Digital Marketing

• Creation and Development of Green Business Strategies

Email: kaziconsultinggroup@gmail.com

Tech Watch: 90 Cloud Computing Companies to Watch in 2011

2011-06-05T21:51:00.000-07:00

Cloud computing refers to the on-demand provision of computational resources (data, software) via a computer network, rather than from a local computer. Users or clients can submit a task, such as word processing, to the service provider, without actually possessing the software or hardware. The consumer's computer may contain very little software or data (perhaps a minimal operating system and web browser only), serving as a basic display terminal connected to the Internet. Since the cloud is the underlying delivery mechanism, cloud based applications and services may support any type of software application or service in use today.

2010 was certainly an exciting year in the Cloudsphere with every major technology company positioning their companies for the ultimate game of the decade – Who Will Be The Future King of The Cloud? AT&T, CA, Cisco, CSC, Dell, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Verizon among others will continue to vie for the title this year.
We say goodbye to a range of Cloud computing companies; Boomi, DocVerse, Makara, Cast Iron, 3Tera, Nimsoft, 4Base, Heroku, LineSider, Stratavia, CloudKick, and others acquired in 2010, and look forward to a new year in Cloud computing developments.

90 Cloud Computing Companies to Watch in 2011

Tech Watch: Twitter List Building

2011-05-27T20:38:00.000-07:00

How To Use Twitter to Grow Your Email Opt-In List for FREE!

by Perry Belcher & Ryan Deiss

INTRODUCTION

The Goal: Move your fans off of Twitter and onto your email opt-in list as quickly as possible, since most people that join Twitter are only around for 30-60 days.

STEP 1: Build your follower list in Twitter

STEP 2: Tweet pre-tested content

STEP 3: Blend "disguised content" into your tweets that direct your followers to email opt-in forms.

STEP 1: GETTING FOLLOWERS

The "big secret" to building a list of followers is to FOLLOW FIRST.

Follow people who are interested in your topic.

- Use http://search.twitter.com

- Follow recent followers of competitors and colleagues

- Follow at the right times to increase your chance for follow back.

- Weekends (esp. Sunday nights)

- Weekdays (1pm - 3pm EST) & (6pm - 10pm EST)

- Mornings suck

DEMO: FINDING PEOPLE WORTH FOLLOWING

Good to follow people that don't follow a lot of people (but still are active), because when you send a message, it will sit in their timeline longer.

About 30% of people you randomly follow will follow you back - about 60% will if you leave them an @reply.

Find a local list of followers in search.twitter.com (search "live in Austin")

Check out twitter.com/WholeFoods

Follow people that followed other people most recently... don't drill down too far... big brands/competitors add followers quickly, so just keep checking back.

If you're just starting a new profile, follow 50 people per day (delete after 3-4 days if they haven't followed you back). Once you have 500 followers, add 10% of your list per day. (ex. Once you have 1,000 followers, start following 100 per day)

STEP 2: FINDING STUFF TO TWEET

Best days to tweet (from sysomos.com/insidetwitter/)

- Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the best (16% of Twitter users are active on average)... you wanna tweet when other people are actively using Twitter

- Sundays are the worst days to tweet (not good for getting a message spread), but the best time to follow... people go in and manage their account on Sunday ("housekeeping"), more than they talk.

- IMPORTANT: You never know when your people will be online, so your best bet is to tweet 7 days a week.

Best times to tweet (from sysomos.com/insidetwitter/)

- Afternoons (11am - 3pm EST)

- Evenings (9pm - 11pm EST)

- Mornings aren't great, but if you can you should still have a morning tweet "block"

Tweeting in "blocks"

- One tweet has virtually no impact (gets lost in the timeline)

- Tweet in blocks of 5 - 10 tweets at a time

- Tweet your entire block in a 5 - 7 minute period (i.e. one tweet every 30 - 60 seconds)

- Your last tweet should be the disguised content tweet

- Three blocks per day (morning, afternoon, and evening)

Sources of pre-tested content

- Google Alerts (enter keywords related to your market)

- AllTop.com

- StuffToTweet.com

DEMO: DONE-FOR-YOU TWEET CONTENT

Google Alerts

- Not "pre-tested" content... but still good, and usually only big stories

- Typically use "Comprehensive" setting

- "Once a day" setting

- You can plug in multiple search terms, but place a comma between each one

AllTop.com

- Ranks all the best blogs in the world by subject, and then it lists each of the blogs articles based on their popularity

- More specific content

Digg.com

- Pull data (i.e. popular stories) from a year back

StuffToTweet.com

- Super recent stories

- Content that gets the most reaction from people

- More general content -- although current, and hip

STEP 3: BLENDING IN DISGUISED CONTENT
(Moving people from Twitter to your opt-in list)

METHOD 1: Tweet to content on your blog (which should have an opt-in offer) - Most passive

- Make a post on your blog that sends them to the story on the original site

- Could make a short video sharing your thoughts on the content you're linking to

- Ex. drivingtraffic.com > "Should I unfriend my Facebook friends like Ed Dale?"

- Use Camptasia or JingProject (free version of Camptasia)

- Lowest opt-in rate

METHOD 2: Tweet to webinar/teleseminar registrations - Passive but most effective

- People are OK with this... they get excited about it

- You can be very current with it

- Doesn't come across as an "opt-in" page even though it is

METHOD 3: Tweet to squeeze pages – Aggressive

CONTENT/PROMO RATIO

Your ratio of content to disguised content should never exceed 5:1 (i.e. 1-2 promotions per tweet block... 3-6 per day)

You can retweet the same disguised content every few days (or even multiple times/day)

You can continue to tweet to the same 4 blogs posts, etc.

EXAMPLES: DISGUISED CONTENT IN ACTION

Example Tweet: ryandeiss 2 social media "cheat sheets" (PDFs) --> http://budurl.com/3dn2

- Let them know the format -- People understand that in order to get "PDFs", "MP3s", "VIDEOs",
etc., they'll probably have to register

Sidenote: Standard-looking webinar pages convert better than custom signup pages

- GoToWebinar.com

- You can export your list out of GoToWebinar... so it's like a "disguised" squeeze page

- Note: AWeber will does NOT allow importing... so you couldn't take this list and import the addresses into AWeber. Most other web mail services do though (e.g. iContact, ConstantContact, etc.)

OUTSOURCE AND AUTOMATE

Hire an assistant to follow and tweet for you

- Give them SocialMediaMoneySystem.com

Use TweetLater.com to automate your tweeting (esp. your disguised content)

- Ryan does not recommend auto-following... doesn't get you the right kind of audience, and it can get you banned

Refer to video for Craigslist post used to hire a Social Media Assistant

DEMO: USING TWEETLATER

Perry and Ryan do not recommend using auto-reply... they're obnoxious and don't get a great result. Especially don't send people to a squeeze page.

USING THE TWEETING SCHEDULE

You can use the "Disguised/Promo Content" section for a month or more without changing anything

LinkedIn's IPO up to $42 and $45/share

2011-05-17T19:54:00.000-07:00

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site. It was founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, and mainly used for professional networking. As of late March 2011, LinkedIn has well-over 100 million registered users from more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.

Yesterday, LinkedIn raised the expected IPO price range from $32 to $35 for its shares to between $42 and $45. This increases the valuation of the company from $3.3 billion to $4 billion.

The surfacing symmetrical nature of LinkedIn and other social networking companies such as Facebook, Groupon, and Twitter, to the dot-com crash of the early 2000s does not worry investors. This is summed up by Aydin Senkut, a LinkedIn investor and founder of Felicis Ventures, “the difference between now and then is that companies preparing to go public today have better track records and more significant revenue, in part because of better government regulation”. But, is this enough to legitimize LinkedIn's valuation of $4 billion when its total revenue in 2010 was $243 million with net income being a mere $15.4 million?

To learn more about the social networking bubble, click here.

DO NOT SELL INTO A FREE FALL: Reasons Why you Shouldn't Panic and Sell your Stocks

2011-05-10T22:06:00.000-07:00

“If you sell at the bottom, you will miss out on an eventual recovery. If you really want to get out, wait for a bounce and then sell some of your stock holdings. Don't sell into a freefall.”

For new investors, I suggest to be invested in the market for the long term – ride out waves, be brave, use episodes of panic selling to buy more stocks.

Remember that in the stock market, one thing distinguishes the professionals from the amateurs: The professionals panic first. Here’s an example. On the days you see markets take a huge hit, (i.e. when the market falls several hundred points) – as it did last week - is not because individual investors decided to ditch their stocks. If not individuals, then who dropped the ball? It’s none other than the fund managers of pension funds, mutual funds and hedge funds. Individuals are generally more focused on the long-term.

Before you panic and sell your stocks, ask yourself these two questions:

1. Why do I own these funds? (i.e. owning an emerging-markets fund or gold fund)

2. Does it still seem like a good idea now?

Now let’s address two economic worries.

Worry # 1: Worried about deflation (a period of falling prices, i.e. the Great Depression)? Then invest in treasury securities. These are resistant to being defaulted, and the interest payments can buy more goods and services as prices fall.

Worry #2: Worried about hyperinflation ( a period when paper money becomes virtually worthless)? Then invest in gold or inflation-adjusted Treasury securities. Although neither of these investments will make you rich quick, it will stop you from having a panic attack. Neither investment will make you rich.

Now let’s look at behavior when news about your investments hit the news. When stock prices fall, people panic and sell when they shouldn’t. When stocks skyrocket, like that of gold stocks, people buy. It’s not surprising that investors chase performance.

Let’s look at the evidence. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, tech stocks illustrated strong gains. People bought at high prices prior to the dot-com bubble burst in March 2000. Billions were lost. History repeats itself in 2006 prices of homes were rising and shares in this were selling at the rate of cancer in its late stages. The housing bubble popped in 2007, sending billion (yet again) down the drain.

Conclusion: Hold your ground. Do not sell when you’re in the trenches. You either buy or hold.

Better Days Ahead for Pharma Firms

2011-05-08T13:30:00.000-07:00

Remember Zalicus (ZLCS) and Zynex (ZYXI)? Refer to 5 Star Buys.

Valuations for pharmaceutical companies should rebound once investors look past today's patent expirations to tomorrow's new drugs, says Morningstar's Damien Conover.

Must Watch Business Movies

2011-05-08T12:38:00.000-07:00

1. The Social Network

The Social Network: On a fall night in 2003, Harvard undergrad and computer programming genius Mark Zuckerberg sits down at his computer and heatedly begins working on a new idea. In a fury of blogging and programming, what begins in his dorm room soon becomes a global social network and a revolution in communication. A mere six years and 500 million friends later, Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in history... but for this entrepreneur, success leads to both personal and legal complications.

2. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room Links

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room: A documentary about the Enron corporation, its faulty and corrupt business practices, and how they led to its fall.

3. Wall Street I & II

Wall Street: A young and impatient stockbroker is willing to do anything to get to the top, including trading on illegal inside information taken through a ruthless and greedy corporate raider whom takes the youth under his wing.

Wall Street Money Never Sleeps: As the global economy teeters on the brink of disaster, a young Wall Street trader partners with disgraced former Wall Street corporate raider Gordon Gekko on a two-tiered mission: To alert the financial community to the coming doom, and to find out who was responsible for the death of the young trader's mentor.

4. Inside Job

Inside Job: 'Inside Job' provides a comprehensive analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, which at a cost over $20 trillion, caused millions of people to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and nearly resulted in a global financial collapse. Through exhaustive research and extensive interviews with key financial insiders, politicians, journalists, and academics, the film traces the rise of a rogue industry which has corrupted politics, regulation, and academia. It was made on location in the United States, Iceland, England, France, Singapore, and China.

20 Rules for Investment Success

2011-05-03T07:40:00.000-07:00

1. Focus on stocks with each of the last three years' earnings up 25%+, return on equity of 17%+ and recent earnings and sales accelerating.

2. Recent quarterly earnings and sales should be up 25% or more.

3. Avoid cheap stocks. Buy higher-quality stocks selling at $15 a share and higher.

4. Learn how to use charts to see sound base patterns and exact buy points.

5. Cut every loss when it's 8% below your cost. Male no exceptions so you can always avoid huge, damaging losses. Never average down in price.

6. Follow selling rules on when to sell and take profit on the way up.

7. Buy when market indexes are in an uptrend. Reduce investments and raise cash when general market indexes show five or more days of volume distribution.

8. Learn how to recognize important tops and bottoms in market indexes.

9. Pick companies with management ownership of stock.

10. Buy mostly in the top broad industry sectors, i.e. the ones stated below.

(a) Natural Gas
(b) Energy Services
(c) Energy
(d) Natural Reserves
(e) Chemicals
(f) Materials
(g) Gold
(h) Health Care/Medical Sector
(i) Transportation
(j) IT Services

11. Select stocks with increasing institutional sponsorship in recent quarters.

12. Current quarterly after-tax profit margins should be improving, near their peak and among the best in the stock's industry.

13. Don't buy because of dividends or P-E rations.

14. Pick companies with a superior new product or service.

15. Pay close attention to those with an IPO in the past 8 years.

16. Check into comapnies buying back 5% to 10% of their stock and those with new management.

17. Don't try to bottom-guess or buy on the way down. Never argue with the market. Forget your pride and ego.

18. Find out if the market currently favors big-cap or small-cap stocks.

19. Do a post-analysis of all your buys and sells. Post on charts where you bought and sold each stock. Evaluate and develop rules to correct your major past mistakes.

20. Invest in the "5-Star Buy" picks.

*Adapted from Investor's Business Daily Magazine.

Tech Watch: QR Codes and MS Tags

2011-05-01T06:19:00.000-07:00

Quick Response codes (QR codes), Microsoft Tag and other two-dimensional codes are expected to achieve widespread use this year – and for good reason. Consumers want immediate access to what’s relevant and QR codes are being used to make that possible.

QR codes similar to the barcodes used by retailers to track inventory and price products at the point of sale. The key difference between the two is the amount of data they can hold or share.

When you scan or read a QR code with your iPhone, Android or Blackberry Smartphone, you can link to digital content on the web; activate a number of phone functions including email, IM and SMS; and connect the mobile device to a web browser.

In short, QR codes connect people with each other and to multimedia digital content.

Microsoft developed their own proprietary software to create codes known as MS tags. Unlike QR codes, which can be read by a number of different readers, MS tags can only be read by the Microsoft Tag Reader.

MS tags presently allow for more possibilities for creative graphic designs, such as incorporating images and logos into the tag. Nevertheless, those capabilities have to be weighed against the reach and ease of use of open-source QR codes.

QR code Generators – There are a number of sites for generating QR codes and they’re all free. An Internet search for QR code generator will offer many choices. One is Kaywa, a site created by Datamatrix, which is another pioneer of 2D codes. You can use it to create QR codes that link to a web page, text, phone numbers, or SMS. Another with even greater capabilities, including customizing the color and format of your codes is Kerem Erkan.

QR code Readers – The QR code reader app on the iPhone is i-nigma. For the android it’s Barcode Scanner and for the Blackberry it’s Barcode Assistant.

Microsoft Tag Generators – To create your own MS tag, click here.

Microsoft Tag Readers – To get the MS tag reader, click here.

Applications for QR Codes and MS Tags

Sharing – There’s no limit to how, or even how much, you can share with QR codes. While a video or landing page is easily shared, you could go further and share an entire eBook and even multiple pieces of content that share a common link. Test out the QR code below!

Community – Sharing is how you build community, and one of the favorite arenas for doing this is Facebook. You can use Likify to create a QR code that links your mobile device to a fully functioning LIKE button for your Facebook page.

SEO(Search Engine Optimization) and SMO (Social Media Optimization) –QR codes and MS tags enhance both your search engine and social media optimization. Now you can increase traffic to those searchable objects to further optimize them by encouraging more sharing.

Social Proof – To help build a community offline, it can be helpful to use your vibrant online communities as social proof of your influence and expertise. As one example, you can use QR codes or MS tags to link to specific blog posts that have earned an abundance of activity.

Analytics - QR codes most commonly link to urls, which is why link shortening services bit.ly and goo.gl now automatically generate a QR code for sharing your shortened links. Using goo.gl as an example, you simply click on the “more” link after you create your shortened link, where you are taken to a page that not only gives you the QR code, but useful analytics.

MyQR.co is another site that provides analytics and the ability to customize the color of your QR codes

This screenshot shows how bit.ly serves up analytics and a QR code for a shortened link.

Practical Uses of QR Codes/MS Tags

Where QR Codes/MS Tags could be used:

The back (or front and back) of your business card.
Your brochures and other marketing materials.
The sides of trucks and trailers.
Product tags and packaging
Convention and event nametags
Restaurant menus
Event ticket stubs

What QR Codes/MS Tags could link to:

Installation instructions
Sources for replacement parts and service
Directions to your business
The process for hiring your professional services
Valuable coupons and special offers
Recommendations for complementary products and services
Free mp3 downloads
Customer feedback forms

5 Star Buy: Paramount Gold and Silver Corp. (PZG)

2011-04-28T23:24:00.000-07:00

Paramount Gold and Silver Corporation is a precious metals exploration company. The firm explores and develops mines and also secures strategic land for future exploration. While its major focus is on Mexico, the company has also created an international alliance for exploration in Argentina, Chile and Peru.

PZG has discovered significant gold and silver mineralization while drilling the Don Ese target at its wholly owned San Miguel project in the Sierra Madres of Chihuahua, Mexico.

Right now, it’s price stands at $3.25. PZG’s 52-week price range is $1.15 - $4.52. Speculators believe that “this has the 2nd highest upside potential in this segment of the market. Its upside is 226.5%. Its consensus target price is $13.55 based on the average of all estimates”. Other sources have 1 year estimates of $14.04.
&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://finance.yahoo.com"&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Yahoo! Finance&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br/&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=PZG/"&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Quote for PZG/&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;
Conclusion: I would buy now - but for those who are willing to risk waiting for a lower price, any price below $3.25 is a definite call to buy. Do not second guess yourself.

Groupon to go public Spring 2011 with an IPO Value of over $20 Billion Dollars - To Buy or Not to Buy?

2011-04-27T14:35:00.000-07:00

Groupon is a "deal-of-the-day" website. It launched in November 2008 - the first market for Groupon was Chicago, soon followed by Boston, NYC, and Toronto. As of October 2010, Groupon serves in more than 150 markets in North America and over 100 markets in Europe, Asia and South America, with 35 million registered users.

Groupon recently turned down a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google. According to an undisclosed source, Groupon began talking to bankers about an initial private offering (IPO) that led to a valuation of $15 billion. Now, according to a report by Bloomberg, the valuation is at $25 billion.

Instead of going public, other companies seek another round of financing through venture capitalist. In other words, the underlying reason for going public is extra financing - a ploy to get more investments.

Think back to the dot.com bubble/crisis and the posting below on the two bubbles we are currently in - is Groupon in a bubble? Should we consider buying into their stock? Don't be discouraged by the questions - a few companies like amazon.com, and doubleclick.com (which was later acquired by Google in April 13, 2007 for US $3.1 billion in cash), survived the bubble. But note that Amazon only started making money 7 years into their business.

Bloomberg Businessweek puts Groupon’s revenues at an estimated $3 billion to $4 billion this year (2011). Compare that number with the $760 million in revenues for 2010 reported by the Wall Street Journal – getting a sense of its growth? Groupon is 2.5 years old. The faster the growth rate, the higher the valuation. (Hence the $25 billion valuation.) At $25 billion, a Groupon IPO would shove Google to become the largest venture-backed IPO ever.

NeXtup figured a potential $40-per-share price for Groupon, based on an initial public offering of 165 million shares.

But note that the key to the valuation is not so much revenues as it is profits, and right now Groupon seems to be wildly profitable. Groupon’s revenues are split with the local merchants who offer discounts through the service much like Google splits AdSe nse revenues with participating Websites. “So the local merchants take at least 50 percent of the revenue off the top. What’s left is still an extremely high-margin business that has managed to bridge the divide between online and local commerce in a major way for the first time.”

Conclusion: Groupon’s position is not like the dot.com bubble/crisis because they have a working business plan and legitimate revenue streams. The risk comes with the environment – how big can Groupon really become and how long can it sustain its 50% split with its merchants?

Trouble Sleeping? Drink Sleepyhead.

2011-04-27T13:39:00.000-07:00

The stock market is only open from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (Eastern Time), just seven and a half hours. When you're not trading, you're probably thinking about your investments or researching on trends for when to buy and sell. In other words, maybe you're just not sleeping. This is unhealthy.

About 40 million people in the United States suffer from sleep problems every year. This means that there are 40 million less productive and less emotionally balanced people. Sleep problems include insomnia, snoring, feeling sleepy during the day, and sleep apnea. Sleeping better is the key to reducing the chances of developing a sleeping problem. To see this in a different light, want to me more productive, mentally sharper, and emotionally more balanced? The way you feel during the day depends on how well you sleep at night. Although exercising and eating healthy will help you feel better during the day, sleeping better at night, makes more of a difference towards healthier living.

So, how to sleep better? To sleep better and thereby cure sleeping difficulties and fatigue during the day all depend on your lifestyle choices. Sleepyhead is the healthy alternative - an all-natural drink that will help you fall asleep faster and better.

Follow Sleepyhead

Click here to learn more about this start-up.