I fell...

Well first I have to apologize, I fell off the blogging boat and it took me sometime to get back up. So with that said, lets get back to business.

Firstly, tomorrow is the third Friday of the month, meaning the new stock advisor pick is coming out. I have been saving my nickels and dimes, and though I don't have as much as I would like I have a little bit to put down on it.

And while this is exciting... I have another issue to talk about. So as we all know I own a few shares of ATVI/Blizzard. You may or may not know that they are the owners of the game World of Warcraft. Perhaps you've heard of it? So what could possibly be new with an old game like that?

Money Sink.

Right now blizzard is selling for $25 an in game mount. While that may mean nothing to you, let me tell you what it means for the games revenue.

Currently there is a waiting list for this item, which is sitting at 8 hours. And there are 88% left available. When you get online it shows you your place in line. When I attempted this there were 120,000 people in front of me, I waited until there was a percentage drop which came at around 67,000 people in front. That means that there are about 5 million of these available assuming 1% is 50,000...

OK... so what? At $25 a pop, with about 5 million available that rounds out to about $125 million. Let's consider an extremely expensive design cost of about $500,000 and another $500,000 for implementation. That is a profit of just about $124 million, for little to no work at all.

And this is not the only in-game item you can purchase with real money, only the most popular thus far.

Today ATVI got a bit of a hit with people getting down on the gaming industry... well how many other industries can generate approximatively $15,000,000 in half a day, with the possibility of generating $110,000,000 with the push of a button?

... enough said.

-tCT

Who needs diversity...

Alright, I have finally accomplished my task. Currently as you may or may not know, my portfolio has stocks from 4 different sectors. ATVI is videogame/technology, BAC is a bank, NUE is industrial metal, and BRK-B is... well who knows but its safe to say it doesn't fall in any of the previous categories.

So as you can see, BRK-B is not doing well, it is down from my original buying price...

But my overall portfolio is seeing the highest gains I have ever seen, being about 6.7%.

And that is why you diversify...

I have read arguments on both sides of the diversify table. What I have gathered from them is...

DO NOT DIVERSIFY FOR DIVERSIFYING SAKE.

It is not wrong to diversify your portfolio if you are investing in companies that you know and trust, but it is wrong if you are diversifying in random sectors you know nothing about, simply for the sake of diversification. So know who your investing in and why (or have a stock advisor tell you how to think, like I do... haha).

And that brings up another good point. Now maybe I am just an investing nut, and want to see everyone well invested, but...

Why is it that most people are only invested in the companies they work for? I know, stock options are great and of course you want to use those, but especially in times like this, do you really want all your investments being in a single basket?

Now please don't go telling people to sell the shares in the company they work for, I am not saying that. But maybe mention that it might be wise to make future investments outside of the company where they work.

Case in point, Lehman Brothers, Enron, and any number of banks and car companies in the past 2 years. Do you think the people working for these companies had outside investments?

Enough said.

-tCT

Nike

So I was going to write you today showing off why it is good to have a well rounded portfolio. I had my own portfolios ups and downs as the perfect example. The only problem... I forgot to take a picture of it and now my portfolio is all ups and happy.

I am just too good at this investing stuff to teach you any lessons it seems.

Right.

Anyway, it seems like today everything is good in investing town. My overall holdings are up 6.75%, with a good portion of the being due to my most recent acquisition, NUE. It seems my "blind pick" (wink wink) at NUE was well founded and if things go well could pay for the stock advisor program I bought. Now I am not telling you to go out and buy this program, I am just telling you what I did and the results...

As those drugs say, results may vary.

If you ask me though something simple like.... "Are you pleased with your purchase of the Fool.com Stock Advisor?" I would have to say so far, Yes.

It has only been a little over a month, but of the 4 picks I have been given only one of them has gone down in price, while the rest are up and Rosetta Stone in particular has seen a 53% gain since being picked.

Are they all going to be Rosetta Stone? No, of course not, but that's OK with me.

In short, if I have ever given you the slightest interest at trying your hand at investing, do yourself a favor and head over to fool.com and start a CAPS page. No money involved you just pick stocks, whether you think they will go up or down and a time frame. They will score you on how well your picks go. Then from there, decided if investing is right for you.

We can all use some motivation at times, and well there isn't much better motivation than...

Just Do It.

-tCT

OUCH...

Well today is the day the Stock Advisor came out. One thing I really like about it, is it doesn't just say "this one might work, try that and call me in the morning", they really go in depth about their picks. Not only that, but they give you two. Since I am using limited funding, it gives me a chance to pick the one I like better.

The first option (which I can't name directly) is an "up and comer" in the TV networking business. This company owns networks related to travel, food, and doing things yourself. In the well written article, to further prove its point, the article says "do you watch {insert popular food show title} or {insert popular travel show title}?"

No... No, I do not watch any of those shows. In fact, I can't recall ever (willingly) going to any of the channels those shows are on.

OK so we all know I invest on "feelings" and to be honest I just didn't like the way the article made me feel. The company has reasonable content, but I don't think those channels alone are anything great. Then again I have been wrong in the past.

And while I can't name the second option (so I don't get in trouble for giving away paid for content), I can tell you I just purchased shares in a company called Nucor Corp (NUE) with no apparent outside influence...

Nucor is the number one minimill steel manufacturer in the United States. The reason for this purchase is the steel market is hurting at the moment, but things are likely to pick up again down the line. As I am an economic optimist, I agree with this evaluation, and saw this as a better buy than the first option. Not to mention, everyone knows steel is a comfort commodity.

Its like a really cold, hard security blanket (what?!).

So of course, I wasn't paying attention to the overall market or else I would have noticed the nose dive it has taken today. People are apparently all worried about the Greeks... I am not going to get into that, cause frankly I don't care. All I know is that my shares are not as strong as they were yesterday...

I can't believe I have already put in $700, who knew it would last this long?

Not me...

-tCT

No short term potential my a...

Well yesterday I decided to buy shares in both Berkshire Hathaway and Bank of America. As I mentioned yesterday I had intended on also purchasing Intel, but I felt that it was the safest to hold off on in the short term...

And right on cue, Intel shares jumped 3.97%.

I guess that's a good thing. I mean I did want it to continue to grow... I was just kind of hoping it would wait for me to be on the train before it left the station.

Luckily the purchases I made yesterday aren't complete disappointments. While they have not seen the same gains as Intel has, they have seen gains of their own.

I am still looking forward to this Friday. I am hopeful that they put the article out early in the day, so that I still have time to make a purchase or two.

-tCT

TBD

So today I was feeling a bit, Buy-ie. I was coming off a bad weekend and well I just needed to buy something. I was thinking food...

But instead of buying food, I bought some shares in Bank of America (BAC) and Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B). Last Friday I was thinking I wanted to make a purchase, and I just couldn't wait till this upcoming Friday. So I didn't.

So why did I buy what I bought?

So when I think of investing, I think of one company. Intel. I love Intel, I just do. They are a very strong company with their foot, body, and a couple Million of their closest friends, in the door of the technology market. They have constantly paid out good dividends and are one of the top companies in the world.

So wait what does that have to do with BAC and BRK-B? Absolutely nothing...

Last week I was trying to think what companies I could see doing very well. There is Berkshire, BofA, and Intel. I decided on BAC and BRK-B because as much as I love Intel, I know that there is a limited amount of short term growth potential at Intel.

Look at it this way, BAC, as well as the rest of the financial sector, is still on pins and needles from last year. People are hesitant to invest too heavily, because they are not sure if the banks are clear of the governments storm. While I can't say one way or another on that, I firmly believe that in the long run, banks will do what they do best, and thats being Banks. There will always be banks, and it just seems logical to invest in one of the worlds largest (and at the moment one of the cheapest). Bank of America is well run, and has a name you can trust... Ok well maybe not trust, but at least we all know Bank of America.

As for BRK-B, well you and I both know I wanted to invest in this from the get go. Since the stocks split, it has consistently gained. This is the mule of my portfolio wagon train, its not pretty, it doesn't run fast, but it will get you where your going every time.

So... wait, what about intel? I am still very interested in owning Intel shares. It seemed though that holding off on buying Intel would be less costly than holding off on buying the other two (at least thats my hope). One day I will buy Intel stocks I promise, but until then we will just have to be happy with what I did buy.

Yahoo has a pretty cool portfolio viewer, it doesn't look exactly how I'd want, but its not terrible.

I am looking forward to this Friday, for the advised stock purchase. I really want to see how effective this method of advised trading can be. Until then...

Another day, another dollar (spent).

-tCT

Friends with benefits

So as you all know, I have a love (though little talent) for investing. When I was young, I used to try to hide money, so that I would later find it and it would be like finding buried treasure. In a sense that is how I see investing.

As you may or may not know, I am awful with my money. I love buying things, anything, just for the pure sake of spending money almost. And while I have reined in a lot of my frivolous spending, I still occasionally relapse and spend money on something I absolutely do not need. And that is where investing comes in.

With investing I can get my spending fix, while technically having the possiblity of getting something back for it down the line. It is like a savings account that gives you the added joy of buying something.

Oh it's almost too good to be true!

If you are like me, you buy things and then honestly never think of them again, and if you use that strategy in investing, you can see some real returns (assuming you invested wisely). In fact I just read an excellent article about how the wealthiest people in the world (ie People like Buffett and Gates) generally do very little actual selling of the shares they own. These are people that ride the ups and downs and hold on to their companies.

Of course I plan to do a bit of trading, which includes selling, down the line. Though for my actual investments, I plan to buy a company and hold onto it. Who knows maybe I will make an account on the off chance I have kids who want to go to college. Not that I will have kids any time soon...

So I have prepared some good money for next week and it is already sitting pretty in my trading account just waiting to by used. Oh the excitement is building...

-tCT