Tuesday, July 27, 2010

UNIVERSAL INSURANCE HOLDINGS INC

Had some extra cash from dividends in my money market account and decided to put it to more profitable use. So I put in an order and picked up more shares of Universal Insurance (UVE: AMEX). I'm currently long on UVE although I have traded in and out in the past. I especially like their dividend yield right now of 9.60%, which beats the you know what out of the return I was drawing from the money market account. They're currently trading near their 52 week low, most likely due to hurricane season, so I'm taking advantage of the low price to increase my stake and boost my return from dividends. I've noticed it's not unusual for the price to drop during spring and summer months and rebound when hurricane season ends in September.

I'm currently sitting on some nice paper profits, but haven't decided to pull any cash out at the present time. I'd like to make a couple more trades where I pull out my initial investment and keep the remaining shares, in effect gaining "free" shares. While I am in a position to do this with a few of my current holdings, I haven't found any new investments that I prefer over the ones I already own. So I'll sit tight for now and keep my eyes open for a good opportunity.

Bought a commercial carpet cleaning machine for $700. I've made a deal with my apartment complex to clean all their carpets as tenants move out. I figure that I can easily earn a 40-50% return on dollars invested in the machine by doing 8-10 apartments per year. But if I only do enough to earn 20% on dollars invested, I'd still get my money back in 3.6 years and everything after that is pure profit. Not to mention that I can clean my own carpets without paying for a rental machine. So I think this may actually be one of my best investments of the year.

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