Friday, January 24, 2014

WILL THERE BE A CORRECTION IN THE STOCK MARKET?

There seem to be a lot of people on the internet debating whether the latest 300 plus point drop in the stock market is signaling a market correction.  To my way of thinking, a 300 point drop answers the question.  A market correction is already in progress, it's simply a matter of how far down it will go.  I'm pretty excited about the whole thing.  I've been expecting a correction for quite some time now.  The market has been flying high with no good reason for such optimistic pricing.  While it's true that corporations in the S&P 500 are sitting on stockpiles of cash amounting to over $1.3 trillion, they've yet to take any action putting this money to work to boost the economy.  Without jobs creation and a growing economic future, the market cannot continue to rise.

On a brighter note, I'm excited about the whole thing because it presents investors with an excellent buying opportunity.  Now's the time to keep your wits about you when everybody else is running for the hills.  Look for buying opportunities and build up your positions while the prices are down.  Eventually corporate America will begin to invest their cash, the economy will improve and markets will rise once again.  Now is the time to position yourself for such an eventuality.  

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

NO BIG GAINS IN JANUARY

It's been kind of a ho-hum market so far in January, not really seeing any big gains.  When you're buying like I am, that's not necessarily a bad thing.  It allows you to pick up shares at lower prices.  So I'm not really disappointed, although I like seeing price gains on my investments as well as the next person.  My big focus right now is building up my positions to increase monthly cash flow from dividends.  Lower stock prices will help me do this more quickly, since my investment capital is limited.

Made some money today on SendEarnings.com.  While it's a slow process usually, I've made a good deal of money over time with their program.  I'm over half way to earning another check which I've earmarked for investment.  Get a lot of great money saving coupons from this site.

Going to take advantage of the last day of the sale ad to pick up some extreme coupon type bargains at my local Gerbes store.  While I never get the major savings the people on the show get, I routinely save 25% or more, so it's been a great way to stretch dollars.  The less you spend the more you have to put towards your investments, so every penny counts.  In this case, I'm not saving pennies but dollars.  It's amazing how much better I'm able to live and on so much less money.  Thank God for TLC's show, it was a real eye opener.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

MACK UP OVER 10% SINCE INITIAL INVESTMENT!

I purchased shares of Merrimack Pharmaceuticals Inc. (or ticker symbol MACK) in December of last year as a speculative play based on heavy buying by insiders in the company.  I'm happy to report that my initial stake is up over 10% so far!  I really don't plan on holding the stock for the long term, so as soon as I've made a substantial gain I'll sell all shares.  MACK pays no dividends so it would not meet the criteria as a long term investment in my current portfolio.  But, as I've said before, I think it's important to take advantage of as many ways to make money in the market as possible to advance your holdings.  

Will I win or lose with MACK?  Only time will tell.  It's looking good so far and I'm willing to bet the insiders have a good idea where the company is headed, so I'll tag along for the ride.  This speculative investment represents a very small percentage of my overall portfolio, so even if worse comes to worse and I lost all my money, it would not be catastrophic to my overall investment plan.

Wish me luck!

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

DIVIDEND INCOME FOR JANUARY 2014 UP 400% OVER 2013!

The new year has started off with a whopping increase of 400% in dividend income compared to January of 2013!  For the first day of the new year I've collected a total of 6 dividend payments which makes my monthly dividend income 4 times what it was for the whole month of January last year.  With another 4 or 5 payments to come, income could be up a total of 600% to 700% by the end of the month.  More proof that my investment strategy is working. 

I made one new stock purchase for 2014, MACK a pharmaceutical company.  This is purely a speculative ploy and not one of my long term dividend holdings.  I bought on news of insiders buying huge blocks of shares toward the end of 2013.  I figure they're in a position to know where the company is headed and I purchased a small position in hopes of racking up some capital gains.  Should the share price take off, I'll be selling out and taking the profit to invest in my 20 stock dividend portfolio.  I'm not much into quick trading, but I don't think you should limit yourself to one means of making money with the stock market.  I've had great success with pharmaceuticals in the past and am hoping to repeat that success with MACK.

Had my new years celebration last night and am excited by the prospects for 2014!  Still a lot of political and economic uncertainties, but an experienced investor should be able to make money in any market.  I've got experience, just have to see how good that experience proves to be.