MSFT, and I sold PETM

First of all, as you all know I am very high on PETM. Well I sold all the PETM I had today. I needed the money to buy more CD which went on massive sale today. Which illustrates investor psychology. CD released RECORD earnings this Quarter. Not only that but it shattered analysts expectations buy several cents per share. Plus they are shopping around their mortgage business (trying to sell for 750M to 1B). Yet the market as a whole has been crushed in the last week or so...my guess is its due to dismal Earnings season for S&P companies. So that's that.

Now lets get on to Microsoft. Amazing move on their part. They had too much cash. Too much cash? Yes, they are a monopoly. The only thing they could use their cash for was to buy more companies, which would solidify them as a monopoly. So they had to give it back to shareholders. Excellent move. An even better move is buying back their own stock. This is showing me that they have alot of faith in themselves. If any of you read Mark Cuban's blog (which I am obviously fond of) he disagrees with me. So I emailed him about it. And he replied!!!! I got a billionaire to reply to my ideas! I can not tell you how much that meant to me, and it only took a few seconds out of his day. I still disagree with him, but he has made billions, I don't even have a million, yet.

Also, since I share some of my good stock ideas, its probably fair if I share EACH bad idea I've had. I thought MSFT would go up 20% in the 2 days following their news...but it didn't. It behaved rationally. By rationally I mean that it did not rise $3 per share higher then what it was at before the news. If it had then it would be OVERVALUED because you would be paying more than $3 for a $3 dividend. So I was wrong. (I like to pride myself that in the stocks that I have had a position in I have never been wrong.) But I was wrong in this case, and in thinking Netzero would revolutionize the internet 6 years ago...they never did.

Anyways, I congratulate Microsoft on what they are doing with their cash. I think it is the right move.

I have had alot to say this week, but haven't been able to because my work had locked out this website...I wanted to rant on Sprint, public speaking, and a fw other things...I guess it'll have to wait.

Sorry for the lack of posts

I apologize for the lack of posts.  My work has locked me out of the blogger website.  I guess they want me to work.

College Grad Rates.

Grad Rates
This article says that only 37% of people entering college finish college in 4 years, 26% finish in 5+ years, and 37% never finish.

What about people who finish in less than 3 years, with 2 degrees?

Wow, wouldn't that be impressive if someone did that?

2004 Presidential Election

Who am I voting for this year? Noone. Do I hate GW Bush? Yes. Utterly. So why not vote for Ketchup boy Kerry? Because he too is a Douche Bag. I do not vote for people I do not believe in...even though one of them is less paltry then the other.

If I absolutely had to vote I would vote for Nader.

http://www.votenader.org/

I don't trust anyone who's opinions directly reflect those of the group they are in. By being a Democrat, or by being a Republican, you are automatically giving up ideals and opinions. You are following a herd of lemmings.

More to come on this in later posts....

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July all. Happy Independance day. My cousin is being shipped off to Iraq and my brother is in training so he can go. They are fighting for our freedom. But who is our? They are not fighting for my freedom. They are not fighting for your freedom. They are not keeping terrorists away. Terrorists jobs are to terrorize. They are doing that. Does us threatening to destroy them keep them from doing their job? No. We are the scared ones. They have done their job. We are bullies. If we as a country piss people off, then why is it wrong for them to retaliate? We are weak. Sure we have guns and technology, but Custer had guns and technology also. Bullies always grow up to lose their power. We have been raping 3rd world countries for years. Now they get mad, and we think that they are wrong? Who in the hell do we think we are? Independance day will be when we have leaders who can instill a government that does not allow leaders to take advantage of the goverment to pursue their own agendas. (Does anyone really think that this war is over anything other than a several million dollar check not being slid under the table between the oil powers, and our elected officials, and a few businessmen?) I want to make this rant go on and on...but I am going to cut it off here to so I don't drown out what I'm trying to say:

The U.S. is a weak, self-conscious country in its teenage years. If we do not change the way we treat others, then we will suffer the consequences of being a lonely old country that deteriorates away, but still hangs onto the stories of what we used to be.

Happy Independance Day.

In light of the comments in my PETM post I have two requests.

1) Let's make this blog be semi-productive. Please do not criticize for the sake of criticizing. If you're going to post High School level comments, then please post them somewhere else. Please don't be a dick and post comments now just to spite what I just sincerely requested.

2) I mentioned in one of my comments that I am out of stock ideas. If you have any, please feel free to add them into the comments. The simpler the better. I was try to address as many of them as I can. But I am only interested in companies that have the following three traits:

Dominance, Cash Flow, and Superior Management.

Thanks for continuing to come to my blog, but let's clean it up and make it a productive, and not a debate site. In future posts I will remove irrelevant comments.

Side note: Here is the website I did for my final in the summer IS class I just took:

Greg's site.