prancingbull.com

So this one is a bit off topic, but I thought I would share. I recently came across a website that lets you track how much you have exercised over time. It is targeted at cyclists, but I suppose you could track running, walking and hiking on it as well. The site is called Myridejournal.com, and it appears to be relatively new. One nice feature about the site is that it also features a personal training blog where you can write comments about a particular ride that you went on. It also gives you the ability to create and share favorite routes with others. You can view other user’s training logs to see how much they ride and where they are riding.

Uncategorized, Websites bike, blog, cycle, exercise, ride

I logged into my Optionshouse.com account today and was pleasantly surprised to find that they have changed their pricing structure. Here is how the new pricing looks:

• $14.95 for flat rate spreads up to 4 legs
• $9.95 flat options trade
• $2.95 for stock orders

Options pricing remains the same, but stock trading dropped from $4.95/trade down to $2.95/trade. Now that the prices have changed, I think I will find myself trading with Optionshouse a little more now. 

Financial Institutions, Stocks options, optionshouse, pricing, Stocks, trading

Just when you start to think that Gigamedia (GIGM) is starting to go back up again, they have another down day. They have enjoyed a nice bounce from their low of $2.90 on 11/20/08, but it doesn’t appear that they have broken above their current three-month trendline. Keep an eye on this trendline, as it can indicate a possible upward movement. One other thing to keep in mind is that over the past few weeks the trading volume was the highest during that deep drop in mid-November. This deep drop was in response to the 3rd quarter 2008 earnings release. Trading volumes have really tapered off since.

As a final note, I currently hold a position in GIGM. This chart was found at Yahoo! Finance.

Stocks chart, gigamedia, gigm, stock

Prevail Credit Union is a growing credit union in the greater Seattle area. They have been in operation since 1940. They are currently open for membership for anyone who lives or works in the state of Washington. I have created an overview summary of the company. It can be found in the .pdf file that is linked to at the bottom of this post. All of the information that was used to create this report came from the Prevail website as of today. Like anything it is subject to change, and you should be advised to check out their website prior to joining to make sure everything is still current.

Prevail Credit Union offers many of the products and services that a normal bank would, but typically at a much lower cost. You should be advised to check out Prevail as a low cost alternative to your current bank. Although Prevail is a credit union, they still offer most of the products and services that a normal bank would. In addition to savings and checking accounts, they also offer money market accounts and certificates of deposit. They will also finance a home, car, motorcycle and more!

To read the summary on Prevail Credit Union, click here.

Financial Institutions bank, credit union, loans, seattle

After taking a little bit of a break, I have decided to get back to doing stock reviews again. As you can see, a few post prior to this one I did a review of Netflix (NFLX). One thing that I have been trying to do is place the review in a .pdf file, rather than just a really long post on the blog. I think that the long post on the blog sort of takes away from the whole blog concept because it is makes it more tedious to get to other posts, especially if you don’t feel like reading the review.

So basically what I am going to do from now on is just have a short Cliff’s Notes version of the review with a link the full report. This way if the user wants to see they whole report they can just click on the link. Otherwise they can just pass it on by and go to the next post.

Random Reviews, Stocks

Will you be one of the many that rushes out to the malls the day after Thanksgiving in search of amazing deals? I for one will not be joining you. From the sounds of the news these days, it looks like I will not be the only one making this decision this year. I will add though that I have never gone to the malls the day after Thanksgiving. Fighting the masses for a couple extra dollars off just doesn’t seem worth it to me.

Many stores are viewing this holiday season as one that will make or break them. I would be on the lookout for some bad earnings from the retail sector in comparison to previous years. Roughly guesstimating, I would assume that I will spend about 20% less on Christmas this year. I am managing to do this by spending less on a per person basis. I am making up for this by buying more smaller things that are typically lower priced. In the past I had bought a few more expensive items. I am hoping that this strategy will save me some money this year. According to my Microsoft Money data from last year, I spent $696.30 on gifts between 10/01/2007 and 12/31/2007. For the entire year 2007, I spent $904.33 on gifts. 20% less would put me at  $557.04 for the holiday months. As of now I have spent $217.30. I will try to keep a running total of my holiday spending for the year. I think it will be frightening to find out how much I spend.To date I have spent $1,234.65 on gifts for 2008. This puts me on pace for spending $1,363.42 for the year. My total ballooned from last year because both of my parents turned 50 this year. Because of this, I got them much more expensive gifts than I normally would have.

Maybe this is me, but this seems like an extraordinate amount to have spent on gifts for a given year. I know that it is better to give than receive, but still.

Personal Finance gifts, holidays, shopping, thanksgiving

Netflix (NFLX) recently released its Q3′08 financial results. As of 11/24/2008, the company trades at $22.21. I feel that the stock should reach $30 by the end of 2009. This is just over a 35% gain! I have analyzed their 3rd quarter results and produced a report that gives my current outlook on the company. Netflix has also recently teamed up with Microsoft’s Xbox 360 to provide downloadable content to the videogame console. With over 25 million Xbox 360 consoles sold, this gives Netflix a unique opportunity to capture a greater market share for streaming content.

You can find the full report here. The file is in .pdf format.

Even if you don’t agree with my current outlook on the company, I think you will find that there is a lot of valuable information in this report. The best thing is that the report is totally free! It is only five pages in length, so you don’t have to worry about spending all day reading it either! It gets down and dirty and straight to the point.

The other thing I just want to throw out there is that as of 11/24/2008, I do not have any sort of financial position in NFLX.

***5/14 Update*** Check out how the $30 prediction worked out. $29.89 on 12/31/2009!

Stock Recommendations, Stocks netflix, nflx, review, stock

I posted a while back that I was attempting to transition to spending cash only. I must admit that it was quite difficult at first. I would find many reasons to cheat the system. For example: if I were to be at a restaurant and the bill was $28.00 and all I had was two $20s. I wouldn’t want the waiter to make me change, so I would just put down the card instead. That doesn’t really help you if you are trying to save money by spending cash only.

Over the past month I have put a lot of effort towards spending just cash only. My strategy is to take out $120/week out of the ATM. Anything that I have left over I put into a little box for something down the road. I haven’t quite decided what it is that I am saving for, but at least I feel good about it. Over the past month or so I have managed to save an additional $190 by using this strategy. For me personally, I find it harder to spend cash, so I am more likely to conserve it.

I think that it is helpful to stash the leftovers somewhere so that you can physically see how your pile is progressing. I think that the amount is more meaningful if you see a pile of money stacked up, rather than just some number on your online banking. I am curious if anyone else uses a similar technique to this.

One other strategy that I was pondering was that once I hit $120 in my secret stash, I would take a break from the ATM for the week. I think that I am going to stick with my current strategy for now. I think that I will probably use this stash for buying Christmas presents sooner rather than later.

Cash Management, Personal Finance, Savings

I have decided to add a non-blog section to the site. It is more dedicated to company analysis (at least for now anyway). I have a “beta” version of a small example of the site. Hope you like it! Click here to see it.

Random, Uncategorized, Websites new site

Earlier this week, the house approved the $700 billion bailout bill. If you assume that there are 300 million Americans, this works out to be $2,333 per person. Of course, not all 300 million Americans are taxpayers. If only half of Americans are taxpayers, this works out to almost $5,000 per person.

What else could you purchase for $700 billion?

The Seattle Mariners play in Safeco Field. It cost about $517 million to build. For $700 billion, you could build 1,354 Safeco Field’s.

The new Freedom Tower in New York City is estimated to cost $3 billion to build. You could build 233 of these for $700 billion.

A dollar bill is 6.14 inches long. 700 billion dollar bills is 4.298 trillion inches in length. This is equal to 67,834,595.95 miles. The distance to the moon is 238,900 miles. This amount is about 284 times farther than the distance from the earth to the moon.

The current price of oil is $93.88/barrel. At this price, the US could buy 7,456,327,226 barrels of oil for $700 billion. The US currently imports 10,031,000 barrels per day. For $700 billion, we could import at our current rate for 743 days without running out of money assuming that the price stays the same.

At $9 per movie ticket, the government could buy each American 259 movie tickets.

A dollar bill is .0043 inches thick. $700 billion worth of dollar bills is 3,010,000,000 inches thick. This is equivalent to 250,833,333 feet or 47,506 miles thick. The Eiffel Tower is 1,063 feet tall. You could stand 23,596 Eiffel Towers on top of each other to reach the same height of $700 billion worth of dollar bills. The highest point in the world is Mt. Everest standing at 29,029 feet tall. Even at this staggering height, you would have to stand 8,640 Mt. Everests on top of each other to be the same height as $700 billion worth of dollar bills.

There are plenty of other comparisons I could make to show enormous amount of money that the US is spending to bail out the financial industry. I can think of plenty of other things that the US could spend their money on.

Currency, Economic News, Financial Institutions bailout, banks, financial industry