NaNoWriMo

Ever feel like you have the Great American Novel just bursting to get out of your brain? Take the plunge with NaNoWriMo - or National Novel Writing Month.

November is the month, and a novel is the goal. You "win" by completing 50,000 words within the calendar month of November, or 1,667 words per day.

Check out www.nanowrimo.org for details and to register. I am participating this year and will post about my progress at intervals.

Good luck to all who enter!
Best,
Trond

Port 24 update

I finally had a chance to revisit the Port, and spent a while cleaning it up.

MITI was bought out, CLSN and DCTH had reverse splits (boy do I wish I'd sold those prior to the mothball!) and a few calls expired worthless.

This morning I check out the prices of CLSN, DCTH, and PIP and "sold" them at the bid.
Just now I couldn't resist and picked up 2000 shares of VHC.

So the current Port looks like this:
Cash $27,780.30
1500 ARQL
1200 BTX
2600 CLDX
2500 CORT
1100 EXEL
7000 NNVC
6000 PPHM
1600 SGMO
2000 VHC
1800 ZIOP

Total worth (as of this moment) is $213,642.30.
That is a return of 113%, and annualized to about 16% over nearly seven years. Almost 4  of those years, the Post has been neglected to a sorry degree, too! Not bad.

I'll be more active now, and utilizing calls as usual to pick up additional income.

Good luck to all portfolios in the days ahead!

TED talk: Violence --> Poverty

I challenge EVERYONE to watch the 1 1/2 minutes from 10:57 to 12:27.

So I love to watch TED talks but my typical stance is, "Wait, this is 20ish minutes, I just can't spend that time when I don't know if this is WORTH it."

I'll summarize this, so you you can still be ejumacated without having to watch - although this one is worth the 22 minutes.
Poverty is created by, and sustained through violence, in cultures where the concept of law enforcement is spotty. And our own is NOT immune. See the challenge above.

Two impactful quotes:
"Most poor people live outside the protection of the law."
"People don't know how to fix the problem, so they don't talk about the problem."

http://www.ted.com/talks/gary_haugen_the_hidden_reason_for_poverty_the_world_needs_to_address_now#t-609414

Nimrud destroyed

"The Art Newspaper considers it “the greatest single cultural loss since the Second World War,” while Irina Bokova, the director general of UNESCO, condemned “this mad, destructive act that accentuates the horror of the situation,” in a statement while equating the destruction to a war crime."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/14/how-isis-reduced-the-ancient-world-of-nimrud-to-rubble.html

Ridiculous. What a waste of oxygen. 'Nuff said.

ARNA

Longtime readers know I have been a fan of Arena for years.

I am absolutely unhappy with the stock price and have been for years. They were screwed over by the DEA for not getting it scheduled for almost a whole year after Belviq's approval. That killed a lot of momentum. The attitude of doctors for "diet and exercise" and avoiding a pill hurts too, but that is slooooowly changing.

Today's price is about $4.55. And although I am still a fan of the company, I don't see blockbuster price moves soon. So I would be comfortable with selling calls against a position at this point - I want to be long the stock but I think July $5s (if you can get $.35 for them) sound about right. Maybe even the Oct $5s, with the idea of buying them back with some probable summer volatility). On the first you get almost 8% return for 3 months, with another 9% if exercised (all minus commission, of course).

2-5% a month, on a "boring" stock. :-)

Income taxes

It's that time of year, and of course I rebel against the amount due sometimes.

We obviously (or maybe not so obviously, if you are hard-core Libertarian?) need some method of raising revenues for the government juggernaut to roll. Where you fall on the graduated vs. flat tax debate probably depends on your income level.

One of the other major alternatives tossed around always seems to be a consumption tax instead of an income tax. The upside to this is that you are not taxing the creative/industrious efforts but instead raising revenues from people spending the money. The downside is that our entire economy is pretty much based on the urge to spend, spend, spend. Putting the brakes on that would tilt the entire economy and it would probably take years of fine-tuning to "get it right," whereas there probably would be a very volatile economy in that interim.

Hmmm. Maybe the libertarians have a point...

Port24 revival

I will be taking the Port out of mothballs soon.

Fortunately the stocks I'd selected were smaller biotechs, for the most part, that need years to come to fruition. I need to review the last few buys and sells to make sure I have the positions current, then will be posting where I'm at.

As a reminder, the Port24 is a fictitious portfolio, started with $100,000, a target of 24% returns per year, and hopefully demonstrating the power of smallcaps combined with covered calls. I think I was averaging around 18%+ a year for quite a while and it will be interesting to see where I'm at with the neglect of over two years.

Writing contest

Like I recently said, I am back in the saddle, writing.

This is a cool little new site, that allows one to write and then (online) publish their works. They have had a few monthly contests and I was very excited to take second place in the March "Running Scared" short story horror contest.

http://www.inkitt.com/anotherworld

The current contest, which just started and runs through May 5th, is "Echo of Another World." It is a short story contest for sci-fi/fantasy and in honor of the late Sir Terry Pratchett.

Wall of worry

"This past month may be remembered as the moment the United States lost its role as the underwriter of the global economic system."

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/larry-summers-past-month-may-121922702.html

So we have heard this kind of thing before. Part of me thinks it is a planned theme from the government and quasi-governmental think tanks over the next 12 months to harp on these kinds of thing to try to let some steam out of the stock market. We are pretty much at all-time highs on all fronts, interest rates are still low, and business is still clicking along with unemployment down to a 5.5% rate.

My biggest worry? The "sell in May" story. Stay tuned...

Back in business

There have been some life changes!

I am no longer in business as a financial planner, or portfolio manager. This simplifies my life considerably, now that I no longer have to worry about compliance.
I am still going to talk stocks, personal finance, markets. But I am going to offer much more commentary on society and life issues as well.

I find myself writing again. Stories, poetry, this blog, and more. Writing is something I find myself enjoying again.
I once again invite you, "Come join the fun."

Comments, as long as they fit one out of these three categories, are encouraged:
Honest
Funny
Polite

I reserve the right to remove comments where I deem it warranted.