What is investing

It is multi-disciplined:

Politics,

Psychology,

Accounting,

Economics,

Statistics...

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The above is from my book "Complete the Art of Investing" from Amazon.

I'm biased

Saw the last Meridith's show (recorded) today. I have to say I'm shallow and biased.  At least I'm honest, so I cannot be a politician.

I have never used to the guy mentioning his (or her to be correct) husband.

I've never used to see the lady that huge on TV even I have a 55" TV.

However, I like Meridith even she is 'old' for entertainers.

When I talk about Chinese issues, I have to say "I'm naturally biased". In Hong Kong where I grew up, we always like ladies with fair complexion, and hence I'm biased against the colored folks. In Hong Kong, the colored folks are also Chinese, so it is not racial discrimination but color discrimination.

I like profiling as contrary to what the society preaches. I may not ride the plane when I see several young males from the Middle East (Indians have the same look too) boarding the same plane. I do not jog in the middle of the night in a high-crime area.

Is it a crime or just for my own protection? I know I have to control my bias especially not to pass it to the next generation even unintentionally.

Should we blame others but ourselves?

The corner stone of our capitalistic system is "Supply and Demand". If you can find a better job, take it. If you cannot find a better worker, you have to pay more.

That's why we have starving artists as the society does not need their work and that's why we pay accountants and programmers a lot of money relatively. If the rich does not invest (taking risk for the potential profit), there will be no jobs. It is also the catalyst (better wages) to ask folks to study what the society wants instead of what they want. I did not have the luxury of studying the field I really wanted.

Do not blame others but yourselves. Do not treat the rich as parasites. Do not blame China as a 50 cent per hour could be heaven for them. Again it is Supply and Demand.

My classmate wondered why the West wanted to take away his only job as a child labor. He needed that job for buying bread.

There are always two sides of a story. Do not force others to follow your ideals. If you do, we have wars.

The above is my response to comments of blaming the rich in Seeking Alpha.

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The above is from my book "Complete the Art of Investing" from Amazon.

Powerball

* Am I a winner? I bought 5 tickets and none has a match of any number. What is the odd?
 
* We're all winners enjoying what we will spend with our billion until reality strikes. It sure is an ice breaker to strangers especially I promise him a million and the beautiful ladies if I win. I am just so generous. If you do not believe me, I can show you my ticket.

* In a birthday party last night, we have a pool for the next big one and dream again. If $2 can buy you sweet dream, it is the best money we've spent and the lottery folks should deserve a Nobel prize (more deserving than Obama's for doing nothing).

* If you do not want to share your lottery prize, try not to pick numbers from 1 to 30 (29 is OK) to skip the birthday numbers especially the 1 to 12 the months.

Two ways for a sure win.

1. Go to the local lottery office and ask to buy all combinations with a check dated today. It worked for yesterday. If you have more than one winner (or someone using the same trick described here), you may have to skip town.

2. Borrow my time machine which is being repaired or the car from "Back to the Future".

Have a good day and continue your dream.

P.S. The value of the $2 ticket = The top prize / (combinations)

With several assumptions such as the other prizes, assuming 50% tax bracket and state taxes,

the approximate face value = 500 M /250M = $2 about the same as the ticket price.

I must have too much free time!

On health - save it for my future reference

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/01/07/how-gut-microbiome-influences-health.aspx

Good lemon for preventing cancer.
http://whyhow.online/node/1006/215

Clear the blood clog using lemon, apple, ginger, honey and garlic. Believe it or not. Benefit of cider vinegar.

http://tonyp4idea.blogspot.com/2013/06/believe-it-or-not-from-my-friend-sam-in.html

Evaluate stocks for beginners

Today's market is risky. Do not buy stocks. However, it is a good time to learn investing. When the sea is stormy, do not go out to fish but spend your time in mending fish net.

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This chapter and the next are NOT for beginners but for couch potatoes who have more investing knowledge. I recommend beginners to buy ETFs only such as SPY.

Many stocks have already been researched. Most are available to us free of charge. I start with five free sites as described in the link, followed by Blue Chip Growth and my simple scoring system. If you are a customer of Fidelity, try out their Analyst Opinions.

Several sources

The popular ones are Morningstar, Value Line, The Street and Zacks. If they are not available free, check out whether they are available from your library.

Blue Chip Growth

Click here for Blue Chip Growth which is free currently for stock analysis. To illustrate, enter IBM as the stock symbol. As of 2/2013, it gives C for a Total Grade, D for Quantity Grade and B for Fundamental Grade. The Total Grade is a composite grade of other grades. If the Total Grade and the Fundamental Grade are A or B, the stock most likely is good.

http://navelliergrowth.investorplace.com/bluechip

A simple scoring system

Bring up Finviz.com and then enter the stock symbol.

No.	Metric	Good	Bad	Score
1	Forward P/E1	Between 2.5 and 12.5,    Score   = 2	> 50 or < 0, Score = -1
2	P/ FCF1	< 12,    Score   = 1	>30 or < 0,  Score = -1
3	P/S1	< 0.8,   Score   = 1	< 0,              Score = -1
4	P/ B1	< 1,      Score   = 1	< 0,              Score = -1
	Compare quarter to quarter of last year
5	Sales Q/Q	> 15%,    Score = 1	< 0,             Score = -1
6	EPS Q/Q	> 20% ,   Score = 1	< 0,             Score = -1
			Grand Score
	Stock Symbol  Date2	Current Price	SPY

Footnote.

¹                   Negative values for Sales (due to accounting adjustments), Equity and Book are possible but not likely.

²                   The last row is for your information only. SPY is used to measure whether it will beat the market by comparing the return of this stock to the return of SPY.

The Score

Score each metric and sum up all the scores giving the Grand Score. If the Grand Score is 3, the stock passes this scoring system. Even if it is a 2, it still deserves further analysis if you have time. You may want to add scores from other vendors. To illustrate using Blue Chip Growth, add 1 for score A and -1 for score F.

Other sources

If you have other sources (most require subscription or being a customer), skip the stocks with one of the failing grades. Ignore them if there is new positive development such as increased insider purchases.

Vendor	Grade	Fail
Fidelity	Analysts’ Opinions	< 4
IBD	Composite	< 50
Value Line	Proj. 3-5 yr. return. Also its composite rating	< 3%
Zacks	Rank	5
Vector Vest	VST	< 0.7

Visit your local library to see whether they are available. Most likely, IBD and Value Line are. IBD’s Relative Pricing is useful too. Vector Vest has free analysis for a limited number of stocks.

Very basic advices for beginners

They are Market Cap (capitalization), Debt/Equity and P/E. For beginners, stick with U.S. stocks with Market Cap greater than 800 M (million), Debt/Equity less than .25 (25%) except for debt-intensive industries such as utilities and airlines and P/E between 5 to 20. These metrics are available from Finviz.com.

Do not have more than 20% of your portfolio in one stock and do not have more than 30% of your portfolio in one sector.

Do not buy stocks if they are not A or B in both the composite grade and the fundamental grade from Blue Chip Growth.

For more conservative investors, use beta (available from Yahoo!Finance) less than 1. Beta of 1 represents the market (S&P 500 index). For example, a stock with beta 1.5 statistically fluctuates more than 50% of the market. 

Try virtual trading (i.e. trade stocks without real money) to check out your strategy and your skill in trading stocks. If your broker does not provide one, use a spreadsheet to record your trades or simulator.investopedia.com.

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The above is from my book "Complete the Art of Investing" from Amazon.

Kids speaking the truth