December 2004

Chinese worry beads

Checking my e-mail today, it seems as though everyone is worried about China. Either its the possibility of a currency revaluation putting more pressure on the dollar, or its the possibility of China becoming a net exporter of steel, or the possibility of a Chinese economic slowdown in 2005.

I would tend to worry too, if we had all of our eggs in one basket. As it is however, Investing With Mom only has one direct China play that currently accounts for about 6% of my mom's portfolio.

While it is true that we have added stocks to the Advisory portfolio that should benefit from a continued Chinese expansion. We are not dependent upon such growth in China.

You see, I've lived in China and know how the Chinese think. While no government can truly control their economy, the Chinese won't revalue the Yuan until their good and ready to do so.

I don't want to give away too much of my 2005 Forecast issue, but I will say this, the Chinese will revalue the Yuan when it will do their economy the most good, not ours. And if that means that they can tack on a little economic stab in the back aimed at those who want them to revalue on a different timetable, by not doing just that, then they will.

Speaking of doing the most economic good, Advisory subscribers should hold off on any new stock purchases or rebalancing, except for the stock mentioned in Tuesday's Alert, until I post my January Issue. Tomorrow being just a partial day for Wall St., it won't be an opportune time for anything unless you absolutely must sell for tax purposes. The real action will start up again on Monday, in fact I expect Monday to be a very volatile day.

So watch you financial backs and keep an eye out for my Forecast Issue, I'll be sure and let you know as soon as its online.

The U.N. is infested...

...with the same tax everyone syndrome as Hillary Clinton and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Some genius over at the U.N., you know the same organization that brought you the Oil for Food Scandal, now says that the U.S. of A. isn't giving enough when it comes to aid for the earthquake and tsunami victims in Asia.

Excuse me lame-o, even though our private donations don't appear in the official government aid numbers, we Americans still give more than anyone else and we also pay your salaries over at the U.N., to boot.

Maybe if some of your countries in Europe would LOWER their taxes (PDF file), there would be more entrepreneurial spirit and thus more available to give. Oh wait, maybe that's too much to ask.

While I'm on a rant, maybe I should point out to Jesse Jackson that Bush hasn't cut anything, b/c simple math would tell you that we're actually spending more on everything, how else do you explain the massive deficits under Bush presidency. Oh and Jesse, it wasn't lack of housing that forced Jesus to be born in a manger, it was bureaucrats in Rome who wanted both a census and more tax revenue (Luke 2:1-7, NIV). Next time, Rev. read the whole story before you spout off at the mouth.

Accessing the IWM blog

Here are some other ways to view the Investing With Mom blog, in case you didn't download the Pluck program that I mentioned in Issue #19 of the newsletter because you have a preferred method of reading blogs.

The single best way is probably to utilize the Feedburner feed for the Investing With Mom blog in your regular RSS Reader:


You can also access the Investing With Mom blog through your My Yahoo! account:


Alternatively, you can view the entire Investing With Mom blog at Complete RSS.com:


Finally, you can view the Investing With Mom blog through Newsgator, either online or in your Newsgator Manager:

IWM Advisory Alert

I just sent a buy alert to my Advisory subscribers. The window of opportunity for this alert will close on January 9th, 2005, unless the stock's price increases just 3% and exceeds our max buy price.

For more information, subscribe now and I will send you this between issues buy alert.

The next regularly scheduled issue for Advisory subscribers will be published within the next week and it will contain full details on this buy alert, along with any other positions in the portfolio that may need adjustment.

Year End Reminder

Just a quick reminder that you get double points at the 21st Century Investor Education website through the end of this week.

To read up on my comments regarding their excellent website, just check out Issue #17 in the Archives.

PS. Thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of Sunday's earthquake, all across southern and southeastern Asia. The USGS has plenty of info for anyone who's curious about the earthquake and it's aftershocks and tsunamis.

In 7 Days...

The "January Effect" Begins...

Issue #21 is currently available online, with the first half of my year-end wrap-up and look forward. The rest will be in the first issue of 2005.

In unrelated news, my best friend Titus turned the big 25 today. So I just wanted to wish him a happy birthday. Hope the MacGrill was tasty tonight. Here's a link, so you can view his brother Kris's awesome pictures and blog from YWAM Hawaii.

Merry Christmas

Just wanted to pass on an excellent article regarding Christmas. I used this site in preparation for my Election Eve predictions, you can see how close I was to being 100% accurate, by checking out the post-election recap edition of Investing With Mom.

I'll have a regular issue of Investing With Mom posted pretty soon, if not today then on Christmas Day itself.

I'm also working on some stuff for the Advisory, I'm just not sure when it will be posted.

Part of the delay in getting Advisory information published this week, has been due to sorting out my mom's computer. She still can't even use her e-mail or get online from her own computer. I should have it fixed in another day or so, but in the meantime, I'm distracted from writing for IWM.

That's okay though, because it's Christmas time and nobody's even on Wall St. today.

Another First for Investing With Mom

Well, as far as I can tell, this blog represents another first for Investing With Mom.

I've been unable to find another freely available blog produced by a small, independent newsletter publisher like myself. Oh sure there are the CBS Marketwatches, the Forbeses and other large publishers. There's also the general business blogs, some of which are quite good and have been around for a long time.

However, the only other publishers that have blogs, and rely on subscription revenue to stay in business, just like me, only offer their blogs to their paid subscribers.

I also know that they don't focus on the smallest of investors, like Investing With Mom does. They're geared towards options traders, or other specific markets.

Hope you enjoy!

Complete Investing Due Diligence

Investing With Mom Issue #20 is online.

Just click here, to learn from my mistakes of insufficient due diligence.

Welcome One and All

...to the blog for small investors.

This will be the place to get instant updates, whenever I publish new issues of Investing With Mom.

You will also get daily comments on items I've read regarding the markets in general, or even specific stocks.

If you are subscriber to my paid Advisory newsletter, you will find notices here of updates to the paid portion of the website. However, my webmaster and I are working on a second blog for paid subscribers only. Where I'll be able to publish day to day comments regarding any of the stocks currently in our portfolio.

That should be up and running by the end of the year, just in time for my year in review issue of Investing With Mom.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to let me know, as I'm always open.

Internet chunks

Wow, it only took 33 hours of no internet access to finally post the first post.

At that rate, I'll have a blog by the time I'm 102! Oh well, I think we're up and running now. So this should be live in a matter of just a few more hours.

Finally testing

Finally getting a chance to test out and publish a blog.

If this works we'll be going live in a matter of days, if not hours.