Just wanted to give everyone a heads-up that I hope to make some drastic changes to the look of this website over the next month. For the most part the changes will be cosmetic. Because the most useful feature of this site is now the discussion board, I will be using a new template that will hopefully improve that area of the site. I will also be taking the blog off the homepage. I no longer have the time to keep-up with it and I’d rather focus on the discussion board. So, in the near f... Read Full Story

I’m a little late, but I was very impressed with this acapalla arrangement and I wanted to share it: Read Full Story

I’ve been reading Freakonomics lately. One chapter deals with information asymmetry. Information asymmetry occurs when one individual/group has more information (or better information) than another. Many occupations are buit around information asymmetry. For example, you visit the doctor because you assume that he has more or better information regarding how to diagnose and treat a condition than you do. Other occupations that immediately come to mind are real-estate agents, financial a... Read Full Story

I’ve been reading Freakonomics lately. One chapter deals with information asymmetry. Information asymmetry occurs when one individual/group has more information (or better information) than another. Many occupations are buit around information asymmetry. For example, you visit the doctor because you assume that he has more or better information regarding how to diagnose and treat a condition than you do. Other occupations that immediately come to mind are real-estate agents, financial ... Read Full Story

Today I received an alarming pop-up message (pictured below) from a program on my computer. I had to read the message a few times as I thought it was so ridiculous that it must be a joke. Aparently Word Web feels that they need to take some sort of social stance by charging fees for the use of their software to people who (in their opinion) are causing more than their fair share of harm to the environment. While I think it is crazy, I guess I don’t care so much since Word Web is a priva... Read Full Story

I love reading. I don’t have nearly as much time for it as I would like, but I really enjoy a good book. In the last week I’ve picked-up over a dozen books at two used book sales. I got several great business books, a few on investing, politics, quantum theory (not sure why, it sounded interesting…I like to learn); however, what may have been my best find is a book titled Remember Everything You Read: The Evelyn Wood 7-Day Speed Reading & Learning Program I have always ... Read Full Story

I recently came across some interesting statistics regarding blogs….Roughly 80% of the top 5,000 or so blogs have two or more posts per day. For the last 5 or 6 months this blog has averaged…oh…about…ONE POST A MONTH! While I don’t really have any aspirations to be one of the top blogs in the world, these statistics did make me face the reality that this blog is very sub-par. Now before I continue beating myself up, I will point out that it was determined that m... Read Full Story

On April 14, 2008 I wrote about the Allscripts (MDRX) / Misys (MSY) Merger (announced in mid-late March). Since then the merger has been discussed a bit more on the member’s-only discussion board. For some time there was uncertainty about the merger due to lending issues (Lehman Bros. collapse). Today it was announced that the funding is in place and shareholders are in favor for the merger to move forward. You may be interested in this just for the special dividend, I still happen to l... Read Full Story

Based on the recommendation of a member of the discussion board (and after some additional research), I bought Interactivecorp (IACI) for $17.72 per share on August 19. Later that week InteractiveCorp spun-off four divisions: Lending Tree, Home Shopping Network, TicketMaster, and Interval. For each share of IACI I received 1/5 of a share of HSN, ILG, and TKTM and 1/30 of a share of TREE. IACI shares underwent a reverse split following the spin-off. Today I received the spin-off shares in my S... Read Full Story

Today I sold my shares of KRE for $30.00 per share. I was tired of holding it and hoping the price would rise and make my decision to purchase not look so bad (I’m learning to put asside any emotional attachments to stocks). I purchased KRE for $45.25/share on August 23, 2007 after Jim Cramer talked the ETF up like it was the best investment ever….I should have know better. The logic was that the Fed Rate Cuts would help the Regional Banks and KRE would move upward (link to origin... Read Full Story