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I'm finding:

- i can't "understand" this market or the market in general

- have been using the "save trade" feature to papertrade at

Ameritrade; have been more wrong than right

The addition to the Wrigley position last spring after

announced merge with Mars/taken private was an arbitrage

on the merger price. I have another one (think it was dow

chemical taking over something) as well.

I'm also finding my focus is a bit off so it's harder to

make decisions; so, i make no trades until i can work this

out.

Foob, 3 Sept 08 8:45 am

p.s. considering this market, doing nothing isn't that bad

a strategy; rocky reversals, hedge fund bombings, etc.

p.p.s. still want to buy into construction materials at some

point; owens corning had an opening in July but the climate

wasn't that good in the mkt overall.

4 Mar 08 10:30 pm

below are past posts that were part of my fact sheet.

They were meant as a "blog" but i just now understood

that this exists on covestor so i moved my older posts.

Omnibus until now:

4 Mar 08 -- it just kinda takes your breath away. The clockwork that is
the investment marketplace has had it's kotter pins pulled and now
we're seeing if the wagon wheels are going to fly off.

(it's a bad mixed metaphore but more people have seen westerns than worked on tractors).

I
tuned out stuff from October forward after doing what i "thought" was a
lot of prudent selling. I'm now catching up on accounting to see what
happened last fall and this emerging Spring.

Foob

27 Dec 07 10:58 am after losing my last bio post 8-(

Merry Christmas

Happy
Holidays

a Prosperous
New Year

A toast: with
Reisling Salmon Run (Finger Lakes NY)
to Marti Perry Simon Rikki + everyone

Plus the Whole
V V V

Covestor Family Community

Yours Truly Ulysses J. Foobar

9 Aug 07; ed's/revs 13 Aug. eds 19 Sept. eds 22 oct 07

Just recently revisited a childhood game: Stocks and Bonds, a 3M/Avalon Hill Bookshelf game.

We used to play in Middle school; it's available on eBay (symbol EBAY) for $15 or so. Great game!

This sparked a little spark for me about the stock market.

At
Boston U. in the '80s we had a dorm game of "stock picker verses dart
board" that i kept track of in AppleWorks (still trying to revive the
spreadsheet to see how my random picks held up).

I Also worked as a "dialer" for a broker at Shearson Leaman American Express (a mouthful of a name for a broker!).

Learned
more about what went on inside a broker's office, how to use Value
Line, but the bug didn't catch. Biggest impression: brokers are selling
the product-of-the-week.

Been investing since the '80s; started focusing about two years ago and have done well.

First "BY myself" investment: Radius, an Apple Macintosh computer monitor manufacture;
12/30/92 Q&R BUY Radius Inc. $5.125 x 100+ $37.50 $550.00

Double reverse splits for fractions; merged with Digital Origin; merged with Media 100;

11/22/0 SELL Media 100 Inc
0.005 2 0.01 0.00 0.00

Personally,
i'm trying to learn more about correlation, beta and buying insurance
as well as forex and commodities (copper). Began trading options last
fall and am expanding (am up to five options positions, which i feel is
a good number that i can monitor).

Have "Listened to Cramer" but
am selective in buying; MDRX, FCX, AAPL all good calls. NYX was and i
sold too. Evaluating VMWare right now.

Cramer's just a guy you want to buy a beer for; his books are really good for foundation work.

Warren Buffett's mistake is my profit. The company is in need of over-haul though after emerging from bankruptcy; still thinking old ways need to get out. -offf Foob

Want to start a builder's basket of stocks; OC, USG, maybe the main corning that i've owned in the past. Waiting for housing to get Real Ripe this Spring or so; may start building positions now though/in Jan. depending. --Foob

Ecology and Environment, Inc.is the leading enviromental disaster response team and has homeland type contracts as well. They pay a healthy dividend and are committed to helping when disaster strikes. They did go off on a "shrimp farming" tangent that had little to do with core business (besides that they have biologists working for them) and took some losses over the year for this. Sentiment and stocks are not supposed to mix; this one is one of those tough ones because it's a long-term hold. Foob

I buy Arm and Hammer laundry detergent and toothpaste. Both are reasonably priced, do a good job and meet my needs. This was a no-brainer stock buy: i cho cho chose them to do business with and went from there. Church & Dwight Company also now owns trojan; their "evolve" campaign doesn't really ring my bells. The web stuff they do is modern though. Foob

THere's something just wrong with the stock, the accounting, the financials at this company. I haven't quite nailed what it is: they hired the lead vending guy from Pepsi, they have products that are fully embracing the zeitgeist of 2007 with energy misers for vending and their remote laundry stuff. Who doesn't want to use a credit card these days too! They have some contracts with Coke and MasterCard This is one of those tough ones because i sit here looking to harvest tax losses; i might sell it and approach it again later. There's an outside chance that someone buys them but no substance to this. Foob

First: VMWare on OS X with their Fusion product is one of the tastiest pieces of software i've played with in quite some time. It's a feat too: amazing engineering. Started looking into the company after their sucessful IPO; there was a piece inthe Merc (San Jose Merc News) on the CEO and how women are flocking to a woman-led company. I've made some really good coin on options in VMW and have this position as well; it's a keeper that i'll build out as circumstances dictate. They're in for competition and i fell, like Intuit, they'll thrive on it; bring it on Microsquish! Foob

Industrial Real Estate REITs are a separate class from apartments and such; this one based out of CO if memory serves, basically takes over the manfacturing and warehousing for major corporations globally. ProLogis is a pretty good company though there are some questions about her; there was something in their evolved financial structure that rankled people (dividend payout maybe). Will have more facts with some research. Foob

meant to list OC as part of my Builder Basket with USG i luv serindip -- Foob