You've probably gotten my e-mail by now which means you know that this Blog is where I'll be conducting 99% of my communications with you from now on. I might even start posting my Tycoon Report articles here just for the heck of it. :)
Mostly this blog will be used to make announcements about new tests, award prizes and most importantly, have YOU submit feedback on the Tycoon Report web site.
The Big Picture
But I want to take a minute and take a big step back here. You might be eager to see the new features we're adding and all the cool stuff we have coming your way, but there's something MUCH bigger going on here.
We're at the beginning of a dramatic change in the American economy -- the increase in globalization and outsourcing has forced the United States to shift all of its technology and resources on becoming a services economy. Let me tell you what I mean by that.
The top three US car producers are losing money by the minute - we just aren't the country that should be manufacturing things anymore. The cost of living here is too high and if companies want to remain profitable they know that they need to start sending manufacturing tasks overseas. So that means the tasks that stay here will be more service oriented - professions like doctors, scientists, lawyers and, of course, investors.
Objectively speaking, investing is the only profession on that list where in order to do well, you don't need:
1. A College degree
2. A TON of money
3. Other people
Investors can start out with a little money, a computer and the right information and make millions. Now I'm not going to insult the spirit of this post and tell you all about the money we can help you make - because the truth of the matter is, any well educated and well informed person can do well in the market. And that's really what we're trying to accomplish here at Tycoon -- there are thousands of newsletters out there and they all say the same thing.
We've tried to make ours a bit different and better than most, but we still know that there's a better way to do things. We can sit at our keyboards all day and tell you what to do and what stocks to buy, but we have a different philosophy. From personal experience working in the thick of things on Wall Street we know, better than most, that people no longer want to be TOLD what to do.
Let me explain...
How to Fish
There's the saying that goes, "You can give a man a fish and feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish you can feed him for a lifetime".
Tycoon is trying to teach investors how to "fish".
And that's what this is really all about. All of the features we're adding, all of the services we're launching (e.g. Teeka's ETF Education Series) is all about educating YOU! And our web site will soon be geared towards helping you educate others and educate yourself.
Every investor on this planet has a story to tell. Every person who has ever put a dollar in the market has learned a lesson and can share that with another investor.
I had a friend once who said, "Wayne, I love making mistakes." I asked him why.
He said that because every time he made a mistake he learned from it. I replied, "Buddy, I love when you make mistakes too, because I won't ever make it myself!"
The BIGGEST Picture
And that's what the web is really all about - learning from others and helping others learn in return. You'll come to see over the next few weeks that we here at Tycoon are dead serious about this concept of educating investors - we're not just paying it "lip service" like so many of our competitors do. We want to be your number one source for finance and investing education.
Because at the end of the day you have two choices:
1. Let other people lose the money you worked your whole life for
2. Or equip yourself with enough information to make that money work for you!
So we're about to go on a very exciting ride my friend - I'm sure we'll all learn a lot from it.
By the way, whoever makes the funniest comment about my photo will get it featured in next week's Tycoon Report! So take your best shots!
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You Answer
On The Great Wall
About Me
- Wayne Mulligan
- Former geek, entrepreneur, dot-bomber, stock broker and student...now I'm just a recent college grad, strapped with debt and working on a new start up (TickerHound) in the city that never sweeps.
30 comments:
China is not the only country but happens to be one of them in terms of low cost labor. Having high cost labor does not mean loss of manufacturing. One example is Singapore which has the most expensive labor cost in the region but concentrates on high value manufacturing.
Perhaps you should have Vietnam in the background as they have lower labor costs than China!
A photo comment.
This is your Wayne. This is your Wayne in China. Any questions?
It’s not the cost of wall that bothers me; it’s the freight and installation.
looks like you have been there doing homework.
You also dress the part without a suntan.
bo.
Your picture took awhile to load ... thought you would be BIGGER! Best - Karl
Wayne on the Wall. Wayne that is not Wall Street. Are you learning how to build a wall to keep Illegal Aliens out?
Ahhhhh grasshopper what to invest in next?????? as you bow your head slowly
prev comment about your pic
Look, the new Chineese citizen. Wayne is going so frequently to China to find investing opportunities and get the vibe of the country that his eyes are getting smaller and smaller, soon we wont recognize him in a crowd. The only thing missing is the sword and Samuraï suit.
Can't wait to see and comment on the new site.
Regards,
Dear Wayne,
I am so thankful that God gave you such a keen mind so you can help so many people improve their skills in the world of investing.
You can't have everything in life.Keep up the GREAT work.
Citizen Wayne....you'll need that hat on the Wall to deflect those Chinese whispers....
You really should turn your silly hat around so we can see your face . . .
I don't care if you're Fu Man Chu!!! I said "up against the wall and spread em pal"!!!
John Mulligan
Great grandson of Ghengis Khan visits Chinese Wall street ... will he make a killing this time? Stay tuned.
Confucious say ... "Wall go up, and wall go down, it depend which way you facing ... let wall come to you & get free bag of prawn crackers with every trade"!
he who travels by Rickshaw, never runs out of gas
(in reference to your hat)
tom
So that's what they meant by a Chinese Wall.
You have just introduced the new American Great Wall that divides this nation and creates havoc for all. We need to tear the wall down. By the way, nice hat.
Phew . . that took more time than I thought! Now I'm gonna build something bigger. I'll call it "Stock Spot"!
my husband and I are 60 and just starting to play in the markets. The favourite is Osisko on the TSX at the present. Being proud cCanadians, we would like to give these markets preference . will you be able to help us ???
Guys, these comments are awesome - I'm having a tough time deciding which one to feature in the Tycoon Report this week...we'll just have to wait and see ;)
Great wall but shame about you big bald head.
well, you wouldn't smile either, if you had walked down all those steps with a light shade on your head!
Son of Buddha says invest wisely
Thanks Wayne. Perfect Picture. Emphasizes that you are on "wall street" in more ways than one.
I'm ready
Hi Wayne! Dig the cool hat!
Ron
Here's my article on investing which is based on my experience. I hope that it has some value to you.
ON CHOICES
Last Friday I turned 65 so I am now officially over the hill and eligible for medicare. When the people with whom I work ask me when I am going to retire I simply reply: “Why should I retire? Where else can I go and get paid for being grumpy?”
On the other hand I am actually getting close to the point where I feel that I am able to afford retirement. My present plan is to work until my wife retires because it wouldn’t be much fun to be retired and alone. When I look back it is hard for me to understand how I got to this point and I admit to being a bit confounded. Up until I was 43 years old I was self employed and ended that phase of my life with no financial assets except our home. When I close our business I decided to seek employment in Accounting since I had a degree in that area. After being self employed it was quite an adjustment working in the corporate world. One advantage that I was not used to was having a retirement plan which would enable me to build a retirement portfolio during the twenty-something working years remaining.
It was obvious to me that I should have started planning for retirement long before I passed my 40th birthday but when I was younger it seemed like I had plenty of time so I was simply in no hurry. I have read that many people suddenly awake to the realities of the aging process after they turn 40; that was exactly how it worked for me. At first I was somewhat in shock and I wondered how I had aged so suddenly. I could have simply thrown up my hands, gone into a state of denial and accept the hand that I had been dealt by life.
It was at that point where I realized that I had choices that are available to all of us: either give in to our “financial fate” or take control of our financial future in order to build toward our future. The question that I faced was whether I would let the future control me or whether I would try to control my own financial future. I chose to take control. My first step was to maximize the contributions to my retirement program. There is a real advantage to pre-tax investments: You use some free money to make money. In effect the government is loaning a part of your tax money interest free until you retire. At that point you to start repay that loan but you are likely to be in a lower bracket so your taxes are less. Of course you have to make do with a little less money each week but you tend not to miss money that you don’t see. This has to be the best savings plan available for most people.
Since I was eager to supplement our retirement nest egg I decided that I also needed to start trading stock on my own. Since I didn’t have any cash at that point it was actually not possible at that time. I decided that I needed a plan. As I look back I realize that I really had no idea what an undertaking it was to make money in the stock market. Up until then I had traded just two stocks and I had made money on both so I was over confident. In retrospect I can see that making money on those first two stocks was nothing more than pure dumb luck; the market would soon educate me on how hard it would be to make money on my own. I paid the price for that education but it was well worth it. The main thing that I learned is that you never stop learning…one way or the other. I quickly learned that when you got too confident the market quickly brought you back down to earth.
In order to try my hand at investing on my own I needed to generate some cash. My first step was to do a simple assessment of our financial situation and it was not good. I quickly realized that it made no sense for me to start investing while I owed money so I made a concerted effort to pay off all our credit cards and bills while incurring no new debt. Once we were debt free I made a point of paying my bills as soon as I received them instead of holding them until they were due. The result was quite interesting: the balance in my checkbook started to go up. After I built up a cash reserve I started transferring cash into an investment account periodically so that I had cash with which I could invest. If we needed to make a major purchase I would transfer the surplus to our savings account until we had enough to fund that purchase. Another means of conserving cash was that we drove older cars that we bought used and carefully maintained to avoid both monthly payments and collision insurance. In that way we avoided getting back into debt. While my approach may seem austere we actually live a comfortable life. We enjoy saving to do things in our future rather than paying interest on the pleasures of our past.
Early on I lost money on a couple stocks because I didn’t follow the rules of good investing. That got my attention and I became much more humble as I continued. I learned the importance of research and of buying companies with low debt-to-equity ratios after I lost money on companies that carried too much debt. I have also learned to try to look at the big picture instead of buying into the hype. At first I believed what my stock broker told me. It did not take me too long to realize that I needed to rely on my own skills and judgment if I wanted to succeed in building a retirement portfolio. When I started investing the resources that we currently enjoy on the internet simply did not exist so I started out by reading books on investing.
At the present time the only debt we have is a small mortgage on our home and I am planning to pay it off before we retire. Neither of us has ever had a high paying job and we are far from being rich but we are in much better shape than I expected to be at this point in our lives. In retrospect I know that I made some of correct choices. I feel good knowing that my wife will have some supplemental cash to fall back on after I am gone. That has always been my main investment goal. Of course I look forward to the time that we still have together. I am always looking for investment opportunities to fund our travel plans. While there are many aspects of our lives where we have no control it’s important to make the right choices when it comes to our financial futures. While we have sacrificed some enjoyment in the present I believe that we have good progress in achieving our long term goals which will pay dividends in future years.
Wayne - I tried to post my assignment on the tycoon report home page and it didn't take, as far as I know. I copied it from word into MS word processing,filled out the BIO, added a picture and hit post and the world went white.
I don't hace notes on my old machine.
Sam
Sir –
I am a novice at investing at nearly 60 years of age and have enjoyed reading most of your articles. However, I do not have access to the information resources I feel are necessary to fully evaluate investment opportunities as they occur and respond to market changes. I have a small self directed IRA with a leading investment house and know some of the basics of trading. However, there are terms which I vaguely understand and others which may as well be in Urdu.
The reason my account is small is because a broker whom I knew and trusted advised me to sell the high yield corporate bonds which I had held since the late 80’s and buy a certain stock, JanBell Marketing which his firm was very excited about. The net result was my portfolio shrunk dramatically within 2 months. A $100 investment was worth $2.50. There was a class action lawsuit netting the law firm a lot of money and the investors received worthless stock warrants. I do not trust brokers. What was needful was to learn to invest myself and I don’t feel capable of managing my own portfolio.
I therefore hit upon a stratagem of setting up test portfolios based on stocks in those industries with which I am familiar recording the date, price and quantity of stocks “purchased” based on the criteria I feel are important to me. These are security, dividends, steady growth and sound financials based on the limited scope of the financial information available to me. I periodically check these portfolios to see if my analysis is correct. I have done this every quarter for the last 2 years.
In addition, I have made purchases in the interim and monitor these very closely as well. If a stock was stagnant for several months in a rising market or lost 5%, I sold it. I made a mock portfolio of the stocks I sold as well, more to reassure myself that that selling them when I did was the right thing to do more than anything else.
The results so far have been modest gains in my maritime, rail, construction, ETF, China and high dividend test portfolios. These returns are more in less in line with the increases in the market overall.
The shock came when I compared the annualized returns of each test portfolio with the return on the stocks in my “sold” portfolio. The post-sale returns in the “sold” portfolio were 50% higher than any of the others! It seems I still have a lot to learn about investing and patience.
Regards
Sam
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