Howdy Sportsfans!

With Oil prices going down, there may be a good chance that they could go a lot lower.  Perhaps even below $100 and that  is a good thing…

Which brings me to a bunch of items on the horizon for us as investors.  We have the worst rated congress in History, or in over 230 years which is really saying a lot when you think that we had slavery, scandal, deficits, wars and more to contend with and these boobs still manage to take the cake.

The Democrats got control and promised big changes and they are not doing anything, which is good for us.  By them not doing things, that usually means they won’t be raising taxes or trying to redistribute wealth or scaring businesses into leaving the country, so in actuality that is a good thing.

We have Uncle Al, aka Al Gore, who is still managing quite nicely to ignore that fact that Global Tempartures dropped a full degree last year calling for us to shut down our coal and oil industries here in the US and put several hundred thouasand people out of work and ruin millions of peoples retirement portfolio in order for us to all  go green in ten years.   Yea… sign everyone up for that one Al baby.

But on the good news front, we have Brazil and Czechloslovakia offering up some amazing investment opportunities as well as, and yes I am ringing that bell again, small businesses here right in the good old US of A.

While a lot of the country is hurting, there are many businesses that are flourishing and in desperate need of money to expand profits and grow.   The US still breeds some of the best Entrepreneurs on the planet.  Wall street ignores most, the VC’s won’t play for less than a few Million, the Banks are a joke, which leaves some big holes to fill and some great opportunities for the smart little investors like us.

I know I have promised this before, but I will unwrap the best way to get into this market here shortly.  In the meantime, just start asking around in your community to find out which businesses are doing well and need money.  Approach them, they will be estatic.  Use Virgin Money and some common sense to put together a deal and you are on your way and you will be helping the business, all of the people that work for them, your community, yourself and your portfolio!

Let me know how it goes!

As promised some time ago, here is the info you need that could allow you to realistically make anywhere from $500 to $25,000 or more from your portfolio by next Wednesday depending on how big it is.

If you are not set up to trade options in your account, you might want to consider doing so as you won’t be able to do what I am about to show you if you don’t.

The CBOE or Chicago Board Options Exchange was nice enough to put this program together for you which is partially the reason why more money flows through them now than any other exchange in the world including the New York Stock Exchange, and the Nasdaq.

Plus, I really like these guys, they have their act together.

So without further ado here is a link to their page and I want you to download their GREAT Education Program they have put together that shows and explains the mechanics behind the options plays we have been doing here. It is user friendly and is right on the money…pun intended.

Just click on the box and it will take you to the download. Do that and then I will show you what you can do with it although since you are hear, you are smart anyway so I think you will see the light and see how I have been able to pull in 50% + return on the plays that I have been showing you.

Let me know what you think!

Cheers,

Andrew

PS A word of caution. Do not let your broker give you a rough time about setting up to trade options in your account. Most are clueless about them. Make sure you tell him/her that you just want to do covered ones and that should put out the fire in their underwear.

Remember too that if they were so brilliant at giving advice on how to invest, they would not be working for someone else, they would have been able to take their own advice and be retired by now…

Just something to think about.

That being said, I am not offering investment advice here just my opinion and you should always seek the advice of a qualified (please note that word and good luck finding one) investment professional.

Contrary to popular belief I did not fall into an abyss and I am still here working up some new goodies and content. My client list has gotten just a tad bigger to say the least in the past few months and it seems like all of the companies and people that I am working with are on a tear these days, contrary to what is going on with a lot of the economy.

It does pay to work with smart people. So, back to investing in small companies. While it may not pay for the big boys to jump in this game, because they have to swing a 10 to 20 million cat on each investment, it does pay for those of us that don’t have to swing any cats, especially one that big. I have no idea what that means exactly but I think you get the general idea…

Small businesses as I have said before are starving for capital because of how screwed up the Credit Bureaus have become and the fact that the banks are playing turtle and hiding in their shells and not lending money.

Because of this it may be easier know than at any time except perhaps right after the government kicked off the great depression with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act to successfully find and invest in small businesses with a bright future for pennies on the dollar!

In the next few days I am going to share part of the formulae that I use to find companies that are worth investing in and have a better than average shot at give you an above average return.

Think, where would I find companies like that… or better yet, what would they be doing to make it easier for me to find them?

Chat with you soon.

Hey there, I have to apologize for not keeping up with Posting this past week or so. But I’ve been rather busy.

I’m working on a couple of different projects.   I want to share with a few of them that  involve investing in small companies. What with the market being as wishy washy as it is, and that basically you do not have any control your investments for the most part,  I still prefer to invest directly in ventures when possible.

I want to teach you how to do the same.  If you are selective, you can easily blow through our 21.5% minimum return model because a little bit of money can make a big difference to a small company’s bottom line.  Especially now with Banks not lending to small companies unless the owners agree donate both Kidneys first.

Good small profitable companies need money!  If you have been a regular reader here you are aware that I have always suggested that you look into investing in a local venture or two.

One of the things that I do when working with smaller companies is to not only invest cash, but in many cases I invest cash and my time and expertise.  I typically will help companies get their sales and marketing going and then help with their online business. Do you realize that over 75% of all small businesses still do not sell their products or services on the web?

My promise is to help them get them on their way to a 21% profit increase in 21 days.  So it has worked nearly every time.

This way I can get a larger stake in the company and further insure that my investment is going to make me a good return.  This way it truly becomes a Win-Win situation which is the only way that I do business.

It is something that you might want to think about for yourself!

Cheers,

Andrew Anderson

I had to laugh today as I’ve seen several headlines that say homes sales unexpectedly jumped in April. I guess that only caught the people by surprise who live in a cave or who are totally clueless about the real estate market.

Hello! It’s Spring! Duhhhhh! So people are more apt to buy houses in the Spring rather than in the Winter time sportsfans? Wow, how totally unexpected!
I just thought I’d point that out. Anytime I ever see than an expert is caught off guard or their subject does something that it’s unexpected, then you can immediately writ off that individual as an expert

So anyway, just a point of amusement for me and hopefully you too. Remember, the News Media is not your friend unless you know that and make use of that fact.

So, we’ll talk to you soon and you can look forward to having the first installment of how to do covered calls the Monkey Way here shortly.

Andrew Anderson signing off and remember to have fun out there!

Going to make this short and sweet. Here is your homework assignment. Click on each company below to get the pricing, options, and charts.

ADM

John Deere

Monsanto

Figure out which one you like and tell me why I like all three of them. Find out which one you think will make a good Monkey Covered Call Play and a Straight Option Play by buying either Calls or Puts.

Will check back in in a day or two and see what you have. If you feel brave enough to give me your pick and your opinion, post a comment.

Ok, here are two more vids.

OK, so no I have not gone on hiatus per say, just busy as usual but in a good way. Well, what can I say about the market. It goes up, it goes down. Pretty profound, huh?

Apple, AAPL After Hours is at $187.83. Looks like we are going to get called out. This is a good thing. Give me a 79% return anytime on a Monkey Play..

Now I was listening to one of my Mentors talk the other day and it reminded me of something that I want to reiterate here.

When I talk about Monkey Plays and them being easy to do, I am not saying that you can’t lose money doing them.

If you go over to the side there and look up Monkey Plays or Investor Challenge, the name of the game is always preservation of capital and to mitigate risk. Now notice I did not say eliminate it.

When someone comes up to you and says an investment can’t lose, run as fast as you can in the opposite direction becuase you are talking with a Fool who’s money will fast be parting, don’t let part of it be yours.

Now are there some things that are a lot surer than others? You bet, and while I am mixing metaphors and whatnot, luck follows those who take action.

Have you ever noticed that there are lucky people? Well, she is the gal who is out there doing something where luck has a chance to visit. She is usually using her noodle too.

But here again, luck does not follow people that never do anything and yet these same people never figure that out. Now of course I am not talking about you but, I am sure you know someone like that which brings me to my next point.

Like some of you out there, I happen to have a few people where I see the Pygmalion Effect in action all of the time. While I truly love them to death, they have such a bad attitude about things things that not a whole lot of of good comes their way.

As T.Harv Eker says, they have become living breathing crap magnets and yet they can’t figure out why crap keeps coming their direction. They are entirely focused on and expect negative things to happen to them and guess what? It does and they do not seem to be able to make the connection

Now yoy might be saying where is he running off to this time. Well yes, I actually do have a point here and it is this.

What you focus on becomes larger and it will determine what happens to you and what finds you in life. If you focus on bad things, you will attract them in droves. If you focus on making money in a good positive way, while it may not find you in droves right a way, you have a much, much, much better chance of attracting it if making money is your focus. That makes sense right?

So, make sure that you are focused on making money and not on not losing it. If you do the first well and with some common sense, the later takes care of itself.

There are a million opportunities to make money out there, so be on the look out, do you due diligence quickly and then take action and go for it if the opportunity has merits.

Now just a tidbit on all of the opportunity that I see out there and here is the big announcement in case you missed it.

LOCAL IS IN!

Say what? I thought you were just talking about investing overseas? Yea, you move to the head of the class. I was and did talk about that, but you don’t want to move all of your money overseas…..yet.

With high gas prices, items and services that are local have the edge. As an example, right now today if you have a relatively smart farmer that has only 30 acres, he or she can be knocking down about $200,000 or more per year just selling the right items to their local markets. This is a pretty good chunk of change and there are lots of other examples just like this.

Local suppliers that don’t have to ship there products in can be a great investment. They are out there and they are looking for money to expand and the Banks are not loaning money to these folks regardless of what the Fed is doing or saying. The Banks are acting like 75 year old virgins these days and you can bet you are not getting any bub. And I am going to throw this in here too.

Also look for companies that are promoting working from home. There is simply no reason for 95% of the people that drive into work to be doing so these days. While I have been on the forefront of Telecommuting for going on 20 years now, companies that do not promote this are not worth investing in as far as I am concerned.

Now back to your little local guys and gals. With the Banks not doing the thing they are supposed to be doing, that leaves Private Lenders as the source for these great little enterprises. There are profitable companies that are begging for money out there and they are looking for your help. You don’t have to make a big investment, as little as $5,000 in the right place can have some great returns. I know I run into at least several every week and I am not even looking for them.

I will post some more ideas on how to find these growing little diamonds in the rough so that you can help them sparkle and grow larger.

And remember to think about what you are thinking about.

Have a great weekend.

Cheers,
Andrew Anderson

My goal with this story is to open your eyes to Alternative Investment Arenas. By Arena, I am talking about other countries. However, in order to do that, you need some way to measure and compare major metrics so that we are comparing Apples to Apples and not to Bananas or Cashews.

Talking about Cashews is apropos as some of what I am going to talk about is just plain nuts in more ways than one.

In researching this story, I have discovered a somewhat startling theme here in that almost every bit of the Stupidity that we need to avoid and Smartness we need to go after for your portfolio is Political in nature.

Here are some metrics that are commonly used to look at different countries for investment potential. A good source to help you with them is The Heritage Foundation which has compiled a top 10 List, as well as a list of 160 countries for Economic Freedom.

Click Here to take a look. (more…)

Couple of things here I wanted to jot down for you on how you can drastically improve your portfolio’s return that are somewhat oblique in nature, yet will have a more profound impact than many things you do directly.

Here is jot number one. At the urging of one of my Mentors, I have begun a Morning Ritual that I do every morning, Monday through Saturday.

For me, even just a few months ago the very idea of developing any type of repetitious rituals was abhorrent.

This is perhaps because I hate to be bored and growing up I had associated habits or rituals with negative things, i.e. drugs, alcohol, or even worse, did I mention boredom?

Nevertheless, because I respect him and he happens to be one of the smartest guys I know, I made a commitment to listen to and do all of the things that he had agreed to teach me 100% to the best of my abilities. So, when he said I had to start introducing some rituals in my life, I listened to him. In this case, his definition of a ritual is a “thoughtful repetitive action that produces a positive outcome” which made sense to me. (more…)

For those of you still in Apple, here is the good news below. 

Did I leave about $15,000 on the table here last week?  Maybe, but if you don’t have time to watch your option plays, get out which is I Am An Investors first rule of Options.  Break it at your own risk. 

So no, I walked away with a 380% return and am happy with it. But, the Monkey Play for a 79% return where we sold the covered Calls sure looks like it has a good possibility of that playing out as planned.

And nope I did not get back in…no time and all.   I will have some other plays for you soon.  This is getting a bit rich for me.

APPLE INC

(Nasdaq: AAPL)

After Hours: 175.20 0.15 (0.09%) as of 7:14PM ET on 04/29/08

Last Trade:	175.05
Trade Time:	4:00PM ET
Change:	2.81 (1.63%)
Prev Close:	172.24
Open:	171.11
Bid:	175.10 x 100
Ask:	175.20 x 900

100%

It is actually pretty simple. Other than doing the trades you see here, be careful who you are listening to and watch what you read.

Really, think about it. If you have a serious issue like breaking your leg, do you ask your Aunt Ethel how to fix it? How about your car mechanic? Well unless either one of them are Doctors it is probably not a good idea to take their advice. So at least now we have a good ball park on where to get advice from i.e. a Doctor. (more…)

OK, squeezed out of Apple this morning for a 380% net return.

An Analyst (it always cracks me up how appropriately that term describes most of them) Shaw Wu downgraded the stock today on valuation concerns. Apparently it was OK, last year when it was at 180 but not now. I refuse to get on a soapbox here on my view of Analysts, but your smart so you can figure out what it is.

Here is the squeeze we got out of Apple for the trades to close the positions. This is why you have your orders in before the market opens if you are bailing out. Especially when the stock drops like a rock as it did today.

5 Contracts of APVGK- July 155 Calls sold @ $23.00= $11,500 - Commissions of $14.95 = Net $11,485.05

The ROI as I mentioned before not computable as we had no money in this trade. (more…)

Going to put in sell orders tomorrow on the 5 contracts of the APVGK’s.

Also going to sell all 39 contracts of the APVGRs that are still in the portfolio. Nope, I did not look at these today so I did not have a chance to get out at $5.20 …whoops, my bad.

Also, if you look back at the either or scenario, we could have gotten either 16 if we took out are original investment or 39 if we played up. Well, I went with the played up version….I really need to watch my portfolio a bit closer… So, if these get sold tomorrow on the original $6,000 investment, they should bring in right around $31,000 or $12,880 on the 16 contracts that I discussed. So, not too bad aye? (more…)

=$

Apple pushed past 161 today. Not really a big surprise for anyone keeping up with my trades here. The July 155 Calls APVGK are now bid at $17.50. So the 5 we have free and clear are now worth $8,750. Since we originally purchased 10 contracts for $6,000 and then sold 5 contracts for $6,000 and got all of our equity back, we are now holding these contracts with a ZERO cost basis. The questions is, what is our ROI?…..Exactly…like in the movie “The Toy Story” to infinity and beyond!

Our Apple July 190 Calls APVGR are now at $4.65. I have to go back and look at the trades but I think I might have sold half of them at $5.20. We got into those at $2.60 so we are fine there. I am going to put an order in to sell them all for $5.20 so that I can get into a different play. (more…)

= $

In the trade last week with Apple where instead of just buying stock naked i.e. without dressing it and taking care of it by dressing it with a Call, we purchased 100 shares of Apple and then immediately sold the call on it. These were both market orders using zero buying techniques that anyone could do, even a monkey like me!

Now a day after we did this the stock dropped. Has this ever happened to you before? Of course it has if you have been investing for any length of time.

But if you had purchased the stock naked, your investment would be down about $4 Bucks a share now since it is trading around$149. Ouch….

Guess what? We are still smiling! Because we sold our July 170 Call on our stock, we put $8.25 per share in our pocket that we could go buy monkey food with. I do get hungry you know.

Even though Apple is down, we are still up $4.25 on the trade versus being down $4. That is an $8.25% difference. Can you say holy smokes Mr. Monkey?

We took care of our stock and dressed it and it is now taking care of us because we took care of it. Do you see why doing covered Calls in many ways is much safer and more profitable than just buying the stock?

I have some videos in the works that will explain the Why, What, and How of dressing your portfolio to make it safer and get much higher returns than you my have thought possible.

Andrew Anderson …AKA =  I Am An Investor Monkey

My buddy Ryan from way across the pond in Australia is doing a launch today with his new product for those of you that have a website for your business and want to be shown how you can make more money from it right away.

Just so you don’t waste your time, only go there if you interested in making more money from your website, do not go there if making your website more profitable is not important to you or if you don’t have one. You can click on the graphic to check it out.

If you just sign up for his FREE content, you will find that it is better than 99.9% of high priced information out there and that much of it has never been shown before.

Ryan has been involved with a number of million dollar website launches i.e. where the website brings in millions of dollars in just a few days or weeks after it is launched. Hie is one talented Aussie which is why I work with him.

I am going to let you in on something else. He and I are also working on another project that I truly believe is going to radically change how people create a profitable web presence. Will let you know when we have it ready for Beta.

In the meantime, go sign up for Ryan’s Freebies and see what he has to teach and show you. There is some great usable information in there that you can implement right away. If you like that info, go grab his Dressed2Convert package, it is well worth it.

I Thought I Knew…… And The Reasons Why I Am Helping You Make More Money

As I sit doing my every once in a while inventory of what is swimming around in my noodle I come to think about what I hope I Am An Investor does for people in changing the way they “thought” that a portfolio and a business for that matter had to be put together and run. This is true with all of my endeavors. It is having the effect of turning what they thought they knew upside down for most people, including myself.

This is not something new for me. My mental world started getting rocked pretty early as my parents seemed to enjoy a somewhat different lifestyle than most. My Mom was a History and English teacher and my Dad worked in the Government with Computers way back when they were the size of a whole building and they were fairly well politically connected and because of this I got to do some very unique things at a young age.

I was also encouraged to explore pretty much anything my intellect desired.

Because of my upbringing I got to meet Governor’s, Senators, and Congressman and later on the Kennedy’s (who at the time were a big deal) and I realized that there was something not quite right with all of them at a very early age. (more…)

Apple did manage to pull back a bit yesterday. Was a great time to buy…. Anyway, the other reason why equities are my least favorite investments, although as you can see, meeting our 21.5% ROI criteria can be done once you know what you are doing, is you have to watch them like a two year old at a fair. The minute you take you eye off of them, is when things happen unless of coure you stick your money in a holding pattern.

I frankly do not like being chained to my investments like that. It does not fit into my schedule. But, while you are building up your portfolio, it is a great way to do so quickly.

The National Association Of Realtors released numbers today saying the pending home sales dropped to a record low in February. As compared to what? There in lies the rub.

Here is a link to the Yahoo Article.

This is a quote from the article that I love -

“Wall Street economists surveyed by Thomson/IFR had predicted the index would inch up to a reading of 86.3. “

Who are these goobers and what does 86.3 mean really? OK, let us try and forget that we had the worst weather in 30 years hit the Mid-West in February. So much for Global Warming….LOL I will let you in on another little secret code word.

Wall Street Economists = The dude or dudette that isn’t bright enough to be trading on their own data and making millions, but needs a day job to pay off student loans and needs to have you believe that what he/she says it gospel even though it will kill your returns. (more…)