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

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

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

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.

Just wanted to do a quick update on the original Apple Call play from two Friday’s ago. Sold 5 of the 155 June contracts at $12.00 yesterday. Since we purchased them for $6.00 about 10 days ago we now have our original equity back minus some change. So, we now basically we have 5 contracts free and clear.  Basically this is a 100% return……. in 10 days.

Will get into further details on this in the next few days as soon as I can clear my plate a tad. Also will back fill on the other purchase of July 190 calls.

Out of Apple at a net of around $10,475. Thank goodness I am done with the official play now. Will still do a follow up with the other scenarios though.

The skinny on the play since Friday = $6,000 in, $10,475 out, Net $4,475 = 74.58% return in 6 days and I am not going to even try to figure out the yearly ROI.

OK, back to work.

**** One of the things that I do not want to do here is turn this into only a blow-by-blow trading blog. On the other hand, I do want to show you the reality and practical sides of investing to meet and beat our 21.5% benchmark as well. The largest factor in any trading strategy and game plan of course is you!

You have to figure out what is going on with you, i.e. how much time you have, what your comfort and knowledge levels are and basically what do you have going on with your life at the moment. How much friction do you have going on? All of these things can and will affect your results, so you need to make adjustments accordingly. (more…)

Here is the skinny on those 10 Contracts of Apple Calls, They are July $155’s, APVGK that I put in the portfolio on Friday for $6,000.

They are up another $1,900 or 21.71% just today as of Noon. We are up a total of $4,650 or 77.5% since Friday and they are now worth$10,650. I am pointing this out so that everyone can get past the mental block they have about being able to regularly obtain at least 21.5% returns, yearly mind you, on a regular basis.

You can learn how to do this and I am going to show you. Now if you purchased these and you feel comfortable with getting a 77.5% return in 4 days it would be OK for you to sell them all now. Bravo, job well done. Go take Yourself/Husband/Wife/Significant Other out for a nice Dinner this evening. Good behavior should always be rewarded so that it will be repeated. (more…)

Will put some numbers to this and a more lengthy explanation, but the virtual portfolio for the Investing Challenge is doing fine but I need to add a trade for Friday.

10 contracts of Apple August, $155 Calls. So, I am going to round the numbers andgoing to call it $6,000 even though it is actually up about $400 already. Don’t normally do a lot of options but, this was too good to pass up.

The were under $6.00 for the better part of the day. Have to keep an eye on these but, I think we sell half at $12 if they get there before May and keep the others until the June numbers come out. From what I have seen, $150 looks like it could be here soon and I think $180 or $190 is possible.

Now if they would just make the iPod a bit more intuitive when adding songs. I like iPods but truthfully their upload interface sucks, but not their stock thankfully. Bad idea to bet against Job’s any day of the week.

This if for all of those that may not know about Commercial Real Estate and why it is so lucrative. This is also one of those deals the we come across all of the time but this one is actually in the “pretty darn good” category.

Because this is my sandbox, I am going to change the rules on my 21.5% challenge too. I am going loan myself another $150,000 of virtual money and take my my portfolio up to $250,000. Let’s say I took an equity line out on my virtual house in order to do this or I used my IRA. Because I am going to plunk down $140,000 of my virtual money and do this very real deal. (more…)

Here is the First 21.5% Investment and information about  “The Guerrilla Balance Sheet”.

I am going to make this brief and to the point. In order for you to have 20% plus returns, you have to think out of the box. But as I have mentioned before, you don’t have to be an expert yourself, you just have to know where to find the reals ones and then figure out how to borrow their brain power and expertise.

In order to drive a car and make use of it to go faster and further than you could ever go by yourself for instance you do not have to be an engineer, a metallurgist, or a welder in order to build it. You just need to know how to use it. The same goes with investing.

While we are putting together your investing blueprint for your vehicle as it were and in order to bring out your inner investing Genius, we are going to do things differently.

As far as investing goes, the best investment you can make is yourself as I mentioned before and I want you to invest $7 dollars just like I just did. Don’t worry, if you don’t like this investment, you can get your $7 Bucks back. Wouldn’t it be great if all of your investments were like that? Talk about preservation of capital! Not only that, I will show you how to hit our magic 21.5% return off it right away!

Just so you know, this is going to be my first investment using my $100,000 virtual portfolio. I have a feeling that this is going to pay off far beyond our 21.5% benchmark.

If you have never heard of Jay Conrad Levinson, I want to introduce you to him. He has been my mentor for well over a decade even though we have never met. I have spoken with his daughter on numerous occasions though while working on a different project and she works with her father as it is a family business. Sharp group of people there indeed.

In case you don’t know, he is the father of Guerrilla Marketing and has approximately 17 million customers if you can believe it. With his first book “Guerilla Marketing”, he turned over the old way of marketing, and if you use this information, he is going to do this for your investing career as well.

While this report is primarily for Business Owners and not intended for investors per say, I want you to think of your portfolio as your business and to see if you can take some of these ideas and adapt them for yourself.

I will be discussing this report and information in detail and show you how you can take this information and re-source so it is applicable to what we are doing.

The report is called “The Guerrilla Balance Sheet” and it is how to turn your business expenses into profit centers. You read correctly. It shows how companies can take what normally would be an expense and make money off of them.

Guess what? Without them knowing it, they have put 90% of my investment philosophy into their report.

This is some pretty mind blowing information that you will be able to start to use right away. It will also give you an oblique way to start looking at future investments and the companies that you invest in.

Click Here to order the report. Remember, if you don’t like it, you can get your $7 dollars back! Not only that, but if you do order from here and leave me a comment, I will show you how to make an immediate 21.5% profit from it right away. In other words, that is $1.50 in your pocket. How is that for a way to start?

The Investor’s Dilemma
If you are like me, perhaps you have had some of these same dilemmas.

• Not sure where to start
• Not sure what “Experts” I should listen too
• Not sure if it is a good time to invest
• Not sure “what” to invest in. Do I invest in Stocks, Bonds, Mutual Funds, Real Estate etc?
• It seems like “everyone” has an angle to pry my money from me
• I know that I need to do something but not sure where to start
• Or I have been doing OK, but I want to do better, there has to be a better way

Any of this sound familiar? Well, how about if I walk you through some of the steps and missteps that I have gone through and save you some of the cuts, bruises, and downright thumpings that I have gotten?

How about if we do it live, right here? Does that sound at all interesting to you? (more…)

The Experts

While if you have watched any of the Media coverage on the Housing Market by the so called “Experts” or even the Stock Market, or Analysts of certain stocks, have you ever wondered why if they were such experts, how come the changes in markets always seem to take them by surprise?

Why do you think that possibly, when a company misses the numbers as it were and the numbers themselves being a product of the Experts it is the company at fault and not the idiot that got the numbers wrong in the first place? Doesn’t that make the expert not such an expert?

What surprises me is that these Experts are given the airtime repeatedly. Be it in the housing market, the stock market, etc.

I have found that the average man or woman on the street if they have just a bit of horse sense are far better at predicting market trends than a whole room of experts.

The tanking of the Real Estate market in Florida could be seen two years before it happened by anyone that bothered to look. The same goes with Oil prices and most commodities as well.

In the US when you have over 85% of the Oil, Gas, and Coal reserves placed off limits by state and federal government edicts do you, think that is going to effect prices? When you have a growing world population that all wants to improve their way of life and rightly so, do you think that demand might continue to grow?

When you have radical environmentalists fomenting hysteria in anyway they can with their goal of sending us all back into the stone age and we have governments and other special interest groups giving the ludicrous accusations credence as facts and passing legislation to drive up energy costs, do you really see a huge drop in energy costs in the near future?

This with all of these artificial pricing forces and that of the Monopoly called OPEC seeing no need to drop their profits, is there really a scenario in which prices are going to ever really significantly drop anytime soon?

If there is, I do not see it. So, my suggestion is not to listen to the pundits and the “Experts” and to start doing just a little bit of research on your own and use some common sense and you will beat the experts every time no matter what market you are in.