Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corp. (NYSE:AGM)

photo by Bob Jagendorf
.
I don’t know about you, but I didn’t see this coming. Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corp. (NYSE:AGM), the mortgage lender for farmers rolled out last week like one of those storms that you don’t get a chance to run for cover.
.
On Monday the stock opened at $3.10 after taking a plunge into the abyss only to come back and hit the high of the week on Friday 1:05pm of $10.87. If you do the math, that is a gain of 350% in just 5 days. If you were lucky to catch it Monday afternoon at $2.61, you would actually be up 415% for the week.Those are the type of penny stocks that we dream of finding, unfortunately I missed the boat. I noticed the company on Wednesday afternoon after it jumped up 30% during the trading day.
.
I didn’t take the time to research it since knew that it was a financial play as well as a agricultural one too. I thought that since the stock was trading in the $29 range in the middle of September, I missed the quick ride back up on the fact that it was oversold and with the “Invest In America” bill issue going on I didn’t want to take the chance.
On Wednesday it was trading in the low $6 range. If I jumped in at that point, I would have still made a cool 75% for two days of holding the stock.
.
The reason I bring this stock to light is the fact that this turmoil in the stock market is something that the average Joe needs to steer clear of or you could be betting the farm on something you didn’t have time to research and do your due diligence on. Yes, we all want to hit it big on a penny stock or a established one like AGM, but it’s not worth it when you haven’t done your homework. The Stock closed for the week at $8.21 and in after market trading it went back up to $9.95, so who knows what to expect, especially in these trying times.

*DISCLAIMER* By the end of the day on Friday, I did buy a position in AGM. I presently own 100 shares.
.
.
P.S. Want to learn more about the stock market? take a free two week trail with Jim Cramer from TheStreet.com

Tags: Diversified, Financials, Investments, Stock trading

Related posts

• The Stock Market Is Getting Ready For Another Run Up (0)
• The Stimulus Plan Doesn’t Stimulate Anything (0)
• Sell-Off’s And Rallies (0)
• I’m Glad That This Week In The Stock Market Is Over (0)
• Finance, Energy And Politics, Oh My (0)

Worst Week In Stock Market History

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last week you know that the economy is in deep trouble and it looks like no matter what anyone does, it’s not going to do any better. This has been the worst week in stock market history. The DOW drops over 6% in this week alone, as the NASDAQ falls 9% and look what happened to the S&P 500, it dives 9.4%.
.
The week started off bad on Monday (it was the worse of them all) by dropping 777 point on the DOW. Congress couldn’t leave their feeling at home that they went ahead and voted against the “invest In America bill (mostly because Nancy Pelosi can’t shut up) that would have help the American people and gave a little confidence to Wall Street. We heard all week from the politicians that Wall Street and Main Street are two different groups of people. Let’s see how different they are when the residents of Main Street get their 401K statements by November 3rd and realize that their portfolio has shrunk quite a bit in this quarter (which ended September 30th).
.
We listened as Citigroup bids and signs the papers to acquire Wachovia, only to see Well Fargo came in with a better offer. Now Citigroup has filed a lawsuit against wachovia because of this issue. All the while the rest of the financial sector takes a slow ride downward all week long. To add insult to injury, when the bill was finally sign by Congress today, Wall Street, with it’s good solid gains for the day, took it all back and then some. For what reason, I don’t know. I guess Wall street lost that confidence they had while waiting so long for Congress to come back to the table.
.
So what’s to come next week for the markets? More of the same, I would guess since it’s so evident that we are in a recession/depression period, the smart money is going to start moving their money into more stable vehicles (bonds and such). I myself think that’s a pretty good idea at this time. If you have capitol tied up in stocks, you may want to take good hard look them and see which ones are one that you shouldn’t have during a recession. I’ve read a lot of articles that say that the way to go right now is consumer staples (McDonald’s, Pepsi, Johnson & Johnson etc.). If you own any, hold on to them. If you’re in a stock that is sensitive to the price of commodities, then it might be time for you to sell into any rally you get. Remember, the old saying… “cash is king”. But then again, who knows what’s going to happen to the almighty “greenback”.

Tags: Diversified, Economy, Financials, Stock market for beginners, Stock market news, The Dollar

Related posts

• Weak Dollar (1)
• The Stimulus Plan Doesn’t Stimulate Anything (0)
• The Obama Effect In The Stock Market (0)
• Stock Market Technicals (0)
• It Happened Again In The Stock Market (0)

Super-Size My Profits, McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD...

The economy may be slowing down, Consumer confidence is low and consumer spending is dropping, but no matter what people want to go to McDonald’s more and more it seems. McDonald’s same store comps rose last month (August) 4.5% in the U.S. and 8.5% worldwide. I’m not surprised in the news because when you are out and running around (like most Americans) you just want to get a quick bite to eat, Where do you run to first? McDonald’s has made it a point to buy key properties in all cities over the life of the company that it’s hard not to find one when you’re in a rush to grab something.

They are also building new restaurants everyday all over the world so how could they not beat their comps for the previous month. I do expect this to continue on the basis that more countries are eating more American-ized type food and McDonald’s are leading the way.

.

As for any other fast food restaurant, they can’t compete with these numbers. Wendy’s stated in August that their same store sales were up, but only 0.01% and in Burger King’s 4th quarter, their worldwide comps were only up 5.3%.

.

This is a company that I will look into because if these comps were better than expected, it could mean a good earnings report when they report next month on October 22nd. The stock is up over 10% since the beginning of the year and up30% since it’s low of $49.36 at the end of January. it has shown great returns over the long haul and with a dividend yield of 2.4% who can really complain? I do have some concern with the fact that the dollar has gained some strength and could possibly hurt international operations.

.

As with any interest in buying stocks, you need to do your research and due diligence before claiming a stake in the company. Happy trading.

Tags: Diversified, Earnings report, NYSE, Stock trading, The Dollar

Related posts

• What A Wild Ride In The Stock Market Today (1)
• Second Quarter Earnings Report Season (0)
• Nuclear Energy Stocks (0)
• Is This A Real Rally? (0)
• (NYSE:AGM) Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corp. (0)

Foreclosure Investments

Last month I talked about the foreclosure issues in this country and who’s to blame. I do feel bad for the people who are behind the 8-ball and are trapped in the corner looking for some relief, but I’m an investor and I know that the time is now to start looking for some properties that are on the market (many of them are foreclosure properties). I live in Florida and there are many homes right here in my city that are up for grabs, some of them are duplexes and tri-plexes that other investors have and are taken a beaten with the properties.
.
I’ve been looking at these investments for over six months now and most of them have come down on their asking price. One particularly that I have in mind has come about 25% since I first looked at it in February. The owner is in talks with the bank and so far he’s been able to hold on to it. At the price that he was asking for back then, it wasn’t a wise investment. Now that he’s come down to his new price, It’s really looking appealing. I will be talking to my Realtor after the holiday weekend to have her make him an offer that will be about 15-20% lower than what he’s asking. If he refuses to budge on the price that will be OK. If he takes my offer then it just might be a good investment. Of course I will have to look at his financial statements as well as the rent-rolls to make that final decision. The way I write my contracts, they all have several clauses that if for one reason or another I don’t think that the purchase is not a good deal, then I have a way to exit the agreement.
.
I don’t know if you invest in real estate or not, but for me it’s a great way for passive income. You might want to look into it.

Tags: Diversified, Foreclosure, Investment property, Investments

Related posts

• What Will Happen To The Investor Class? (1)
• Stop Trading Until the Election Is Over (0)
• Safe Investments (1)
• New Home Sales Report For July (1)
• Is Now The Time To Invest? (1)

ETF’s and Mutual Funds

ETF’s (Exchange Traded Fund)
Exchange traded funds, or ETFs as they are better known, combine some of the benefits of both common stocks and mutual funds. They trade like stocks and are listed on an exchange, yet they usually represent a major stock index, industry group, international country index, or commodity.
As defined on about.com
.
Mutual Fund:
A mutual fund is simply a financial intermediary that allows a group of investors to pool their money together with a predetermined investment objective. The mutual fund will have a fund manager who is responsible for investing the pooled money into specific securities (usually stocks or bonds). When you invest in a mutual fund, you are buying shares (or portions) of the mutual fund and become a shareholder of the fund.
As defined on about.com

.
When you want to start out in the stock market and you don’t have a large amount of capitol (cash) ETF’s & Mutual Funds are the way to go. The reason behind that is, just like in a earlier post we stated, that being diversified is one way to weather the highs and lows of the stock market.
You also don’t have to know too much about any one stock or even knowing a handful of them. ETF’s basically follow indexes like the S&P 500, mutual funds are controlled by a fund manager who will make the decision for you and the other investors in the fund. It would be wise though to do your research on that manager to see how he’s handled other funds in the past.

Tags: Diversified, ETF and Mutual Funds, Stock market for beginners

Related posts

• Safe Investments (1)
• Worst Week In Stock Market History (0)
• Stock Market Technicals (0)
• It Happened Again In The Stock Market (0)
• Investments (0)

Are You Diversified?

photo by Irish_Eyes
.

An important way to stay afloat in the stock market is to be diversified. When someone puts all their eggs in one basket they run the chance of losing a lot of their capitol in one swift change of the market. I had a friend a few years back telling me that he was beating the market at a fast pace. When I asked him how he was doing it. He told me that he would follow one stock & play it though an earnings report or on the fact of a great news article & or headline of that stock. Well wouldn’t you know it, his “luck” ran out. He lost 75% of his portfolio in a matter of a week.

.
When trading in the stock market, you must understand that you need to allocate only a certain percentage of your portfolio to each sector. That doesn’t mean that you dabble in every sector, it just means that you shouldn’t be in one sector/stock. I myself trade on the fact of earnings reports, but not all of my interests are in that one stock.

.
Being diversified means more than just spreading your money around the market, but also making sure that you don’t go into multiple sectors that will effect each other or even depend on one another. With oil at a 52 week high I wouldn’t suggest owning a stock in an airline at the same time as being in a refinery company stock. Both are effected in such a way that you will lose money (unless maybe you short the stocks). At the same time though, I might give it some thought to be in a couple of different alternative energy stocks.

.
Being diversified in the market is key in not losing your shirt. Do your homework & know how each of your investment interact with each other within the market. If you don’t, you’ll might have your own humpty dumpty that could take quite some time to get back together.

Tags: Diversified, Stock market for beginners, Stock trading

Related posts

• Stock Market Technicals (0)
• It Happened Again In The Stock Market (0)
• Investing Mistakes To Watch In 2009 (1)
• I’m Glad That This Week In The Stock Market Is Over (0)
• Worst Week In Stock Market History (0)