Brokerage madness

I decided that the Scottrade user interface was irritating, and noticed that Sharebuilder was offering a promotion of $50 for signing up a new account. Then I noticed that Sharebuilder was offering a promotion of $100 for transferring a portfolio in from another brokerage.

So that's what we're doing: moving to Sharebuilder, and winning $150 in free money.

Also I placed a market close order for twenty shares of Gastar Exploration (GST). I think it should come to around $60, with the ratings indicating a strong buy.

Who knows, really.

Yesterday was positive, so today I decided to throw more money into the market.

Bank of America is $9 and some change, that's worth buying, I think. I don't particularly like Bank of America, and I get the sense that nobody who banks with them does either, but for nine dollars a share, I think it has the potential to do well. We'll see, I guess. Bought a hundred dollars of it.

Corning Glassworks, (GLW), is down, and nearly two percent. I don't know why, either.

With the markets down as much as they are today, it's interesting that four of my five positions are all up!

I'm Rich!

After one day in the market, the JWH portfolio exceeded expectations by gaining .18%! That's a gain of 86 cents!

Cisco (CSCO) was up a little bit, for no reason that I can discern, and the mutual fund, ALMRX, did well too.

Gas Natural Inc., (EGAS) was up half a percentage point for some reason. Maybe they found some natural gas.

Corning (GLW) lost me fifty cents, which is two games of Street Fighter II at the arcade, or one game of that Terminator shooting game that was a money sink. I would have thought people would be buying Corning like crazy business, since I think Apple is going to sell about nine-billion iPad 3s, but I don't know.

All of my positions failed to beat the markets on the whole, however, with the NASDAQ up nearly a point and the S&P 500 up half a percent.

The Adventure Begins

I recently opened a Scottrade account with $500. Investing in stocks had always been interesting to me, and while I am fortunate to have a job that offers me a 401k, I wanted to do something more directly. Also, I don't know anything about investing. At all. so this is to be an experiment.

So off we went, and here's how I spent the initial $500:

$300 went into ALMRX, a mutual fund that I used to have, and had been my favorite fund offered through my 401k. Unfortunately, Merrill Lynch got out of that fund, and so did my 401k. So, I figured $300 would go into ALMRX.

ALMRX says this: "Strategy for Alger Mid Cap Growth Institutional Fund Class I

The investment seeks long-term capital appreciation. The fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in equity securities of companies that, at the time of purchase of the securities, have total market capitalization within the range of companies included in the Russell Midcap Growth Index or the S&P MidCap 400 Index, as reported by the indexes as of the most recent quarter-end. Both indexes are designed to track the performance of medium-capitalization stocks. It can also invest in derivative instruments."

Blah blah blah blah words. I don't know what that paragraph means. At all.

Then, I bought $100 of Cisco Systems (CSCO). I use Cisco stuff all day, and I think that their core routing and switching business is strong. I also think their UCS offering is gaining traction in the industry. 

Next, I bought 10 shares of Corning Glassworks (GLW), who makes the Gorilla glass used in Apple iPads and iPhones and whatever. Being that Apple shares are about $600 right now (and overvalued, in my opinion), I figured Corning was a decent bet. That came to about $150.

Finally, I bought a few shares of something called Gas Natural Inc., (EGAS). Apparently they do something with natural gas in Wyoming, Montana, and Maine. Who knows. I certainly don't.

So there you have it. I have $1.95 left.