Buy: Hold: Sell: Jump
I'm sitting here at my computer desk with a cup of coffee at my
elbow. The coffee rest in a mug, the mug garnished with the words
Buy, Hold, Sell, Jump, vertically along its sides. Emblazoned
across the top of the cup are the words, Wall Street, which
encircles the upper portions of the mug. The handle of the mug is
quite ornate, rounded at the bottom, with a cradle in the
handle's top. In the cradle is a die, with a small metal pin
through the die, which enables my thumb too spin the die. Instead
of numbers, as in a pair of dice, the die's choices are Yes, No,
and ? And, lo and behold, an article is born. When do you buy, sell, hold or jump? (A better question still,
what do you buy, when do you sell, how long should you hold, and
why would you jump?) This article will tackle the word Jump (to find the answer to
those other questions, they've been answered in some of my other
articles). Would Jump mean off a building? Or Jump to another
stock market security? The word Jump reminded me of one of my
other articles where I stated 'just because thousands of people
on wall street make their living doing 'technical analysis'
doesn't mean you have to jump off a building, too'. Just today, reported by CNBC, a hedge fund has gone bankrupt.
Seems the manager of the fund has skipped the country, along with
all of the money. It's been reported tens of millions of
investor's dollars are gone (as well as the manager). The Wall Street Journal just had a report stating that retirement
plans are facing a new threat: Theft. Excerpts from the Wall Street Journal (March 2, 2005): New York Retirement Plans are facing a growing threat: Theft "Susana Longo, the compliance officer at Applied Financial Group,
an investment-advisory firm in Atlanta, was indicted in January
on federal charges of stealing $5.4 million in retirement savings
from 220 workers at a car dealer, two medical practices and an
audio-visual specialist. She acknowledged spending the money on
two beach houses, a diamond ring, a 1,600-bottle wine collection
and a Porsche 911, according to a lawsuit filed by the advisory
firm." (The article also stated this went on for four years.) The article also goes on to state there are important lessons to
be learned through this Atlanta case and they were stated in
these excerpts from the same article in the Wall Street Journal: * Roll your money into an individual retirement account when you
retire (my comments on this later). Eight retirees who left their
assets in one of the four affected plans were receiving monthly
checks from their accounts until the plan was frozen last spring
amid the investigation, said William Whitmire, the company's
director and the Plan's trustee. "Some of them are really
desperate, but there's nothing that can be done until the
insurers come to agreement,' he said. * Make sure you are getting all your statements, and force
yourself to reconcile them. The amount deducted from your
paycheck should match the amount deposited into your 401(k)
account. * The trustees of the four Atlanta-area plans were supposed to
get regular statements from both the retirement-plan
administrator and the custodian of the plans' assets. The
trustees of the two hardest-hit plans didn't get their custodial
statements regularly, because they were sent to other addresses.
When trustees did get custodial statements, they didn't review
them. *Don't assume that you will receive a heads-up from your employer
or plan custodian. As the alleged fraud in Atlanta began to
unravel, federal agents showed up at Whitmore's office with a
stack of about 75 forged checks made out to people 'he never
heard of," he said. He claims that the plan's custodian didn't
call to make sure the checks were authentic. As I was reading this article I couldn't help thinking about the
old adage 'No one cares as much about your money as you do.' And here's the crux of this whole article: You do not have to wait until you retire before moving monies
from your 401(k) Plan into an individual IRA. There was and is a
law which was passed in 2002 which allows you to transfer any
after-taxed dollars and company-matched dollars out of your
401(k) plan into an IRA (with no fees or penalties, and no matter
what your age). I have been doing this while still employed with
my company. I have built my own mutual fund, using monies that
have been transferred from my 401(k) into an individual IRA. If you get nothing else out of this article, let it be that you
will contact the firm your 401(k) monies are with, and find out
your available options. To read the Preface from the book 'The Stockopoly Plan- Investing for Retirement' visit: http://www.thestockopolyplan.com Charles M. O'Melia is an individual investor with almost 40 years of experience and passion for the stock market. The author of the book 'The Stockopoly Plan'; published by American-Book
Publishing. The book can be purchased at
http://www.pdbookstore.com/comfiles/pages/CharlesMOMelia.shtml
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I'm sitting here at my computer desk with a cup of coffee at my
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across the top of the cup are the words, Wall Street, which
encircles the upper portions of the mug. The handle of the mug is
quite ornate, rounded at the bottom, with a cradle in the
handle's top. In the cradle is a die, with a small metal pin
through the die, which enables my thumb too spin the die. Instead
of numbers, as in a pair of dice, the die's choices are Yes, No,
and ? And, lo and behold, an article is born.
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