Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Ovation Credit

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

Ovation credit is a company that can help you if your credit is in need of some repair. It’s easy to run into credit problems-it starts when you get that first credit card in the mail, before you have graduated high school. Credit problems start slowly and can snowball out of control in short order-credit repair from Ovation may be the answer.
Credit card debt is by far one of the biggest financial (more…)

Is Inflation a Problem?

Saturday, July 19th, 2008

It was good to see Thomas Hoenig, President of the Federal reserve Bank of Kansas City, in our state of Colorado. He went on a folksy tour of small businesses and ended up at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in Durango on Tuesday.
Rocky Mountain Chocolates makes great candy and Bryan Merryman, the CFO of the company told Hoenig:

“Commodities across the board have pressured us”. “There are a lot of pressures in our system that we haven’t seen before”.

It’s reassuring to see that the feds have recently discovered that they need to start raising interest rates. I hope Hoenig went to the grocery store and gas station with Merryman just to confirm his suspicions ;)

The Yellowstone Club-It’s Safe to Return

Saturday, July 5th, 2008


Good News-for all of you who have been wondering about the Yellowstone Club, the Playground Spat Is Resolved according to the Wall Street Journal. Edra Blixseth, who started the club with her husband, Tim, was granted ownership of the club in the couples divorce decree !!
Membership at Yellowstone costs an initial $250,000 was $18,000 in annual dues and millions of dollars to buy or build a home there.

Members such as Bill Gates and Dan (potatoe) Quayle can now rest easier this evening ;-)
Edra, email me if you need me to see if the club is now up to your standards!

Happy 4th of July

Friday, July 4th, 2008


Have a great 4th of July! The year is flying by and hopefully you are having a productive and prosperous year. Thanks to all our troops around the world for all you do.

Hedging a Portfolio

Saturday, June 7th, 2008

I would be a liar claiming that any of my portfolios are hedged-I have been long forever! However, on Friday I did buy 500 shares of SDS-Ultrashort S&P 500 Proshares. My cost was $58.91 and they closed the day at $59.80 for a gain of $1855.00.
Buying these shares did not hedge my portfolio but it’s interesting to note that instead of a loss for the day of $8065.00 my net loss turned out to be $6210.00

Obviously, every portfolio is different but having not lost an additional 20% was some small comfort in an otherwise ugly day. Take a look at what you might do to lessen the losses in your portfolio because…I don’t think it’s over.

$75 Limit on Credit Card Charges for Gas

Friday, May 30th, 2008

Why do gas stations have a $75 limit on Visa or MasterCard transactions at the pump?
According to stations owners they say they are simply following the policies of Visa and MasterCard, who won’t reimburse them more than $75 per transaction at the pump if there’s a disputed charges or fraudulent card use!

What does MasterCard say:
“It’s the merchants’ decision to limit purchases,” says Visa spokesman Paul Wilke. He adds: “Customers always have the option of paying with the card at the cash register” where its policy differs from the pump.

The $75 limit “ensures merchants and customers are protected from fraud,” says MasterCard spokesman Tristan Jordan.

Visa and MasterCard have no immediate plans to go higher. “It’s something we always look at,” Wilke says.
Thanks to the USA Today for for this lesson-Happy Friday!!

Financial Advisors and Identity Theft

Saturday, December 15th, 2007

John Sileo has an interesting post called “Does Your Financial Advisor Protect you from Identity Theft.” John reminds us that many investors and advisors don’t understand that investment accounts, if drained by an identity theft, aren’t necessarily restored as easily as a checking account would be.

And you thought it was just enough to have a balanced portfolio! John is a friend of mine as well as a professional speaker on the subject of Identity theft. He had the misfortune of being an ID theft victim twice-he offers great tips to all of us on protecting our identity.

Read John’s post and then you might ask your financial advisor what procedures they have in place to ensure that your identity is not stolen.

Starbucks-Wake Up

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007

Starbucks (sbux) stock has been beaten up quite a bit in the past year. Back in happier times, say November 16,2006, Starbucks stock closed at $39.43 Let’s see…today Starbucks closed at $27.96 The company has been trying to expand too quickly without regards to the bottom line. But not to worry, here in Denver, Colorado they are rolling out the breakfast menu and other assorted revenue producers in the next several months. Libby Havice, is the District Manager for my Starbucks in Greenwood Village-located at Belleview and Ulster. Libby is doing everything to cut costs and shore up that bottom line….even though the Starbucks in Greenwood Village has the largest outdoor patio, we have no quaint Starbucks umbrellas. Libby, what are you thinking??? Is this good customer service-if you would leave your air conditioned office once in awhile and come visit me at my store you would notice that your cost cutting efforts have reached ridiculous measures. I know, you are just being a good employee and it’s just not in the budget-right?

I’ve met Libby before so I am going to offer some constructive criticism. What if you Libby, contracted with some entrepreneur here in Denver. They would be responsible for locating corporate sponsors for those umbrellas. They would get the sponsors, get the umbrellas made with the logo of the sponsors, collect the money-payable in advance on a 12 month contract and give you a cut. Starbucks has no cash outlay and your customers at belleview and Ulster would stop sending you the hate mail :-) don’t answer yet-I want you to sleep on it and then meet me at my store with your answer. Just think-if it’s successful here in Denver you could have Starbucks roll it out nationally and you could take all the credit.
PS The employees at the Greenwood Village, Colorado Starbucks are the best and most friendly-even though we customers bitch about Libby Havice and no umbrellas!
PSS Your stock chart is too ugly to put in this post…..

Happy 4th of July

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007

I’m headed to have a barbecue with my family and watch the firework displays. Hope you all have a great holiday and a special Thanks to all our troops around the world!

Wait is over for iPhone buyers-Would I buy it?

Sunday, July 1st, 2007

I just held the new Apple iPhone in my hands for about half an hour. My Starbucks buddy, purchased the iPhone Friday! We all know it’s expensive, around $640 with tax, here in Colorado.

He purchased about 1300 minutes for an additional $80 a month. It’s easy to see that in a twelve month period you will easily pony up $2,000! That’s a lot of money-and I’m too cheap for the iPhone.

Having said that, the phone is cool. Very good Internet access, good email access, great tunes and pretty handy. I would own the iPhone if I needed a new phone. Why? I would write about 98.8% of it off as a business expense. Truly, the email and Internet access are worth it as a business tool.

If I could not write it off as a business expense-I would not own it-price of poker is just too high. Would you spring for the expense of the iPhone just because?

Steve Mertz
iPhone or not!