April, 2005:

Look at Cisco fly. Approaching $18.00 a share now.

Cisco Systems Ranked 110th Largest Company In The World

Cisco Systems Ranked 91st in Fortune 500 for 2005

Mom’s account not funded yet. Too bad.

There’s a great Article on Yahoo! Finance, Saying It with Passion that I think everyone should read. I agree that you should always do something you like. Sometimes, you can start something so small yet if you do it right and with passion, that business can grow indefinitely. A good example is Starbucks. Howard Schultz most likely didn’t see the Starbucks branch in every corner of his street when he first started the business. Rather, he started one store and concentrated on doing what he needs to do. He put so much passion in it that the business grew with his passion. Gradually, Starbucks started popping out in every corner of the block.

Cisco closed at 17.76, lower than this morning’s price. That’s currently an unrealized loss of $9. Like I said previously, I’ll buy more when it drops. The outlook for this stock is bright. There’s a long path of growth ahead. But I don’t have any more money in my account. I’m going to purchase shares for my mom in her IRA instead. This is how I’m going to help her grow her retirement funds. Actually… my mom was the one who first suggested buying Cisco. She thinks it’s going to rebound and do well. I don’t know how she gets all that information, probably from friends and words of mouth, but I’d now like to do my own research and due diligence before I buy anything. That shows responsibility in investing. =)

I sent in some paperwork two weeks ago to set up a ROTH IRA for my mom. They requested additional paperwork and I finally got everything in today and the account is set up now.

My mom has no idea what is an IRA. I tried explaining it to her but she doesn’t really get it. She’s one of those really hard working immigrants that came to America for a better future for her kids. For decades she has just been working in low paying labor-intensive jobs and pushing her kids to do well in school and hope they’d end up with a better job than she has. Her jobs don’t have 401k or pension (hint: Chinatown sweatshops). She’s going to depend on her kids for income in the future. Her investment is her children. She expects to receive regular payments from her kids.

I just took charge and decided to take care of her retirement funds. Since she has low income, I decided that ROTH IRA is the best choice for her. I’m going to get her to contribute regularly and I’ll have to oversee all her investments. Initially, I’m going to make her take some risk. As time goes on, I’ll start to diversify the investments for her. So as she approaches her retirement age, she’ll have a more stable portfolio with bonds and fixed-income funds.

It’s been hovering in the 17.90′s this morning. Last ticker is 17.94, which means I’m earning $9 so far. No big deal, but no worries either. I actually want it to drop more so I can pick up more cheap shares. Then I would just let it fly. This is a solid stock with low risk and it’s going to do well in 2005.

Many banks are offering cash incentives for new accounts. Read up on the details and terms before you sign up. I’m just listing the banks and their incentives so if you are interested you can do further research.

Citibank – $200 for checking and online bill payments

E*Trade Bank – up to $175

Bank of America – $100

Bank of New York – up to $100

Eastern Bank – up to $100

La Salle – $100 for a free business checking account
Standard Federal – $100 for a free business checking account (same as La Salle)

HSBC – $100, £100, or €100 for offshore account

Evans National Bank – $75 for free checking and online bill payments

Cambridge Savings Bank – $50 for an account and online bill payments

Standard Bank – $50 for CD or Money Market account

NY Community Bank – $50

Versus Bank – $50

ING Direct – $25 by referral or $50 if you own MS Money software
(if you need a referral send an email to me with subject “ING REFERRAL REQUEST”)

Best Bank – $25 for checking account

First National Bank – $25 for an account and online bill payments

Marlborough Savings Bank – $25 for online bill payments

NJM Bank – $25 for direct deposit

Guaranty Bank – $25 for direct deposit

Sleepy Hollow Bank – $25 for direct deposit

Capital One – $25 with Costco membership

How many of you do your own laundry and when you fold the clothes you end up with one extra sock? It’s interesting. I just did my laundry yesterday and I was holding up the last sock and I couldn’t find the other one. Guess what? I’m not the only one that has that problem.

And how many of you when reconciling your money accounts end up with a lot of numbers you don’t know where it should go. I usually have that problem with my cash account in Microsoft Money. I always seem to have $20-$50 missing that I don’t know where it went, and because it’s cash, it’s hard to trace. I update my spending almost everyday, but it’s easy to leave out the mid-day snacks or the unexpected fleet market shopping. These little holes add up over time and it hurts my account reconciliation process. I try to figure out where every dollar goes, but most of the time it hurts my little brain too much so I’d just put them into a category called adjustments. This way, the spendings are still tracked but just not categorized. I try to reconcile my cash account every week to keep my records as accurate as possible (sometimes I’m pretty anal about that).

I live in a small apartment but I have a lot of boxes and things I don’t use lying around the place. I’m going to see what I can trash and what I can see on ebay.

As I was cleaning I dug up my first cellphone, a StarTac from the late 90s. I put it up on ebay and sold it for 20 bucks. After fees, I may end up with a little over $15 net. I was lazy. If I had sold that phone a few years ago, I could have made around $100. I still have my second old cellphone, a Motorola V60i. It’s been sitting on my desk for a few years. Again, time is money. I think the phone has lost 90% of its value already. That’s what happens when you procrastinate.

Yup, I guess I can say the same thing with your life. You put off valuable time, and you’ll be paying for it in the future. Don’t believe me. Ask kids who fooled around their first year of college and see how long it took them to finish college. Just staying one year later in college would have cost them a year of salary. That’s easily $40 – $50K, and imagine having the money to invest one year earlier, it would’ve given you a huge edge over the competition. And career-wise, that’s one year work experience you missed out on.

Cisco is expected to grow 15-30% annually for the next 5 years. With 6 billion dollars in cash, no debt, a 23% earnings growth rate, and a fowrad P/E of only 17, Cisco looks like it has a lot to offer.

The Cisco stock is looking hot right now. It’s hovering around 17.60 at this moment. Too bad I bought it last week for 17.85. I wish I had the money to buy more shares right now.