Carnival of Investing #15

Welcome to Fat Pitch Financials! I am your host for this weeks Carnival of Investing.  I have loosely organized this weeks submissions by topic below. Guilt Trip Article is a great page to go look for future vacation destinations.

While you are here, I encourage you to explore some of Fat Pitch Financials most popular content.  This includes my Special Situations Real Money Portfolio, which tracks the transactions and performance of my son’s Coverdell Education Savings Account that is mainly invested in “Going Private” transactions. If you like what you see here, you can subscribe to Fat Pitch Financials via RSS feed or by email.

Another popular feature here is Fat Pitch News, which is a community driven news site that is growing in popularity. You can submit articles just like a blog carnival, but this carnival runs 24/7 and member votes determine what gets published on the front page.

Next week’s Carnival of Investing will be hosted by Free Money Finance.  And now for this week’s Carnival, I present the following submissions:

Stock Analysis

Apollo Group – Mike Price of Value Investing, and a Few Cigar Butts takes a closer look at the potential bargain bin stock, Apollo Group (APOL).  Mike does a good job of doing an analysis of this interesting stock.

My Approach with GE – The Dividend Guy Blog goes through his process of analyzing GE using the Stock Selection Guide software.

The Problem with PEG – New Worth Blog lists some reasons why you might not want to rely on the PEG ratio for your stock analysis.

True Religion Drops – Gualberto Diaz believes the recent drop in share price in True Religion (TRGL) has created an opportunity for buying into an amazingly undervalued, high growth company.

Tim Hortons is Overvalued – Canadian Capitalist thinks that based on the IPO offering price, Tim Hortons (THI) is overvalued.

Investing: Tim Horton’s? – Big Cajun Man of Canadian Financial Rants notes the Tim Horton’s (THI) spinoff and shares his opinion on the company’s prospects.

Canon Stock’s Big Growth Potential – Steven Towns at The Japan Stock Blog discusses why he believes Canon (CAJ) is a growth stock.

IPODs and Apple – BUY – Jose Anes at Stocks For Me makes a buy recomendation for Apple (AAPL) stock based on growth analysis.

Funds

Bear market funds – provides a summary of no-load bear market funds including  such information as fund name, symbol, target index, leverage and expense ratio. One may never purchase them, but it’s good to know the options.

Fund forecasting – Abnormal Returns discusses how some recent research shows that it may be possible to predict the returns to good old fashioned open-end mutual funds.

Model ETF Portfolios For Conservative To Aggressive Growth – ETF Investor article that discusses a model ETF portfolio.

Stellar Performance – Growth in Value has seen a lot of gimmicks promising to boost his portfolio returns. But only one can truly claim to be out of this world. This article discusses Henry Weingarten’s unusual astrology based fund.  Need I say more.

Real Estate

Short Payoffs – Dan Melson at Searchlight Crusade discusses the ins and outs of real estate “short sales”.

Sun Tzu and the Art of Creating a Real Estate Empire – Tom at “D”igital Investing is using the teachings of Sun Tzu and the Art of War to evaluate his real estate empire building.

A Timeshare Ia A Terrible Investment – Sound Money Tips discusses how timeshares are one of the worst investments you can make, if I were you, I would Exit My Timeshare right away.

Debt

Re: Miserly Bastard about Prosper Lending – Frank the Financially Savvy Atheist debates the merits of lending on the online peer-to-peer lending marketplace, Prosper.

Commodities

Trading Gold? –  Mover Mike states, “Trading gold is a “mug’s game”!”

Tools

Some Cool Technical Analysis site for Stock Trading – Harrison Loke at Journey To Financial Freedom shares some of the site that he uses for technical analysis in stock trading.

Google Finance Review – Fat Pitch Financials takes the new Google Finance (GOOG) site for a test drive. Read about the strengths and weaknesses of this new research tool.

Macroeconomics

Critique of Trade Surpluses and Deficits Criticism – Following the popular analysis of why trade surpluses and deficits are no longer a measure of national economic health, lecentre’s economics professor gave his own critical appraisal of my analysis.

The Week Ahead: Your Financial Roadmap for March 27-31, 2006 – Financial Options provides pcoming economic indicator releases, select earnings calendar items, Treasury bill/note schedule, FOMC meetings, etc. I link the actual results to this post as the week progresses.

Strategies and Advice

I Always Use Limit Orders – Jim at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity saw another example of bad (or good luck, depending on which side of the trade you’re on) luck when using market orders. [I always use limit orders.]

Market Psychology or The Wall Of Worry – Ask Uncle Bill discusses market psychology and explains why he predicts the market is going up.

Your Latte Factor – Christopher at Will Work for Money discusses using idea of latte factor as a means of accumalitive investing. A few dollars a day invested over decades can add up to a lot.

Reality Check: Not All Investments are Good Ones – Amanda at Young and Broke outlines some things to keep in mind when making any investment – number one being: think things through.

“Acey said ten percent.” Why less is more – Todd at Aridni discusses why buying stocks with only a small amount of money requires you to focus your efforts and can help your learn to be a better investor. [These small amounts are perfect for Going Private Transactions.]

Let’s Play the Bird Flu Strategy Game! – Heidi Mapp of Frugal Wisdom from Wenchypoo’s Warehouse discusses an alternative way to play the Bird Flu for profit.

Wisdom from Ben Franklin – Firevalt Blog marks the 300th birthday of United States Founding Father Ben Franklin by discussing Franklin’s appreciation for compound interest.

Merrill Lynch’s Thoughts on Investments for 2006 – Free Money Finance shares thoughts on 2006 investing from one of America’s biggest financial services firms.

Taxes and Planning

Making the Move from a Traditional Pension to a 401(k): Overcoming the Gap in Retirement Benefits – Paul M. Secunda at the Workplace Prof Blog discusses the challenges workers face in maintaining retirement benefit levels under 401(k) plans.

Random “Tax Refund” Rant – Josh Cohen at Multiple Mentality asks why exactly doesn’t the government allow us to invest our tax payments and make some money on them, instead of forcing us to have our money withheld with no benefit at all.

Humor

Straight Talk Stock Market Investing Advice – Jeffrey Strain at Personal Finance Advice links to a humorous Saturday Night Live video where an investment advisor tells the whole truth about investing.