Search found 506 matches

by Rickson9
31 Dec 2011 12:13
Forum: Stocks, Bonds, ETFs, Funds, REITS and More
Topic: Portfolio Gain/Loss by year end 2011. TSX down 11%
Replies: 71
Views: 4207

Re: Portfolio Gain/Loss by year end 2011. TSX down 11%

I was down 3% for 2011, dropping my 14 year avg annual return to 15%. 2011 marks the 4th year in the same period where I failed to beat the S&P500.

Performance of pervious years are documented at http://www.ticonline.com

"The return I achieved in 2010 is not repeatable, should not be considered a reflection of my investment skill and, if anything, foreshadows a very bad 2011 for me."
by Rickson9
30 Dec 2011 14:09
Forum: Stocks, Bonds, ETFs, Funds, REITS and More
Topic: BlackBerry (Symbol-BB) formerly Research in Motion (RIM)
Replies: 745
Views: 87786

RIM's U.S. Market Share Continues To Fall

Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM)’s BlackBerry smartphone, which lost its No. 4 spot to Apple Inc. (AAPL) in the U.S. in the first half, fell further behind the iPhone maker and market leader Samsung Electronics Co. after new models failed to attract enough users.

RIM’s share of U.S. mobile-phone subscribers in the three months through November dropped to 6.5 percent from 7.1 percent in the previous quarter, research firm ComScore Inc. (SCOR) said. Samsung increased to 25.6 percent from 25.3 percent, and Apple consolidated its fourth place, gaining 1.4 percentage point to 11.2 percent.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-3 ... vance.html
by Rickson9
29 Dec 2011 14:02
Forum: Stocks, Bonds, ETFs, Funds, REITS and More
Topic: BlackBerry (Symbol-BB) formerly Research in Motion (RIM)
Replies: 745
Views: 87786

RIM's Board: Asleep At The Switch

Name a "Lead Director" just to keep the corporate governance gadflies away from the door. If you're going to refuse to budge on really giving up some kind of board control by relinquishing the Chairman title, it's important to present the appearance that you are truly pro-good governance. In RIM's case, a 78-year-old insurance executive named John Richardson was named as the lead director. What is a lead director? No one knows, but it sounds like someone who has all the power of a Chairman without actually being a Chairman, which, thus, gives him truly none of the power of a Chairman. Pick an older person: check. Pick someone who doesn't have a clue how the mobile device business works based on his career background: check. Pick s...
by Rickson9
29 Dec 2011 13:54
Forum: Stocks, Bonds, ETFs, Funds, REITS and More
Topic: BlackBerry (Symbol-BB) formerly Research in Motion (RIM)
Replies: 745
Views: 87786

2011's Five 'Dumbest' Tech Companies

‘The company does a great job, innovates and becomes a monopoly or close to it in some field, and then the quality of the product becomes less important. The company starts valuing the great salesman, because they’re the ones who can move the needle on revenues.” So salesmen are put in charge, and product engineers and designers feel demoted: Their efforts are no longer at the white-hot center of the company’s daily life. They ‘turn off.’ IBM and Xerox, Jobs said, faltered in precisely this way. The salesmen who led the companies were smart and eloquent, but “they didn’t know anything about the product.” In the end this can doom a great company, because what consumers want is good products.’ http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidcoursey/2011/12/...
by Rickson9
29 Dec 2011 13:33
Forum: Stocks, Bonds, ETFs, Funds, REITS and More
Topic: Apple Corp (Symbol-AAPL)
Replies: 689
Views: 56636

Enterprise Customers Prefer Apple Products

The figures, published Thursday by Good Technology, conclude that enterprise users have a "clear preference for Apple products." The iPhone accounted for 61 percent of all enterprise smartphone activations in the third quarter of 2011, retaining the lion's share despite Android's growth to 39 percent of smartphones.

Apple's iPad also showed complete domination of the enterprise tablet market, taking 96 percent of total activations tracked by Good. Android represented just 4 percent of tablet activations for the quarter.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11 ... droid.html
by Rickson9
29 Dec 2011 13:29
Forum: Stocks, Bonds, ETFs, Funds, REITS and More
Topic: Apple Corp (Symbol-AAPL)
Replies: 689
Views: 56636

Most Small and Medium Businesses Plan To Buy iPads

The NPD Group polled American businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees about their intent to buy tablets over the next year, and found nearly three quarters intend to bring touchscreen tablets into the workplace. Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD, said businesses are "determined" to embrace tablets, and Apple's iPad remains the top choice in the enterprise. "The iPad, just as it is in the consumer market, is synonymous for 'Tablet' in the business market, leaving Apple poised to take advantage of the increased spending intentions of these SMBs (small and medium businesses)," Baker said. "NPD's research shows that iPad purchase preference is higher among larger firms than smaller ones, which...
by Rickson9
29 Dec 2011 12:24
Forum: Property: Owning, Renting, Managing, Investing and Mortgaging
Topic: Buying Property In Phoenix, AZ
Replies: 236
Views: 27039

Re: Buying Property In Phoenix, AZ

If there was money to make in renting, house prices wouldn't keep dropping. Banks have millions of houses left to sell. Speaking only from my experience, there is good money to be made in Phoenix rentals. However, I've found it more difficult to find good canadidates for purchase as the prices of good properties continues to rise. The following mirrors my anecdotal experiences: (From the Cromford Report published in Arizona) Greater Phoenix – Single Family Detached Market Headlines ·         Except above $800,000, sales prices in $/SF are now higher than a year ago. ·         Inventory is falling again for all price ranges. ·         Above $400,000 demand remains relatively weak. ·         Lender-owned inventory is still falling and REOs a...
by Rickson9
29 Dec 2011 03:55
Forum: Financial Planning and Building Portfolios
Topic: 2500 a month - 23 years old...where to invest?
Replies: 28
Views: 2589

Re: 2500 a month - 23 years old...where to invest?

If you don't know what to invest in you should probably bank the money and spend some time reading about each of the asset classes that you described. With regards to maxing out your TFSA and RRSP, speaking for myself the TFSA would be the priority. Tax free > tax deferred by a long shot. However, this assumes that you understand the asset classes that you mentioned. With regards to investing "aggressively" because you are young. Speaking for myself, this is a bad idea. Just because I'm young doesn't mean I can better afford to drive drunk. Investing "aggressively" because I'm young is a nice marketing catchphrase by the fund industry to get individuals to start bleeding them early. It's about as useful to me as diversif...
by Rickson9
27 Dec 2011 16:27
Forum: Property: Owning, Renting, Managing, Investing and Mortgaging
Topic: Buying Property In Phoenix, AZ
Replies: 236
Views: 27039

Renters Transform U.S. Housing Market

With U.S. unemployment at a lofty 8.6%, home foreclosures rising and property prices under pressure, more and more Americans have given up the dream of owning, opting instead to rent, a shift that is remaking the face of the U.S. housing industry.

Image

In a recent report, Oliver Chang, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, dubbed 2012 “The Year of the Landlord.”

“Rents are rising, vacancies are falling, household formations are growing and rental supply is limited,” the Morgan Stanley report stated. “We believe the demand for rental properties will continue to grow.”
http://business.financialpost.com/2011/ ... ng-market/

Good times.
by Rickson9
24 Dec 2011 13:14
Forum: Stocks, Bonds, ETFs, Funds, REITS and More
Topic: Apple Corp (Symbol-AAPL)
Replies: 689
Views: 56636

Managing 12,000 iPads at SAP

SAP's CIO Oliver Bussmann has a singularly interesting point of view on using the iPads in a business environment: He oversaw the implementation of iPads at SAP, which was an early adopter of using Apple's tablet in a full-scale company. He recently talked with the folks at InfoWorld, and says that going about the process open-mindedly was the best way to do it. SAP figured, right when the iPad was announced, that its employees would be using them anyway, so the company took a very ad hoc approach to supporting them in the workplace, building on what its employees did with iPads rather than trying to structure actual work functions around them.
http://www.tuaw.com/2011/12/23/managing ... s-learned/
by Rickson9
22 Dec 2011 22:40
Forum: Stocks, Bonds, ETFs, Funds, REITS and More
Topic: BlackBerry (Symbol-BB) formerly Research in Motion (RIM)
Replies: 745
Views: 87786

BB 10 Is A Failure

Our source has communicated to us in no uncertain terms that the PlayBook 2.0 OS developers have been testing is a crystal clear window into the current state of BlackBerry 10 on smartphones. No email, no BlackBerry Messenger — it’s almost identical. “Email and PIM [is better] on an 8700 than it is on BlackBerry 10,” our contact said while talking to us about RIM’s failure to make the company’s new OS work with the network infrastructure RIM is known for. We also have some more background on why RIM’s BlackBerry 10 smartphones are delayed, and it has nothing to do with a new LTE chipset that RIM is waiting on. In what is something of a serious allegation, our source told us that Mike Lazaridis was lying when he said the company’s new lineup...
by Rickson9
17 Dec 2011 23:01
Forum: Community Centre
Topic: RIM Playbook
Replies: 316
Views: 6089

Thieves Steal $1.7m Playbook Tablets

http://www.slashgear.com/unlucky-thieve ... -17203079/

Yawn... Not really big news, but news nonetheless. It's only a miniscule fraction of RIM's $485m writedown on the tablet anyway...
by Rickson9
17 Dec 2011 22:55
Forum: Stocks, Bonds, ETFs, Funds, REITS and More
Topic: Apple Corp (Symbol-AAPL)
Replies: 689
Views: 56636

Apple To Sell 190m iPhones and 81m iPads

Apple is expected to sell between 31 and 36 million iPhones during this final 2011 quarter, which is a 30% more than what Wall Street originally estimated. For next quarter, “US consumers expect to buymore iPhones in C1Q12 than C4Q11,” says Huberty. Over 41 million iPhones are expected to sell in the first quarter of 2012.
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2011/12/17 ... pads-2012/

Yawn... Another typical year...
by Rickson9
15 Dec 2011 21:11
Forum: Community Centre
Topic: RIM Playbook
Replies: 316
Views: 6089

Re: RIM Playbook

Unfortunately each Praybook sale sinks the dagger closer to RIM's heart. "But here's the part that might break your heart: RIM still doesn't get it. Today its managers said repeatedly that they believed in the PlayBook because people had finally started buying it—as part of a two-for-one sale. Or at $100 a pop for its own employees. You know, the kinds of prices where RIM loses massive amounts of money on every sale." "The excuses were ample. The tablet market, said Lazardis, is still "in its infancy." Really? Apple sold more than twice as many iPads as Macs last quarter. Just because you've entered a baby in the race doesn't mean you're not competing against grown-ass men. But PlayBook 2.0 software, RIM said, will ...
by Rickson9
15 Dec 2011 20:51
Forum: Stocks, Bonds, ETFs, Funds, REITS and More
Topic: BlackBerry (Symbol-BB) formerly Research in Motion (RIM)
Replies: 745
Views: 87786

Re: Research in Motion (Symbol-RIM)

Research In Motion Ltd.'s (RIM-T15.800.110.70%)top executives cut their salaries to $1 as they delivered yet more dismal news to investors, telling the world the product that was supposed to save the company will come out almost a year later than promised.

The news that a new line of BlackBerrys with an upgraded operating system won't be released until late 2012, combined with a weak outlook for the company's fourth quarter, pounded RIM shares in after-hours trading. The stock fell more than 7 per cent to about $14 (U.S.).

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-in ... le2272750/
by Rickson9
13 Dec 2011 20:16
Forum: Community Centre
Topic: RIM Playbook
Replies: 316
Views: 6089

Re: RIM Playbook

Good post. I enjoyed reading it!
by Rickson9
13 Dec 2011 16:16
Forum: Community Centre
Topic: RIM Playbook
Replies: 316
Views: 6089

RIM Praybook A $1.5B Mistake

"The latest $485m writeoff in value means that the PlayBook, which has generated at most 2% of RIM's revenue, has swallowed up $1.5bn of cash and forced it into straitened circumstances. The PlayBook is beginning to look like the worst and most expensive decision that RIM, the maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, ever made. Not only that: preliminary results issued by the company on Friday indicate that it is struggling to maintain pricing of its flagship phones, even though the new devices introduced last quarter were meant to push that pricing up. The company announced on Friday that it is writing down the value of unsold PlayBook tablets in its warehouses by $485m, which will be taken as a charge against its pre-tax profits for the t...
by Rickson9
13 Dec 2011 16:10
Forum: Retirement, Pensions and Peace of Mind
Topic: Taking on the folklore: always deplete taxable account first
Replies: 64
Views: 4020

Re: Taking on the folklore: always deplete taxable account f

ghariton wrote:
Rickson9 wrote:Any thoughts on the idea behind depleting the account that has the most overvalued assets first?
Why not simply sell ALL overvalued assets, in all accounts, and replace them with undervalued assets? That would be independent of any withdrawals or depletions.

Of course, you have to be able to determine which assets are overvalued and which are undervalued...

George
Speaking only for myself, undervalued assets are hard to find.

When selling it seems easier for me to just sell the most overvalued first regardless of the account.
by Rickson9
13 Dec 2011 15:59
Forum: Community Centre
Topic: TABLET? or what do I need?
Replies: 172
Views: 3784

Re: TABLET? or what do I need?

Shurville wrote:IIRC that was the RIM employee price.
If by "RIM employees" you mean "HP employees" then, initially, yes. Then it was offered to the public.

$99 HP Touchpad

Likely sold out by now. They didn't make many HP Touchpads.
by Rickson9
12 Dec 2011 15:23
Forum: Community Centre
Topic: TABLET? or what do I need?
Replies: 172
Views: 3784

Re: TABLET? or what do I need?

I think the 16G HP Touchpad is $99 now.
by Rickson9
12 Dec 2011 00:56
Forum: Financial Planning and Building Portfolios
Topic: 2012 TFSA investment ideas
Replies: 61
Views: 4246

Re: 2012 TFSA investment ideas

Shine wrote:What next? Buying and selling poor people's access to health care and access to medical procedures?
Is that wrong? :wink:
by Rickson9
12 Dec 2011 00:51
Forum: Financial Planning and Building Portfolios
Topic: 2012 TFSA investment ideas
Replies: 61
Views: 4246

Re: 2012 TFSA investment ideas

Buying and selling TFSA units. How capitalistic.

The TFSA is also good for buy and holders like myself. No deferred tax liability is golden.
by Rickson9
11 Dec 2011 14:45
Forum: Financial Planning and Building Portfolios
Topic: 2012 TFSA investment ideas
Replies: 61
Views: 4246

Re: 2012 TFSA investment ideas

My TFSA contains FOSL, BKE and GES. Will likely add on dips in 2012.

TFSAs of my wife and I currently total 65k. Retail has been good to us for the last 15 years in general.