May 2017 - WStNN.com™ WallStreetNewsNetwork® Stockerblog™ WSNN®

The Bitcoin ETF that Doubled in 3 Days Last Week

Bitcoin, the first decentralized digital currency, has been on a tear recently, rising from $2,150 on Monday to $2,779 on Thursday, a jump of 29%.

But what has really been spiking is the Bitcoin exchange traded fund, Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC). It is an ETF that purportedly represents one tenth of a bitcoin for each share.

The stock skyrocketed last week from a close of $241 per share on Monday to a high of $565 a share during the day on Thursday, May 25. This was an increase of 134%. The stock closed at $477, still a huge increase of 98%.

Both Bitcoin and GBTC dropped on Friday, but GBTC still closed above $400 a share.

For a free list of bitcoin related stocks, go here.

Correction: I believe that GBTC is actually a CEF (closed end fund), not an ETF, although there is not much difference.

Stocks Going Ex Dividend the Fifth Week of May

Here is our latest update on the stock trading technique called ‘Buying Dividends,’ also commonly referred to as ‘Dividend Capture.’ This is the process of buying stocks before the ex dividend date and selling the stock shortly after the ex date at about the same price, yet still being entitled to the dividend.

This technique generally works only in bull markets, and can work in flat or choppy markets, but you need to avoid the technique during bear markets. In order to be entitled to the dividend, you have to buy the stock before the ex-dividend date, and you can’t sell the stock until after the ex date.

The actual dividend may not be paid for another few weeks. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has compiled a downloadable and sortable list of the stocks going ex dividend in the near future. The list contains many dividend paying companies, lots with market caps over $500 million, and yields over 2%. Here are a few examples showing the stock symbol, the ex-dividend date, the quarterly dividend amount, and annual yield.

Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS)	5/30/2017	0.75	1.39%
Interactive Brokers Group (IBKR)	5/30/2017	0.1	1.15%
Schlumberger N.V. (SLB)	5/30/2017	0.5	2.78%
Tyson Foods, Inc. (TSN)	5/30/2017	0.225	1.54%

The additional ex-dividend stocks can be found here at wstnn.com. (If you have been to the website before, and the latest link doesn’t show up, you may have to empty your cache.) If you like dividend stocks, you should check out some of the other high yield stock lists at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com or WStNN.com. Most of the lists are free.

Dividend definitions: Declaration date: the day that the company declares that there is going to be an upcoming dividend.

Ex-dividend date: the day on which if you buy the stock, you would not be entitled to that particular dividend; or the first day on which a shareholder can sell the shares and still be entitled to the dividend.

Monthly Dividend Stock List

Record date: the day when you must be on the company’s books as a shareholder to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is normally set for stocks at two business days before the record date.

Payment date: the day on which the dividend payment is actually made, which can be as long at two months after the ex date.

Amazon Will Provide Everything Except Wash your Windows: Wait, They Do That Too! Really!

You need your windows washed? Go to Amazon. Is your toilet plugged up? Go to Amazon. Need your house painted? Go to Amazon. What? You haven’t heard of Amazon Home & Business Services? Yes, they do all that and more, including cleaning your house, setting up your home theater, or assembling your furniture.

So if you have been wondering why Amazon (AMZN) stock has been rising so much, grossly outperforming the S&P 500 over the last year by more than double, now you know why. They are taking over the lawn mowing business.

But seriously, many investors believe that Amazon is all about Amazon Web Services, commonly referred to as AWS, which is the company’s cloud computing division. And it’s true. AWS revenues have jumped 55% year over year, but still only provides 9% of overall revenues. However, AWS does provide 74% of operating income currently.

Amazon is much more. It is creeping (in a good way) into everyone’s lives. It’s not just the books, and the vitamins, and the clothes, and the watches. Amazon markets just about any product you can think of. (A few years ago, there was a way you could even order marijuana through Amazon, but that’s for another article.) Plus, the intangible growth is enormous, whether it’s music, eBooks, or movies.

Amazon has its CreateSpace division, which allows anyone to quickly publish their own book for free. But now the company is pushing self-produced movies and TV shows. These aren’t the company produced Amazon Originals like Bosch, these are the individual produced shows that anyone can create and have Amazon market for them, with a choice of how to receive revenues. An example of this is the show Private Sales, a TV show about an escort service in the beach cities area of Los Angeles.

In terms of the company’s financials, net cash flow has grown $4.180 billion in 2012 to $16.443 billion for 2016. This is a 41% increase per year on average. Not too shabby.

But what about the losses? The company has generated negative income in two of the last five years, and the net income it has generated hasn’t been that great, giving the stock a trailing price to earnings ratio of 187. Of course! The lower your net income, the lower you pay in taxes. Once money is paid out in taxes, that money is gone. The company has been smart enough to spend funds on employee wages, research and development, plants, equipment, and other tax-deductible expenditures that will help the company grow, keep net income low, and taxes low.

Back in 2007, I wrote an article about how Amazon is a Screaming Buy at 38.10 per share. I didn’t buy the stock at the time but I should have taken my own advice, as the stock took off and never looked back.

Disclosure: Author now owns AMZN.

The Twitter Annual Meeting

The Twitter Annual Meeting was held yesterday at the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco on Market Street. Jack Dorsey, the CEO, spoke about the goals for the company.

Areas covered were:
Improving Timeline
Notifications
Safety, with regard ti transparency, better tools, and deep learning & machine learning

Dorsey talked about three major improvements:

Twitter Lite – for Safari or Chrome on mobile devices
30% faster load times
Uses less than 1 meg of data
Looks identical to the app
Can turn on Data Saver – all images, videos, gifs blurred
Reduce data usage by 70%
Explore tab -brings everything together
Trends, Moments, Live Events
Mute – Safety control
Notifications -muted words -pause and not see

Anthony Noto, Twitter’s CFO, then spoke. He talked about the Live Streaming Video and expansion into:
Sports
News
Entertainment
ESports

He said that in Q1, there was 800 hours of live video content, over 450 events, with more than 200 premium content partners.

All the shareholder resolutions passed except the one that proposed that Twitter become a user owned company. The proposal said:

“A community-owned Twitter could result in new and reliable revenue streams, since we, as users, could buy in as co-owners, with a stake in the platform’s success. Without the short-term pressure of the stock markets, we can realize Twitter’s potential value, which the current business model has struggled to do for many years. We could set more transparent accountable rules for handling abuse. We could re-open the platform’s data to spur innovation. Overall, we’d all be invested in Twitter’s success and sustainability. Such a conversion could also ensure a fairer return for the company’s existing investors than other options.”

The questions and answers were related to looking into a Twitter Prime type service where some users could pay for a premium service, and utilizing artificial intelligence through machine learning and deep learning for timelines and notifications.

Stocks Going Ex Dividend the Fourth Week of May

Applied Materials, Inc. (AMAT)	5/23/2017	0.1	0.89%
Nokia Corporation (NOK)	5/24/2017	0.127	4.61%
CSX Corporation (CSX)	5/26/2017	0.2	1.41%
QUALCOMM Incorporated (QCOM)	5/26/2017	0.57	3.79%

Dividend definitions: Declaration date: the day that the company declares that there is going to be an upcoming dividend.

Monthly Dividend Stock List

Record date: the day when you must be on the company’s books as a shareholder to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is normally set for stocks at two business days before the record date.

Payment date: the day on which the dividend payment is actually made, which can be as long at two months after the ex date.

Stocks Going Ex Dividend the Third Week of May

Amgen Inc. (AMGN)	5/15/2017	1.15	2.59%
Consolidated Edison Inc (ED)	5/15/2017	0.69	3.42%
Target Corporation (TGT)	5/15/2017	0.6	4.04%
Microsoft Corporation (MSFT)	5/16/2017	0.39	2.16%
Honeywell International Inc. (HON)	5/17/2017	0.665	1.91%

Dividend definitions: Declaration date: the day that the company declares that there is going to be an upcoming dividend.

Monthly Dividend Stock List

Record date: the day when you must be on the company’s books as a shareholder to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is normally set for stocks at two business days before the record date.

Payment date: the day on which the dividend payment is actually made, which can be as long at two months after the ex date.

Ideas for Mother’s Day

Looking for last minute gifts for Mother’s Day? Amazon has several suggestions, and specials for several of their popular items. Here that are.

Echo Show
Amazon Devices- Introducing Echo Show, Buy 2 Save $100
Echo Show brings you everything you love about Alexa, and now she can show you things. Watch video flash briefings and YouTube, see music lyrics, security cameras, photos, weather forecasts, to-do and shopping lists, and more. All hands-free—just ask.
Echo Show is available starting today for pre-order. Be closer with your friends and family more often. Place two Echo Shows in your cart and receive $100 off your order with code SHOW2PACK.

$30 off Echo—Get a great deal on Echo and fill Mother’s Day with 360⁰ audio.
Shop amazon devices- $30 off on Echo

$25 off Fire HD 8 —Gift Mom our most popular tablet.
Shop Amazon Devices- $25 off Fire HD 8

Save on Kindle—$20 off top Kindle models, plus even more savings on Kindle Bundles.
Shop Amazon Devices- Kindle Up to $50 off

Amazon even has its own Mother’s Day Store
Mother’s Day Gift Shop

Newest Top Selling Real Estate Books

You have probably seen those ads on TV about flipping houses and investing in real estate. Before dipping your foot in the water, maybe you should read up on buying and renting homes. The following are some recent top selling books on real estate investing, shown by category. Happy reading and investing!

Venture Deals: Be Smarter than your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist

If you have ever considered starting up your own business, or maybe you have just created your startup and need to raise funds but feel a bit overwhelmed, you need to read the book Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson. It is a complete guide to venture capital from raising money to selling the business.

The book covers the various sources of funding that are available in great detail including crowdfunding and convertible debt. Because the term sheet is so important, there are four chapters dedicated to it.

Throughout all the chapters, there is an “Entrepreneur’s Prospective” which is very useful to the startuper.

Probably the best feature of the book is the sample term sheet at the end.

So if you are planning or working on your startup and need additional capital, I recommend you get Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist.

How to Invest in the Kentucky Derby & Horse Racing

The Kentucky Derby will take place at the end of this week, on Saturday, May 6, in Louisville, Kentucky. This is one of the most watched horse races in the United States. The Kentucky Derby is the initial race of the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing. The second race is the Preakness Stakes and the third is the Belmont Stakes.

If you want to make money from horse races, you can bet on a race horse, or you can invest in a horse race track related stock.

The host of the Kentucky Derby is Churchill Downs (CHDN), the holding company of the Churchill Downs Racetrack founded in 1875. Other operations it has includes Arlington Park, the Calder Race Course, the Fair Grounds Race Course, and the Trackside Off-Track-Betting Facilities. The stock trades at 23 times forward earnings. The company pays a small dividend of 0.78%.

Another racetrack stock is Dover Downs Gaming and Entertainment (DDE), which owns Dover Downs Raceway, a harness racing track with pari-mutuel wagering. The stock sports a very favorable forward price to earnings ratio of 6.3.

Penn National Gaming Inc. (PENN) owns many racetracks and off-track wagering operations in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ontario. The stock has a forward PE of 23.4. The yield is a substantial 3.32%.

Hope you place your bet on the right stock, and your investment comes in first place.

Disclosure: Author did not own any of the above at the time the article was written.

Rental Properties & Property Management

Flipping

Forclosures

Short Sale Investing

Negotiation

Real Estate Taxation

Hotel Investing