The New Adventures of Not Earning Money

ANX went up to 15 cents a share today so I sold it! That's a profit of 9$. YAY!

I was worried since it went down to 10 cents yesterday, so I wanted it out of my portfolio.

In other news I started a volunteer job today with the Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven. I will be revamping their website, designing their newsletter, and talking care of any odds and ends (like the creation of their facebook group which I did today). I walked all the way there across New Haven, 2.6 miles. I would have walked back but it poured all afternoon.

My new job will have me helping them increase the readability and ease of design of their website, create a newsletter, and do other odds and ends around the office for the summer. Now the rationale behind taking a volunteer job as opposed to a paying job is that I can’t get a paying job, and at least this way I have something awesome on my resume. Maybe I’ll get a fancy title too, like “best employee” or “Awesomest person ever."

You'd hire someone if their last job title was "awesomest person ever" right? I know... totally.

Anyway, America, I'm going (with my 9$) to go eat some Kentucky Fried Chicken for the first time to see what that's like. I hear the biscuits are awesome!

Thanks for reading and best regards,
Alya

My Reading List

Today I will talking about my reading list of books mostly because it is piled up on my desk and is in my way. Since I kind of hate reading fiction, and haven't been reading the books piled up next to my bed on my desk, talking about it will push me into actually reading the books.

They are:
Catch-22, which I am 48 pages into. I already know what the Catch-22 IS and therefore don't need to read anymore of this book. But I don't want to skip to another book until I'm done with this one. So it's first on my list.
Out of Africa
The Power Broker
Watership Down
Cinematic Royalty and Dark Hollywood Nights, which was written by a friend of mine from H.S.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
The Master and Margarita... I've read the first 100 pages of this and I got um... distracted that summer... but it's been three years and I'm going to try it again.

I would also like to add that ANX has decided to SUCK today and is down to $0.11, which I am not happy about. I am going to hold, and maybe this whole thing will turn around. OR I will lose my investment capital as it decreases to zero... you know, whatever. Learning experience. Thing of it is, at $0.11 I'm surprised people aren't buying in like mad. Especially because they're getting their act together on that de-listing thing.

Yeah I know. I'm going to lose all my money. But it's cool. It was only a couple thousand shares. I should keep talking about it, now it's at $0.1187! Go fancy interactive blog go!

Thanks for reading and best regards,
Alya

Melting My Brain

Recently there have been commercials for watching TV on my computer. TV melts my brain, agreed. There is something that melts it faster. Watching green and red numbers swish back and forth rapidly on my screen on my trading platform is both mesmerizing and addicting. For sure, constantly monitoring my portfolio is melting my brain, but I counteract that process by listening to This American Life all day. What's more is that this isn't something I need to be doing. I have a very small amount invested. I have trade triggers set for when I want to sell. Truth is, I really like watching it, it's soothing, and it makes me feel like I have a job, something to do.

Days when the market is closed seem boring and time drags on. Even on days when the Dow and NASDAQ are down are better than days when no trading happens. In the recession, the one thing that has actually been getting better in the last few months are the indexes. People on Wall Street are making money despite people around the country losing their jobs.

Let's keep you all up to date on the "frequently updated website" interactive factor: my ANX stock buy a few days ago. RIGHT NOW it's at $0.14. I bought 1165 shares at $0.13. It goes between 13 and 14 cents everyday. My target sell price is between 18 and 22 cents. It cycles into this range every few weeks.

Keep in mind, even if I sell at my target price, I'll make about 60$. :) Which is just... so much money... Just think of how many boxes of macaroni and cheese can I taste test with that!

Thanks for reading and best regards,
Alya

Google's opinion of me = single anorexic capitalist

The ads on my blog are something of interest to me for more than one reason. It's not merely because I can make a dollar or two during the recession by helping other people make money (yes, economy, you are full of circles). I also feel that the Google ads somewhat define what the website is about. They are geared to my readership, they are representative of the website.

Before today, the only ads I saw were cheerful, successful financial advice ads. I was fine with that. I am trading stocks. I am proud of that fact. I think my trading during the recession and ability to make 15% on 1000$ in two months is capitalistic but also genius. The reinvestment of that gain into ANX was also genius.

Maybe not genius, but we'll see how it plays out. (Yay, fancy interactive blog)

Today, I open up my "frequently updated website" to find a shocking and absurd ad waiting for people to click. This ad mocks me and my macaroni and cheese taste test. This ad makes me feel fat. This ad makes me think I have a problem.

This ad is for eating disorders. One could argue that wanting to eat only Americana traditional food and taste test macaroni and cheese is akin to an eating disorder, but that is not what Google meant. Google called me fat, or worse, Google told me I should stop being so anorexic.

Maybe I shouldn't take it so seriously, but for a company to claim that they will gear their ad content to my page specifically, perhaps something less offensive is in order, like "free kittens and puppies" or ads for my favorite band. I bet Google didn't bother to find out who my favorite band was *sniff* did they?

It's ABBA. *sniff*

...It's not ABBA.

What's next? eHarmony advertisements? Noooooooooooooo! The horror!

Seriously Google, go back to the financial ads. I'm happier with you thinking I'm just a capitalist than an single anorexic capitalist.

Thanks for reading and best regards,
Alya

Forced Donating = Stealing/ Fancy Interactive Blog

My mother told me I had to donate clothes and shoes today. I am under the assumption that she is doing this to make her feel better about her spending money during the recession and also because she feels like she has too much stuff, but refuses to clean out her own closet. She has four closets filled with clothes she will never wear again, and yet I have to donate?

Does that make sense to anyone? Didn't think so.

It's not that I'm not happy to give away clothes that I won't be wearing, but I want to do it on my own terms. I dislike micromanagement overseen by hypocrites. Let me quickly move away from this issue before I pop a blood vessel, cause being unemployed means I don't have health insurance. (hint hint President Obama *_^)

In other news, I've been trading with TDAmeritrade, which can be a fickle broker and lags on my orders considerably, considering that it's all presumably AUTOMATED.

Yesterday I put in an order for a stock, Adventrx Pharmaceuticals (Ticker: ANX). For about two hours that day the stock was at my buy in price and the order didn't go through. I called customer service twice and they said the equivalent of, "your order is too small for us to care and you're at the back of the line." Well... They definitely said the second part, and it felt like the first part too. Needless to say, it was an adventure in navigating bureaucracy. I also found it amusing that everyone's name was particularly bland American. I spoke to "Matthew" and "Branden" and "Elizabeth." Would I feel less comfortable talking to an ethnic sounding name? Go ponder. They were in "Ft Worth." Yep... Ft Worth, India.

Today, after another THREE hours of the stock being at my buy in price my order went through: 1165 shares for 13 cents each. Yay! For those of you who don't have a calculator on you that's $151.45.

You can all have fun watching this stock too, and seeing if I made a good call or a bad call. (And now this blog is INTERACTIVE! ooooooo fancy)

Thanks for reading and best regards,
Alya

The most useful advice ever!

I have here, in this blog post the most useful advice you may ever receive.

Now, I could just tell you, but that's not as much fun for me. You could also think you're gonna scroll to the bottom, but that's not fun for me either. SO somewhere in this message about totally random events is a sentence that you should live by. A piece of advice so helpful, you will never need any other piece of advice. Is it "don't ever invest in the stock market" ? No. But I wish I had heard that before I entered into this whole debacle. For the first whole week I traded I dreamed about puts and calls and moving red and green numbers. It was horrifying. I would wake up more stressed than I went to bed.

The problem with trading online is that it is one of the few things you can do where you aren't reliant on another human being to support you. You don't need someone else to cut you a check, you are self-employed in a sense. The problem is that it's so risky and most people have NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING. Lucky for me majoring in economics and living abroad for a large portion of my life has acquainted me with the global market. I have some knowledge of the intricacies of foreign exchanges, the complexities of commodities and manufacturing and the ways in which better performance in dry bulk stock can be an indicator that China is on the rise. But honestly, NEVER move back in with your parents, it is the worst mistake you can ever make in your life.

You like how I did that, huh. Doesn't it just kill you that you kind of could just skipped to the end anyway?

Thanks for reading and best regards,
Alya

P.S. I decided that this post would be more fancy if I added a picture. The photo of the financial district was taken from my old bedroom in Jersey City.