by Jason Oltrop on July 20, 2011
Financial/Geek tip: If your company has provides a share ownership plan where they provide a matching contribution it is useful to know how your stock is doing both at a overall level and at an out-of-pocket level.
I track this by creating two portfolios in Google Finance but you should be able to recreate this in any investment tracking software. On the first portfolio track both employer contributions and personal contributions, dividends and subsequent share purchases. On the second I track only my personal cash contributions and dividends and omit the company contributions. When it comes time to track share purchases I only apply my personal purchases to available cash and add the company contributions with “no cost”.
By comparing the personal return on investment vs. the actual return on investment you will be able to better justify remaining in a share ownership plan especially if there is a penalty for early withdrawal.
Personally my current return on investment in my SOP is at about 45% vs. -5% actual return on investment. If that isn’t an incentive to buy and hold I don’t know one.
by Robert Bond on January 28, 2011
I was just doing some brief mid-day thinking about how to organize Mindfull.co in 2011. Well, it takes very little effort to create a new post category on a blog, so here we are; YOUR IDEAS!
Fantastic! So what the hell is it? Well, as described on the ABOUT page, mindfull.co is all about delivering t-shirts and printed items that the people want! So here is where you’ll be offering your thoughts up in hopes of getting your brainchild for FREE!
It’ll work like this. We post an article to “Your Ideas”; something to the effect of “This Month’s brainstorming has begun!”, and you wonderfull people will post ideas to the comments section of it. And after a while, we’ll make a new post; something like “This Month’s voting has begun!”. This post will contain a poll, containing the finalists we’ve chosen (discussed on the podcast and blog), which you’ll be able to take part in. When the winning idea is selected, we put the shirt into limited production, and the winning idea smith gets one of the finished product shipped to them for free!
Anyway, the start date for this is still a while off, but it will be in the 1st half of 2011, and it will be fun! Feel free to comment in the meantime, but we won’t officially be accepting ideas for a little while yet.
by Jason Oltrop on January 4, 2011
Due to all time highs in athlete salaries coupled with disappointing live event revenues, the major sports organizations have entered into an agreement that will ensure that merchandise revenue is protected.
Major League Baseball, NFL, NHL, NCAA and the NBA have enacted a policy where individuals who display an unlicensed logo will be required to conceal it or pay a registration fee of $500 for a small tattoo or $1,500 for a large tattoo. To be caught displaying an infringing tattoo without prior registration may result in a fine or $15,000 or 5 years in prison. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell commented “So called, super fans have had a free ride for too long. They have been displaying stolen copy written material with no consideration for the owners of the teams.”
In a controversial move, the consortium of Pro Leagues have stipulated that tattooed individuals and those who wear team branded clothing, hats, jackets, sweat bands or beer coosies will be subject to a code of ethics. Any individual found acting in manner that is damaging to the image of the team will incur fines and or a request to return of the merchandise or skin removal (for those with Tattoos).
The soccer governing bodies have declined participating in these actions as they prefer to protect their families, homes and offices from arson.