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Back alive and Liebster Award nomination

Liebster AwardI am finally back home from a hospital. Still in pain and on drugs but getting alive again. Although, sometimes I am thinking I would like to stay back in the hospital doing nothing and enjoying it.

A week ago I broke my ankle so bad that I needed a surgery and now I have 6 screws in it. I think, now when flying somewhere I will always sound the alarm at those TSA frames.

Being in the hospital had a few positive outcomes, besides fixing my ankle. I could watch TV almost the whole day, so I was watching CNBC and I was in awe what nonsense they speak about in there. I was shocked that they had absolutely no clue why markets where rising or falling or what was going on.

Not that I had any clue myself, but I do not speak about it publicly trying to explain anybody, why the market, or stock, is up or down. And then it came to recommendations of “what you should do with your money in your 401k account in this market.”

I am truly sorry for those people who invest upon advice from CNBC.

The second good thing was that I was watching my investments over the mobile applications so I learned using them. Now I no longer need a laptop with me. I can make my trades using my phone or Kindle.

Liebster Award

In the meantime, I was also nominated to a Liebster Award by Scott from Two investing blog.

What is Liebster Award? Just in case you haven’t heard about it, a Liebster Award is an online award given by bloggers to other bloggers so you can discover and learn about other blogs out there. A blogger who nominates you gives you a set of questions. You answer the questions and then select five new bloggers who will follow. You ask them another set of five questions and they should answer them. It is like a chain letter you may have heard about.

So, thank you Scott for nominating my blog and here are the answers to your questions:

1) Favorite investment book? Non-investment book?

I have read many investment books so it is hard to choose which one is the winner. It also depends on my investment strategy. So as a dividend investor I would select “The Single Best Investment” by Lowell Miller. If you want to learn about dividend growth strategy and how to implement it to create a great portfolio full of high quality dividend growth stocks which will lead to ever growing sustainable and secure income, this is the right book for you.

As an option trader I would recommend “Generate Thousands in Cash on your Stocks Before Buying or Selling Them” by Samir Elias. If you ever wondered how you can utilize options to boost your dividend income on stocks you own, or even plan on buying this is a book to you. The principle of the book is basically to use options to generate enough cash to buy a stock of your interest using other peoples money and once you acquire the stock, use options to generate more income on that stock.

A simplified version of that book describing details and procedures of put selling strategy is a book by Jerry Lee “Selling Put Options My Way

I told you it wouldn’t be easy to select the best investment book.

Since lately I only read technical, history, or investment books it is hard to say which of non-investment books to choose. I would choose books by Jules Verne a 19 century author who wrote sci-fi books such as “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, The Mysterious Island, Around the World in 80 Days, Journey to the Center of the Earth,” and many others.

2) If you had all the free time in the world, what would you be doing?

Traveling. I hope that my investments and options trading get me into a situation that I will be able to quit my job, buy a double decked coach and a sailing boat, and I would be able to travel around the world. With my family. And if that ever happen, I will write about it in my blog, so you will find out.

3) Why did you start your investing blog?

As many of the bloggers in the investing niche, I started my blog as a record of my trading and investing endeavor and to entertain and educate. I wanted to share my investment success with others and show how great and skilled investor I was. Well, it showed up as an ambitious dream. Very little I knew how to write to express myself so someone would care reading it. Also this blog opened my eyes as it became obvious that I was not a brilliant investor or trader at all.

It actually showed up that I was a loser. I was a sucker losing money but had a high thinking about myself. The blog helped me a lot to find out who I was and what I wanted.

Now I would like to pay it back and help all those, who look for being successful in trading or investing.

4) What was your best and worst investment?

My best investment was an option trade against GME stock when I sold puts and made full 100% profit overnight as the option expired the next day. I made 3% gain overnight. I would already be retired if all my trades would look like that one. You can read a brief report about that trade here. Please read it and let me know what you think.

My worst investment ever happened at the beginning of my investment career when I was sold to trading commodities. As my broker made killing on fees and commissions, I lost all my account. You can read the story in my post “The curious history of a sucker

5) Favorite job you’ve had so far?

Actually I haven’t held any other job than engineering so I can only choose between mechanical engineer and a professional full time trader.

I like mechanical engineering a lot, but my pick would definitely be a full time trader. I am not there yet, but I hope that in the next five years (if not earlier) I will become a full time trader.

Scott, thank you for nominating me and describing my blog in a nice manner. I appreciate it.

My Liebster Award Nominees

And now it is time to pick my Liebster Award nominees and ask them my five questions.

My fist nominee is Michael from Dividenden-Sammler (The dividend collector). Michael lives in Germany and he is a dividend investor. Investing in Europe is different from the US and I noticed that people in Europe have a very different view, understanding, and access to private investing. It is not much common for people in Europe to invest into individual dividend stocks. Therefore Michael’s insight into dividend investing is very valuable and it is great seeing him going the same path as investors in the US do.

My second nominee is Alex from My Trader’s Journal. Alex is a full time financial adviser and trader. He primarily trades options using straddles and naked calls and puts strategies. His money management is very similar to mine, to what I want to do in my account. His blog, trades and experience is a great inspiration to me.

My third nominee is Ben from A Wealth of Common Sense. Ben’s insights to investing, savings, and trading psychology is something I enjoy reading. Many times when reading Ben’s posts I realize that he was writing about my own thinking that I behaved the same way. It is your own mirror. Many things are obvious behavior of investors and thus mine or yours, many other you just discover your own “aha” moment.

And here are my questions to the nominees:


1) When did you realize managing your own portfolio and personal finance is something what makes you happy and what you want to do actively or even as a professional?

2) What or who inspired you the most in your financial career?

3) If you had three wishes what would they be?

4) What was the greatest investment or financial achievement in your life so far?

5) What is your favorite movie from investment or trading world?
 
 





13 responses to “Back alive and Liebster Award nomination”

  1. FerdiS says:

    Hi Martin

    The ankle break sounds really painful! Hope you recover fast and well. I enjoyed your Liebster Award answers, especially the links to the option trading books. I’ll try to get my hands on them, as I’m in the beginning stages of creating a new blog about boosting dividend income by selling options.

    BTW, I’ve included your blog in my newly compiled blogroll http://divgro.blogspot.com/p/blogroll.html

    Cheers
    FerdiS

    • Martin says:

      Hi FerdiS,
      Thank you for stopping by. If you need any help with option trading, let me know. I will gladly help. I guarantee you, once you grasp put selling strategy (for example) you will be surprised how easy it is to trade it and what great returns you can add to your dividends.
      Thanks for inclusion to your blogroll. I will pay back the honor.
      Good luck in trading!

  2. Martin, Thanks for the nomination! I’ll start thinking of who to nominate and how I should answer your questions. It might be a few days before I get my post published.

    A few comments about your surgery: I’m sorry you had to go through it and hope you’ll feel much better soon. The screws don’t set off metal detectors at airports. My neck is full of screws and brackets (from 2 surgeries) and it’s never a problem. I had the same thought/worry after my surgeries. Regarding drugs post-surgery, that’s the state I was in when I decided to start writing my blog 7+ years ago. Some good things do come out of the altered state. :)

    • Martin says:

      Alex, thanks for kind words. I know the screws don’t get the alarm off. I was just joking :) Actually it was my first question to the surgeon when we talked and he told me about the screws. I asked him if now I would have a problem at the airports. But I like it as a joke.

      Thanks for stopping by and I am looking forward to your responses.

  3. Scott says:

    Just thought of another good book. “The Richest Man in Babylon” by George S. Clason. First published in 1926, it offers financial advice through a series of parables. At only 72 pages it makes for a short but entertaining read. A free PDF version is available here: http://www.ccsales.com/the_richest_man_in_babylon

  4. Scott says:

    Hi Martin,

    Sorry to hear about your ankle; I’m glad you’re feeling better now. I agree with you on CNBC. While it can be entertaining to watch, relying on it for your stock research is foolish. Much of what they discuss is reactionary. They constantly tell us what the news supposedly means, even if it contradicts their own thesis from before. A good strategy to get on the show might be to predict something huge like a significant market correction. If that happens, you’d get interviewed as one of the “experts” that predicted it and be famous.

    Great answers to my questions. I have read “The Single Best Investment” and think I even bought and read “Selling Put Options My Way” from a recommendation on one of your blog posts. Mr. Lee’s eBook is short and simple, but I am finding it hard to replicate some of his parameters. He must have starting his strategy in a higher volatility environment because currently you can’t get any premium at all for selling a 20% OTM put like he suggests. I haven’t heard of the book by Samir Elias yet and am excited to read it. Thanks for the recommendations.

    Traveling more would definitely be on the top of my list too. I’m fortunate that my chosen career in radiology (less than two years, including fellowship to go) does allow more normal hours compared to other specialities like surgery. I’m hoping to invest well when starting off in order to retire young. Are you still working full time as an engineer or spending a day or two a week investing at home?

    Best of luck as you transition to a more full time trader!

    • Scott,
      As a doctor, you might want to check out http://whitecoatinvestor.com/.
      He’s not an active investor, but gives a lot of good financial advice for those with high incomes.
      – Alex

    • Martin says:

      Hi Scott, thanks for kind words. Yes, Mr. Lees parameters are difficult to achieve unless you trade hundreds of contracts and be in high IV side. I do not follow those. For that I try to select trades with less than 20 Delta or ideally be at 5 Delta, but that’s also hard to achieve.

      I am still full time engineer, but hopefully get to full time trader soon. I have a goal to get there in the next 5 years. So, huge goal.

  5. DivHut says:

    Wish you a full recovery soon. Nothing like a hospital stay to help put things in perspective and realize what is truly important and what is nonsense. Glad to hear you are back!

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