Up, Up, and Away!
Last night, we went to see Disney-Pixar’s Up at our local movie theater. Before the movie started, there was of course the traditional little Pixar short which I believe was called “Partly Cloudy.”
The short before the movie was a nice, uplifting little clip that shows the true meaning of friendship between a stork and a cloud. It catches that emotion where you think your best friend or even one of your loved ones turns their backs on you, only to find out that it was premature when they were actually doing something to strengthen your relationship. We too often look at the worse-case scenario and immediately fault the other.
As for the movie Up itself, I absolutely enjoyed it. The movie is centered on an older gentleman who dreamed of taking a trip to a remote location in South America that his boyhood idle discovered. He decides to use hundreds of helium balloons and sails made of drapes to fly his house to South America. Accidentally joining him is a young boy scout-like kid who is working on his merit badge collection. Of course, his goal of reaching the spot in South America is sidetracked, and they take on a different adventure.
Up gives us much more than just that. The main character makes a promise to a friend when he was just a little boy, and intends to keep that promise no matter what has gotten in his way over the years. It is in his intention to keep his promise where the movie gets really sad. I admit that I was getting a bit teared up.
When he is presented with a choice to keep one promise over another, he decides to make good on the promise he makes to his young companion after finding something important to the story. Another teary-eyed moment. The movie comes together at this point and makes the film an instant favorite of mine for the summer. It doesn’t beat Star Trek in my opinion, but it definitely tops Wolverine and Terminator Salvation. If you have children, take them out to see Up this summer. Even if you don’t have children, you should take a trip to the theater to enjoy the latest that Disney-Pixar has to offer.
Fantasy Portfolio – May 29
This week, I decided to make a couple of changes to my fantasy portfolio. I sold my full position of PFE based on Jim Cramer’s bearishness on the stock. Basically, big name pharmaceutical companies aren’t moving a whole lot and Cramer sees changes from Obama going negatively for those stocks.
I wanted to get into a stock that has been beaten down and could very well make a comeback very soon, so I decided to get into the retail sector with HD. The housing market is starting to bottom in some states, and even a turning around in California and Florida. With retail numbers getting better, and the prospect of more housing being bought and fixed up, I saw the recent dip in HD to be a great opportunity for getting in.
Both the DJI and my portfolio increased since last week, but my portfolio won out … again! I might use this next week as a profit-taking week since my stocks have seen huge gains in the last two weeks. I might even add to some of my positions if I see a 5-10% pullback in some of them.
Dow Jones at Year Start- $9,034.69
Dow Jones at End of Week – $8,500.33
Dow Jones Point Gain - (-$534.36)
Dow Jones Percent Gain – (-5.91%)
Portfolio at Year Start – $104,435.54
Portfolio at Week End – $114,536.74
Portfolio Total Gain – +$10,101.20
Portfolio Percent Gain – +9.67%
<h4>Symbol – Shares – Last Price – Purchase Price</h4>
MCD —– 50 —– $58.99—– $54.47
BP ——– 155 —— $49.50 —– $39.99
HD —– 250 ——- $23.16—– $22.95
KMP —- 100 —— $51.14 —– $46.92
MO —— 525 —— $17.09—– $15.75
T ——– 300 —— $24.79 —— $25.82
NAT —- 150—— $33.54 —— $29.16
CAT —- 100 ——- $35.46 —– $26.36
AEM — 100 ——- $61.86 —— $45.53
PEP —- 200 ——–$52.05 —— $49.45
JPM —- 100 ——- $36.90 —— $33.99
AAPL — 50 ——- $135.81 —– $120.96
<h3>Transactions for the Week</h3>
5/29 Sell 275 Shares of PFE at $14.80
5/29 Buy 250 Shares of HD at $22.95
<h3>Dividends Paid</h3>
None
My Goals
One thing that I have been doing lately is keeping a checklist of things to be done either during the day or over the weekend. I honestly tend to get more done if I write down what I want to accomplish and stick to it. John Chow makes an excellent point when he says to set tight deadlines to make you get things done sooner instead of being able to procrastinate until you absolutely have to get your task done. I am very bad at this. Procrastination is one of my worst habits.
My goals for the next month is to improve my Alexa rating so that it is below 500,000, create a Technorati Profile, and and my blog to other blog indexing sites to increase my traffic. I also want to try monetizing my site with text links and maybe some different affiliate links. There are other sites that I am looking at to increase my income generated online.
I try to improve my tactics and schedule for accomplishing tasks each day, so that I can get into a habit when it comes to adding content and features to my site. It is very difficult to do when I am at work most of the day, but I guess I have to put in a lot of work at night if I want to see some real results from my site.
Terminator Salvation
Terminator Salvation pleasantly surprised me, especially since the last Terminator wasn’t all that great. I was a little bit skeptical at the beginning of the movie, because the acting and the dialogue seemed kind of cheesy. When Christian Bale yells into the radio of the downed helicopter, he sounds a little too over-the-top, and even had a hint of Batman in his voice.
One part of the movie that bothered me was when John Connor infiltrated Skynet’s main facility rather easily. I know he had help with the turret being shut down from inside, but you would think that the machines would have their headquarters guarded a little more tightly than what it seemed.
What I found amazing in this movie were the Skynet machines. The transports that capture the humans were the ultimate machine. It was awesome how they carried the Hunter Killers and the big rolling machines which in turn carried the mototerminators (motorcycle terminators). Seeing Arnold’s face rendered on a T-800 was very cool too.
Terminator Salvation had plenty of action that satisfied my appetite for destruction. Yes, there was Guns and Roses in this movie. It also developed the Marcus character from somebody we didn’t initially care for and suspected to be the villain into somebody who had a sense of humanity. I would have liked to have known a little more about Marcus at the beginning of the movie to aid in his character development.
It seems the big hits of this summer are giving shout outs to the older movies in their respective series. Star Trek had many lines in it that reflected back to the original series and the movies. Salvation also did that with Kyle Reese when he first meets Marcus. I love going to big movies on opening weekend and hearing roars of approval from the audience when a big line is spoken.
You should definitely go see Salvation. The ending to the movie was great, and even got me a little choked up when Marcus makes his big decision. It also appears that there will be more Terminators to come since Reese wasn’t actually sent back in time until 2028. I just hope Christian Bale doesn’t let his newly found stardom go to his head.
Fantasy Portfolio – May 22
The market was pretty stagnant from last Friday to this past Friday losing less than a percentage point. My portfolio finished up for the week, also less than a percentage point, but at least it was on the plus side!
We have seen so many gains since March, that it makes sense that the market takes a little bit of a hit from so many people trying to lock in their gains. I really don’t think that there will be much more of a sell-off that would take us any lower than $8,000, but I’m no economist and definitely not a Wall Street guru.
My portfolio, both fantasy and real, lives and dies by the philosophies found in Jim Cramer’s Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World
Dow Jones at Year Start- $9,034.69
Dow Jones at End of Week – $8,277.32
Dow Jones Point Gain – (-$757.37)
Dow Jones Percent Gain – (-8.38%)
Portfolio at Year Start – $104,435.54
Portfolio at Week End – $111,284.13
Portfolio Total Gain – +$6,848.59
Portfolio Percent Gain – +6.56%
Symbol – Shares – Last Price – Purchase Price
MCD —– 50 —– $57.08—– $54.47
BP ——– 155 —— $47.60 —– $39.99
PFE —– 275 ——- $14.96—– $14.26
KMP —- 100 —— $47.55 —– $46.92
MO —— 525 —— $16.64—– $15.75
T ——– 300 —— $23.68 —— $25.82
NAT —- 150—— $32.00 —— $29.16
CAT —- 100 ——- $34.31 —– $26.36
AEM — 100 ——- $57.81 —— $45.53
PEP —- 200 ——–$51.57 —— $49.45
JPM —- 100 ——- $34.41 —— $33.99
AAPL — 50 ——- $122.50 —– $120.96
Transactions for the Week
None
Dividends Paid
5/18 – $132.00 from 150 shares of NAT at $0.88 per share
