VMW 4Q

I can't wait to get to work tomorrow and listen to VMWare's 4Q 2009 conference call. Up 18% in after hours trading, VMWare killed it this quarter. In the worst recession since the 1930s, revenues are up 8% YoY! I have investment chub.

3 rough days

China is going to rein in bank lending and Barack Obama wants to re-regulate the banks, so my stocks have taken a Rihanna-style beating. That may be dated. A Brooke Mueller-style beating? Is that more current? You might not know that Brooke Mueller is Charlie Sheen's wife. I didn't. I had to look it up. My stocks look worse than [enter most current domestic abuse reference] does.

Anyway, I'm still up (by less than 15% I think), but I was doing much better three days ago. I haven't purchased anything new, but based on the past few days I may move some more money into my brokerage account.

I think this blog is collecting dust.

The rest of my cash

I spent my remaining cash on shares of MGM Mirage two weeks ago. I bought in at $10.99.

My fiscal year runs October 1st to September 30th, because I bought my first shares on October 1st of 2008. My first year's returns were 27.7%. It'll be tricky to calculate my returns for Q4 2009 because I added funds to my portfolio in October. I have to figure out how I want to handle the accounting for that...

Reading material

I picked up Warren Buffett and the Interpretation of Financial Statements by Mary Buffett & David Clark, as well as Security Analysis by Ben Graham and David Dodd. I got through Warren Buffett's ex-daughter-in-law's book pretty fast and now I'm poring over financial statements. Definitely out: Starbucks, Nexxus Lighting, Citrix Systems, Echelon Corp, Itron Inc, and Ambient Corp. Still looking at VMware, Microsoft, AgFeed, Google, Apple, EMC, Cisco, Qualcomm, and 3Com. I think I'm happy with my positions in AgFeed and VMware, but I don't really know. I can't read the financials well enough yet.

Obviously, my portfolio took a big dive after the past few days. The Dow was down 250 points on Friday if you missed it. I'm really excited about the opportunity to spend the rest of my cash.

VMWare

Bought 16 shares of VMWare. Thought I needed a tech. What started with Indian BPOs ended with this company, which makes virtualization software. I'm sitting on $1450 in cash now, but I really want to plow it into AgFeed.

$2,100 in cash

I moved some more money into my brokerage account and now I'm researching new buys. I think I need a tech and something less speculative. However, I've been looking at Indian ADRs all weekend. ICICI bank seems like a safe play, but where's the money at? Patni, Satyam?

Versus my benchmark

My returns in 2008 were -9.5%, versus a drop in the Dow of -19.12% over the same period (Oct. 1 to Dec. 31). My YTD 2009 return is 45.91%, versus 12% for the Dow Jones.