Barron’s Highlights Small-Cap Outlook from Growth Report

posted by   Ian Wyatt   |    January 28, 2009

Posted in   Small Cap Stocks   |   Comments (5)

Dow Jones' Barron's last weekend printed an excerpt from Business Financial Publishing's Growth Report newsletter, which I founded in 2001 and currently serve as the Editor-in-Chief and Chief Investment Strategist.  The below except discusses the performance of small cap stocks last week, as written by our analyst Kevin Pendley.  PR is always great when you get it, and exposure in the premier weekly investing publication is a great accomplishment.

Sideways Consolidation
Market Review by Growth Report / Business Financial Publishing
1015 18th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036

Jan. 21: Small-cap stocks took flight [Wednesday], notching the biggest one-day gain of 2009 -- just one day after sinking to the worst performance of the new year [and the worst ever recorded for a presidential inauguration day] -- amid strong earnings from technology-bellwether IBM ... . The fact that small-caps led the way on the rally is a positive sign amid plenty of gloom for the marketplace. Investors will have to become more comfortable embracing risk for the market to truly rally off these bear-market lows, and putting their faith in small-caps would be an interesting development. But that leap of faith hasn't been made yet ... .

The market has been buffeted with poor profit reports for months, and a majority of the news so far this year has been gloomy, but when IBM beat the estimate after Tuesday's close, it raised hope that things aren't as bad as feared. In addition, bank stocks have been relentlessly hammered in recent days, but Northern Trust handily beat the forecast as well, showing that not all banks are wallowing in a sea of red ink needing a handout from taxpayers to survive these rocky times. NTRS stock jumped 30% on [Wednesday], and IBM climbed 11%, providing a nice tech/financial one-two leadership punch.

Of course, that doesn't mean that everything is now all rosy for the market ... [Regarding housing,] it appears that a pickup in new sales in the near term is unlikely.

Energy prices provided a source of strength for the Wednesday, with energy stocks climbing 6.7%. Crude-oil prices rose 6.6% on the day -- those higher [prices came because] the New York market rolled out of the February contract into March, which has been trading at a steep premium to the February futures contract. Even after the close of the New York market, crude continued to climb, bolstered by the rise in equities, a slide in the U.S. dollar and production cuts out of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Looking at sector activity [Wednesday], diverse financial-services shares, investment banks and brokerage companies, asset-management firms, banks and real-estate investment trusts were the biggest gainers....On the downside, automobile manufacturers, auto-parts suppliers, hypermarkets and apparel firms were soft performers, but losses in those areas were much less pronounced than the gains for banks, financials and energy companies. Airline stocks struggled. It was nice to see the Russell [2000] climb back above 450 quickly, but the overall market path remains a sideways consolidation, with a mild short-term bearish slant. A push above 466 would help further any bottoming argument here, while any slide back below 450 (and especially 440) would be damaging.

--Kevin Pendley

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Top 5 Priorities: The Story of Ivy Lee and Bethlehem Steel

posted by   Ian Wyatt   |    January 24, 2009

Posted in   Entrepreneurship   |   Comments

Today I'll share with you a story that I've heard told by Cameron Herold of BackpocketCOO (former COO at 1-800-GOT-JUNK) at my second year at the Entrepreneur's Organization / MIT Entrepreneurial Masters Program in May, and again this autumn when Cameron came to Washington DC to present to the local Entrepreneur's Organization chapter. This is the story of the well-regarded management consultant Ivy Lee and Charles M. Schwab of Bethlehem Steel. The lesson is the importance of defining the the top priorities and focusing on those important items, not the other work that tends to tie up most of our time at work. I have already begun implementing daily top five for myself, and at Business Financial Publishing we're planning on getting every employee on board with top five priorities every day.

The Top 5 story...

One day a management consultant, Ivy Lee, called on Schwab of the Bethlehem Steel Company. Lee outlined briefly his firm's services, ending with the statement: "With our service, you'll know how to manage better."

The indignant Schwab said, "I'm not managing as well now as I know how. What we need around here is not more "knowing" but more doing, not knowledge but action; if you can give us something to pep us up to do the things we ALREADY KNOW we ought to do, I'll gladly listen to you and pay you anything you ask."

"Fine", said Lee. "I can give you something in twenty minutes that will step up your action and doing at least 50 percent".

"O.K.", said Schwab. "I have just about that much time before I must leave to catch a train. What's your idea?"

Lee pulled a bland 3x5 note sheet out of his pocket, handed it to Schwab and said: "Write on this sheet the five most important tasks you have to do tomorrow". That took about three minutes. "Now", said Lee, "number them in the order of their importance". Five more minutes pass. "Now", said Lee, "put this sheet in you pocket and the first thing tomorrow morning look at item one and start working on it. Pull the sheet out of your pocket every 15 minutes and look at item one until it is finished. Then tackle item two in the same way, then item three. Do this until quitting time. Don't be concerned if you only finished two or three, or even if you only finish one item. You'll be working on the important ones. The others can wait. If you can't finish them all by this method, you couldn't with another method either, and without some system you'd probably not even decide which are most important".

"Spend the last five minutes of every working day making out a "must " list for the next day's tasks. After you've convinced yourself of the worth of this system have your men try it. Try it out as long as you wish and then send me a check for what YOU think it's worth".

The whole interview lasted about twenty-five minutes. In two weeks Schwab set Lee a check for $25,000 - a thousand dollars a minute. He added a note saying the lesson was the most profitable from a money standpoint he had every learned. Did it work? In five years it turned the unknown Bethlehem Steel Company into the biggest independent steel producer in the world; made Schwab a hundred million dollar fortune, and the best known steel man alive at that time.

Thanks to Cameron for introducing me to this important and yet simple method for staying focused on the priorities.  I can confidently say that on the days when I outline my top five priorities and work toward those items, I accomplish much more than when I show up to work and just start working.  I highly recommend Cameron's videos and events - he is an outstanding presenter and speaker.

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$100,000 Recovery Portfolio: Investing my real money in the financial markets today

posted by   Ian Wyatt   |    January 22, 2009

Posted in   Financial Markets   |   Comments (1)

Today I'm launching an exciting new investment service called Ian Wyatt's $100,000 Recovery Portfolio.

The Recovery Portfolio is an online investing service where I will invest $100,000 of my personal funds into an investment account and show individual investors the specific investments that I'm making to recover from the stock market crash of 2008.

I'll be investing in equities and fixed income (stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, options) to build a portfolio to earn income and growth in the coming years as I work to recover from the losses of 2008. Through this new service, individual investors will be able to see exactly what I'm doing with my personal investments, and have the opportunity to make the same trades as me even before I make them in my own portfolio. This service will provide subscribers with 100% transparency into my personal investments and portfolio management.

Tonight I'm holding an online investing seminar at 6pm eastern. In this online webinar titled Profits Without the Risk: Investing in 2009 and Beyond I'll share with you my outlook for the financial markets, and discuss some strategies for making risk and maximizing profits in these uncertain time. I'll also share two of my top investment ideas today - investments that I'll be making in my portfolio in the coming days. You can view the online video by clicking here.

We have over 5,000 individual investors registered for the event, and are expecting very healthy attendance as individual investors look forward to 2009 and ways to make money in the volatile financial markets today.

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Pinot the Chocolate Lab Puppy

posted by   Ian Wyatt   |    January 20, 2009

Posted in   Vermont Living   |   Comments

I'm pleased to announce the latest addition to the Wyatt family - Pinot the puppy.

Pinot is 4-month old pure bred Chocolate Lab puppy who we adopted in mid-December, just before an influx of family and friends for the holidays. They say it is good for your puppy to be exposed to lots of people - something she experienced quickly. Pinot comes from a breeder in North Troy Vermont, which is basically a stones throw from the Canadian border (its actually very close to Jay Peak, for the skiers who read this blog).

Carrie and I had wanted a dog, and began contacting breeders in early December. Like most decisions we make, this one was a quick one as well - and two weeks later, we were driving home with a 3-month old puppy. Of course it wasn't planned out, so a trip to PetSmart was required to buy all the doggie gear - leash, collar, food, bowls, crate, treats, toys and gates.

We named her Pinot after our favorite wine, Pinot Noir. Pinot Noir is a difficult wine to grow, but can be outstanding if grown properly and carefully tended to. Sort of like a puppy... There has been some confusion about the name. Some people think we named her "Pee No", but the grape / wine reference usually clears things up.

We start obedience class later this month, and I think Pinot is looking forward to Carrie and me getting some training. And since everyone loves photos of puppies, click here to view the gallery photos of Pinot.

 

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Email Inbox Zero: Managing High Volume Email

posted by   Ian Wyatt   |    January 15, 2009

Posted in   Business Financial Publishing   |   Comments

I was recently turned on to the concept of Inbox Zero, an efficient system for managing a high volume of email messages.

The Inbox Zero system was conceived by Merlin Mann, a well known life-hacker and blogger at 43Folders.com. Merlin developed his Inbox Zero system in order to help better deal with a high volume of email messages. Check out 43Folders.com series on Inbox Zero and watch Merlin's presentation at Google Tech Talks - it is well worth the time.

I am definately a high volume email user. In 2008, I sent over 20,000 email messages. I received several times that many emails - maybe 60,000 to 80,000 messages. Until earlier this month, this was my approach to email. Save everything, except the email spam. Don't delete messages. My email inbox was a digest of my life. And I would sort through the 20k messages that were in my inbox at any given time, sorting by date, subject line, or name in Microsoft Outlook, or searching for things via Google Desktop for the hard to find stuff. My inbox was always full, and caused lots of problems with Outlook - including frequent crashes (gotta love Microsoft products).

Inbox Zero is focused on getting me to get rid of emails, and process to zero. Processing to zero means taking action on ALL emails every time you check your email. One of the core concepts is to convert emails into actions.

Merlin outlines five potential outcomes of an email (in order of desirability):

1. Delete (or archive)
2. Delegate
3. Respond
4. Defer
5. Do

Some of the ideas and tips for processing emails are the following:

• Do email less: check email once per hour for 10 minutes, turn off auto-check, and close your email program for periods of the day
• Always empty email inbox after checking mail
• Multi-tasking doesn't work - focus on email for short periods of time, not constantly throughout the day
• Time and attention is limited
• Email is only a medium for communication
• Checking email is not enough - take action
• Don't live in your email
• Take email messages and turn them into actions or items to complete (i.e. a to do list)
• Get out of email, and have a life

How is Inbox Zero working for me?

I began implementing Inbox Zero earlier this month. I'm not 100% there. Here is what I did to get started:

I starting my moving all old emails into a new folder named "2008". All old emails that were in my inbox, went into this folder. I then created folders based on topics (i.e. Advertising, Biz Dev, Marketing, Newsletters). And a folder named "Actions - To Do".

I then moved all previously flagged emails into the Actions - To Do email folder. And for all new mail that arrived, I processed, deleting most emails as I dealt with them. For messages that require more work than I have time for, I move them into the Actions - To Do folder. All other emails are either responded to, deleted, or filed. I use my seperate topic folders to save messages that are important that I wish to reference. Merlin recommends ONLY having an Archive folder for all emails, and NOT using folders to file messages. And my implementation of his plan differs from his recommendation.

I end every day with zero emails in my Inbox. Throughout the day, I don't always process to zero. I'm working on getting there. I'm definately loving having fewer emails in my Inbox, and proactively dealing with my emails, deleting more messages than I ever did before, and turning emails into actionable item.

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2009 New Year’s Resolutions

posted by   Ian Wyatt   |    January 6, 2009

Posted in   Work Life Balance   |   Comments

With 2008 now behind us, and 2009 off to a busy start, I decided now is a good time to outline some of my personal and business goals and New Year's Resolutions for 2009:

• Grow Business Financial Publishing subscription business
• More client interaction
• Write the Recovery Portfolio newsletter content
• Start an online wine club
• Become an active investor in Ecosandals
• Release of "The Small Cap Investor" book
• Make one new angel investment in a promising startup
• Better organization
• Top 5 priorities: daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually
• Read a book every month
• Make Vermont home
• Evening family time - avoid work
• Less travel
• 30 minute Cardio exercise twice weekly
• 45 minute walk w/ Pinot the puppy daily
• Drink less
• Enroll in obedience classes with Pinot the puppy
• Hike Camels Hump Mountain
• Attend an Entrepreneur's Organization (EO) University event
• Attend all Entrepreneur's Organization (EO) forum meetings

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