I’ll write up a full summary of yesterday’s options expiration later and doubt I’ll get an index chart posted this weekend.  I just wanted to get the good news out there.  I feel brain dead now.  I’ll start the paperwork to register as an Investment Advisor next week after I get caught up on a lot of other stuff I’ve been avoiding at home and work.

Working for myself as an investment advisor will give me more time to focus on promoting my new business, actively managing investments (clients and mine), writing my blogs on a more regular basis and caring for my family as I work from home.  The steps I have to take aren’t going to be too quick with my current schedule.  First I need to pass the Series 65 exam.  I’ve started studying and am enjoying it.  I’m brushing up on material I haven’t covered since college and should’ve stayed more current on for our personal money management.  I should be able to sit for the exam before the end of the summer.  After that I’ll file all of my regulatory paperwork and form an LLC.  I’m sure gaining a client base won’t be too quick with me only chasing people on a part-time basis.

In the near-term I need to try to stay employed.  I had to fire six consultants yesterday as their project ended.  It wasn’t fun to do, but they new it was coming.  I’ll take a decent hit on commissions from this project ending and the hole in my revenue could draw more attention to me than I want.  That means that I’ll have to continue to ease off my stock research and blogging time while on the job and will use a lot of my free time at home to study for the Series 65.  I’m not going away, but will try to write less than I have been for the foreseeable future and focus on getting to the next stage in my career path.  I’ll keep documenting all of my trades, but will probably keep the wording light and as quick as possible.  Eventually the opposite will be the case and I’ll be able to spend more time doing what I like, focusing on the markets and all parts of how it touches my business.

I’m long and nearly fully invested in my IRA and my wife’s IRA with only a couple of covered calls in each.  So if the markets continue to climb, I’ll continue to do well there.  I’ll update my end of the month summary tonight and post it by tomorrow morning.  I’m doing well for the year, but my lead over the indices is shrinking since I’m so light in investments.  My emotional investing is coming from my fear that we’ve rallied this far this quickly.  Logic to me says that it’s too soon.  I think that I could be making a mistake with that thought process, but will remain cautious either way.  I see a lot of the data being released as positive and offering reasons to rally, but continue to think about how our friends (and our household) continue to fear job cuts and the difficulty in finding new employment if our jobs are cut and how it has caused us to slow most of our spending.  The good news is that we both remain employed and our savings continues to grow.  Once more solid employment comes around Atlanta I can easily see how our spending will soar.  The trick is how far away that is. 

As a recruiter I see our competition laying-off staff every week and I don’t see us hiring new candidates.  Last year we averaged one-two hires per recruiter per week.  Now we have seven recruiters and some weeks don’t hire anyone and on a good week hire two-three.  I have a hard time imagining the economy truly recovering without a more solid consumer base coming in to help drive it.

On top of that, check out this picture of the x-ray I had this morning of my neck.  I’ve whined on these pages a few times about my neck and my surgery two years ago (btw – that post operative drug induced state is what got me to start this blog).  This morning I found out that my surgery failed on one disc.  You can see where the screw broke on the upper vertebra.  I’m getting an MRI sometime soon and expect to be back on the operating table this summer.  The good news is it should help my pain (and maybe my investments if I slow down the pain meds during the trading day), but the bad news is I could miss the summer of playing at the pool with my five year old son since I’ll have a few months of limited mobility.  Again, mixed emotions are hitting me today.

I’m going to a family event for my wife’s side of our family in New York.  If it was my decision it wouldn’t have been planned for options expiration Friday, but I guess not everyone tries to revolve their plans around the markets.

After selling two naked calls on top of two other naked calls on MHK I might take a hit.  MHK has rallied more than $7 in the past two days and is  $0.70 from being in the money forcing me to be short the stock.  I don’t even know if TD Ameritrade has shares for me to short (aka borrow to sell).  I have naked puts at the 65 strike too, so if it’s below that, they’ll wash each other out.  I’m expecting a cool down on it.  If it climbs more than $0.70 I’m taking what I get unless I make a trade over my cell phone (not likely) at the end of Friday.  I’d be short 400 shares and would beg for another drop in price (likely). 

AA closing just below 35 would be ideal so I can be assigned the shares and write covered calls and pull a profit out of this position.  JOYG needs to stay where it is so I’m not assigned the shares and can re-write naked puts next week.  Worst case, I’m assigned the shares and write covered calls.

I’ll update the rest of my positions on Monday when I know what has happened.

Speaking of blogging, investing and social networking less lately, my boss who has been sitting in the cube behind me for the past few weeks was let go on Monday.  We have a new boss already.  He’s younger than I am.  That’s a weird feeling to realize that I’m getting old enough to have a boss who’s that much younger.  He plans to make a lot of changes here and that could lead to me leaving this place.  A lot of the reasons I came here are about to change, so it’s about to be an interesting few months of adjustment.

Some of the changes will be good, but as much as I looked for the exact right place for my needs, this doesn’t appear to be the same place any more.  My goal is still to retire from day to day work I’m 41.  I planned for this to be my last place to work, but that could change.  It’s a weird feeling.  Maybe this new boss will help me make more money and I can retire sooner.  The unknown sucks!

I’ve been asked frequently why I wanted to leave project management after building a good foundation there with a Fortune 10 company.  I have a few reasons, in no particular order.  Before going into that I have to say that if I found the right PM role first I might have taken that, but I didn’t. 

When looking for a new job I had to decide what was important to me.  I needed some flexibility which includes being able to leave work to take care of my son if he’s sick or take him to various doctor appointments when needed.  I had that while at AT&T since the two bosses I had there were very flexible with schedules.  Maybe the flexibility came from my dependability in the office and/or from the lack of big projects since AT&T started the process to acquire BellSouth.  Either new job, PM or recruiting, would be less flexible than I was used to, but recruiting offered a better likelihood of freedom.

I wanted a job as close to home as possible.  We live in a very central location in metro Atlanta, but traffic is horrid and a 15 mile drive in the wrong direction can easily turn into a 45-60 minute commute on a bad day.  I ended up with a two mile commute which includes no highways and has only four traffic lights between my house and the office.

I wanted an opportunity that would pay me the most money for my skills.  A lot of the PM jobs I was looking at would have been a pay cut from what I was making. I had been spoiled as a contractor who was billing through a friend’s company where they only took a small cut of the bill rate.  I’m sure there were some jobs that would have paid more, but a lot of those required travel and that isn’t something I want either.  I have 14 years before my son goes away to college and want to be here as much as possible while he’s still a “captive” child.

I wanted a smaller company where I could feel like more than just a number.  Clearly that’s what I was at AT&T as a contractor.  They have around 300,000 people working there and contractors are at the bottom of the barrel.  I like to be able to speak to the CEO and VPs as if they are normal people, since they are.  The CEO of my new company was a fraternity brother of mine while we were at UGA and is a few years older.  I enjoyed that anonymity for a while at AT&T as it gave me more time to invest and focus on stuff around my house while I worked from home some days, but it got old.  I could bust my ass on a project and in reality it didn’t matter how good the outcome was, AT&T wasn’t going to miss their numbers or change directions for what I did.  I probably actually worked less than 10 hours a week and yet still received praise for my projects.  That’s insane.

As much as I love praise, I have a desire for financial reward that might be rooted in my beginning my career in sales.  I had no desire to move up to a management position in a Fortune 500 company.  Many people can be happy with a pat on the back and a 3-5% raise per year.  For me, I decided I need to be compensated appropriately for being a more valuable employee than someone sitting next to me.  In sales and recruiting, the better you are the more you will make, especially at smaller companies that don’t cap commissions.  That could be one of the many reasons I like investing.  If I’m good I make more money.  Since I believe I’m good, I stick with it.

Of course, I also wanted a job I could enjoy.  I think “enjoy work” might be an oxymoron, but I know I wasn’t enjoying my last two years at AT&T – at least not the work part.  The people were cool.  Hiring someone for a new job gives me a good feeling.  Competing with other recruiters makes work more fun too.

I mentioned the financial part of my decision a couple of times above.  That’s because the end goal is to continue working my five year plan.  I want to have more than $400,000 in our investment account by January 2013 and then start investing in real estate and be able to stop working for someone else.  My wife’s career is certainly doing it’s part to get us there.  I had to have a job that provided a higher income and yet could leave my brain still somewhat free to stay focused on investing.

Enough about that, how does this affect My Trader’s Journal? 

1. My primary focus for the next few weeks and possibly months is to prove myself on the job and build my roster of contractors.  That means less investing time (if any) while on the job and no blogging while there. 
2. All trades will come from limit orders entered over the weekend or in the evenings if I can find time.
3. Trade sizes will likely be larger since I will be trading less often I need each trade to account for a larger part of my portfolio.
4. All posts about my trades will be written in the evenings after work.
5. Future posts may include tips on how to find a job since that’s what I’ll be doing every day.
6. Less social networking to promote my blog.

Highlights about the company where I’ll be working.

• Founded two years ago.
• Started 2007 with six employees.  I’ll be the 23rd.  Expected to double in 2008.
• $14 million in revenue and still growing rapidly.  Expected to double in 2008.
• Good mix of men and women with an average age probably in their mid-30s.

Investing in stock of any kind can be dangerous.  If you fail to make the right move, you can lose you shirt, but if you make the right move you can also make a lot.  In fact, individuals as well as companies who play the stock market are investing in payday lenders like Cash America and Cash and Go, for just such reasons. 

Investing in the payday lending industry has become quite profitable for many.  Several payday loan companies have more than doubled since they became available on the stock market.  Many of these businesses are expanding their brick and mortar locations each year, while others are able to maintain a high level of business on the Internet. 

For millions of people, payday loans help to pay bills on time, avoid bouncing checks and make it through the holidays.  The high cost of gas has increased America’s need for more convenient cash because it is more expensive to live in some areas than ever before.  Payday loans are a short term solution to a short term problem. 

This is a sponsored article.