Archive for the ‘Talk’ Category

Look at that! I’m up!

Closing Price: $14.77

up 9.33%

Holdings Value: $14,770.00

I’m up $1260.00 from my original “investment”.

I’ll buy lunch.

A buddy recently started an email conversation about Apple—how they’re floating around the $200 mark, how they were $7 not so long ago, and how he’s kicking himself for not buying then.

Me, I don’t fret too much over couldabeens. There’s no way to know everything. Sometimes opportunities slip through your fingers, and sometimes you don’t even know there were opportunities without the benefit of hindsight.

I did find the question What’s the next magic $7 stock? interesting. If I knew the answer with certainty, I would be a very sought-after person, and would probably sitting on a huge portfolio already. But I don’t. And I’m not.

It is fun, however, to play with make-believe money for the sake of an exercise. So, think of this as Stock Market Club just like we did in junior high.

I’ve spent the last 3+ years working with student loan companies in one capacity or another. I have no inside information and am not an investment or finance person. All I’m working off of is limited knowledge, a little work experience, a little common sense and the freedom of imaginary money.

Today is Day 1 of Stock Market Fun.  We’ll pretend I bought 1,000 shares of First Marblehead (FMD)—a company I’ve heard of through working in the student loan industry, and have seen their marketing partners advertise heavily in mass media channels (the ubiquitous Astrive commercials come immediately to mind). I chose them because (in my insight or ignorance) I see how far stock for FMD and other companies like it have gone down. The subprime crisis has smacked down lenders, and while FMD is in the student loan industry, I surmise that they are feeling the effects. They’re lending to students (private loans—not goverment subsidized or sponsored), which is potentially less risky than lending for homes to people that can’t afford them. But I would imagine student lending has a whole other set of risks and problems. My hunch is that it’s at a low or near-low, and they will rebound over time.

Buy low, sell high, right?

The closing price today for First Marblehead was $13.51, so my imaginary holdings value is $13,510.00.

I’ll track this stock from time to time and see how my “purchase” is going. Come back to see!

Over the last several years amateur athletics has gotten a lot of attention, especially at the collegiate level. And the reason is exactly what you’d think: money. Like everything else, if it makes boat loads of money, everyone wants a piece of the action and everyone has an opinion on it, me included.

I was a collegiate swimmer in the late 1980s at a Big Ten school. I loved it. Swam all four years on a partial scholarship, lettered all of them. It was like a job – 5 hours a day every day. I travelled with the team, had to work in classes and studies around practice time and meets. It was hectic but a fantastic experience – one I’ll always be proud of and remember. However, collegiate swimming makes very little money and man is it expensive to operate. Sure we had a few people come and watch the meets, pay a ticket fee of a few dollars. When we travelled for training or meets, we’d have fund raisers to help defer the costs, beg from alumni etc. But in general, pools are big time money to operate and my University has two worthy of Olympic competition – they’ve hosted many Olympic qualifying meets. They also have several other pools, both indoor and out.  It’s really a status symbol to have so many and of such high quality. We also have excellent weight rooms and other state of the art facilities to maximize our techniques. All in all, we had it good. And my school is not alone.

I owe my whole collegiate athletic experience to football and basketball.

10s of thousands of people came to see our basketball and football teams. They went to bowls and the NCAA Tourney. I don’t know the money they gave our school for that, but I’m sure it’s gobs. And my sport wasn’t the only one. Pretty much any other sport uses football and basketball money. Gymnastics, baseball, soccer, volleyball, track…you name it. And not just scholarshiped sports either, club sports too. I was on the water polo team too, and it got some small amount as a club sport. Basically, without these two big time money making sports, universities could not support modern sporting. And that’s not fair is it?

I’m torn as the football players I knew did not care that much about such things. It just never came up and they liked their friends in other sports. Would even come and watch sometimes. But now? Now Universities are selling jerseys with the student athlete’s name on it. Marketing the individual. Reports are that Tim Tebow’s jersey alone netted Florida 6 million dollars just last year. He gets none of it. Now Tim is going to make a mint one day - so he’ll probably be ok. But without HIM, the University does not get that 6 million.

Here’s the other thing. Tim can’t even have a REAL job. Nope. Not allowed under NCAA rules. I had to keep my lifeguarding job over the summer a secret. Friends worked at BW3s and what not but if they had been found out, they’d have been reprimanded or kicked off the team. And I only had a partial scholarship. So where was that money going to come from without work? Now Tim likely has a full ride, so he’s not in the same boat, but is that fair compensation? It really doesn’t seem so. Seems to me the NCAA and Universities are having it both ways and it’s not right.

In the same breath, I’d hate for the small, non-revenue sports like mine to go away. I do think the smaller sports provide alot of value that makes the whole Univeristy experience better for all, including football and basketball players. Keep in mind, even in football and basketball, not everyone is Tim Tebow or JaMarcus Russell, so they benefit by getting a good education in a good environment like every other schlub.

I’m not sure what the answer is. Maybe a percentage of funds a player makes on jersey sales goes into a fund he can get after college? Or a stipend? I bet some enterprising young lawyer will file a creative lawsuit one day and let us all know…