The gang buys the Mordor ETF!

Members present: Brian, Bickford, Danak

One of our members recently got hired for a new position, and he was able to have a conversation with his new employer about his internet footprint. Interestingly, his new employer is friends with one of his former colleagues on Facebook, and so she was able to take a look at multiple layers of his presence online. The good news is that he apparently had been a responsible and not-too troubling netizen. However, the real story, if any, in this is that even the precautions of locking things up tight may expose some cracks, say from unintended and unknown relationships. It seems best to use the Babysitter's club axiom of not writing anything down that you wouldn't want copies posted around school of.

Apparently, in late June we earned a 2% dividend on EWZ, so that means we have 2% more of disappointment.

SPY and T are on their way up. EWZ is floating.

It is decision time, and here's our shortlist: ENZL, NORW, and HILO

Comparing ENZL and NORW with respect to percentage changes (see below) shows that ENZL seems a little less volatile. The comparison to HILO (not pictured) shows ENZL to be the least volatile.


So we decided to go with ENZL, partially because it seems like a good buy and partially because we just needed to make some sort of decision. It doesn't feel like a hasty one, but we have had a tendency to sit on money and just let it pile up.

But wait!

As we were about to buy ENZL, we noticed that there was a difference in price between the bid and asking prices. These are the prices that you get and will pay, respectively. The discrepancy between these two is called the spread. A large spread can be the result of a low trading volume for the product or for a product that is not actively being traded.

*More information here.

So the question became, is this worth it? In other words, are we going to be able to make up the spread in the long run? We thought we would, so we went with it. Another fun thing with trading during nights and weekends is that the market is closed, so technically when we click buy, nothing has officially been bought until it goes through when the market is open. There are several buying options, including market and limit.

Market: you agree to purchase the stock/fund at whatever the market price is
Limit: you set the limit for what you will buy or sell at

You can also set the window in which the trade can take place.

This opens up some interesting options for automating your transactions to a certain extent. You can go as deep as you want to with these, however make sure that you don't set up something disastrous or you could end up defaulting or getting your trades restricted. Trade safe, America!

So I guess that means we have a piece of New Zealand, but the real question is, why isn't the symbol LOTR?

Profit!