If you watch the news at all you’ve heard about Bear Stearns falling apart and being sold to JP Morgan for only $236 million. The BSC stock was as high as $177 dollars last year and dropped almost 90% yesterday to just over $3. Many people made a lot of money buying puts and many people lost money thanks to Jim Cramer. Here is his great advice from late last week:

 

If you have a small business, do your own taxes! It’s not difficult and is a good learning experience. After all, you need to know what can be deducted, in order to make the best business decisions. Only bad thing about Small businesses, such as LLC’s, is that they have to pay 15% self-employment tax; that includes Medicare 2.9% and social security 12.4%. The SE Tax combined with Income Tax can really kill a businesses net income. But the good thing is, businesses can claim deductions and exemptions that’ll lower both SE and Income Tax. The major forms small businesses use, include Forms 4562, 8829, and 1040.

Form 4562, depreciation and amortization, is must do for all small businesses. Every business has something they can deduct on this form, whether it’s computer software or company furniture. Best of all, the deductions form this form will not only lower SE but Income tax too! On this form there is a section called election 179, which allows you to deduct the full expense for qualifying assets; you can check for qualifying assets on the 4562 publication. If your asset doesn’t qualify…

I do pay per click advertising with Google Adwords, which is bidding for keywords that your ad will show on Google Search. Well today I decided to do a new campaign. I set a budget of $50 dollars per day and target 5 different countries. I selected the accelerated delivery option, and let this campaign run. Yeah, when the stats updated I saw that I got 0 conversions and lost 57 dollars.

I talked to an Adword rep and he told me:

Michael C: The statistics within your account can be delayed up to 3 hours, this could account for the jump in statistics.
Michael C: The reason why you went over your daily budget is due to overdelivery.

Three keyword cost me 36 dollars: I bid for some very broad keywords. I didn’t expect it go to my budget that soon, though. Oh well.

Yeah, i suck.

So an AMEX consultant gave a presentation in my marketing class: She told us all about the different ways they promote their cards and the difference between a charge and credit card.

What are the different types of Amex cards?

Gold

Green

Platinum

Centurion “black card”, funny thing about this card is that it was made because people were asking about it. In the 1980’s people started rumors about AMEX actually having a black card. It wasn’t until 1999, that AMEX decided to make one. You can’t get this card unless you already have an AMEX platinum and spend 350,000+ a year on it. This card is by invitation only. The AMEX consultant told me that they don’t even market this card based on reason: It markets itself based on image and people having the self-conception that they must need it to become  a real baller.

 Whats the differences? The big difference in these cards is the annual fee. All the charge cards Green-Centurion have annual fee. The Centurion’s fee is 3500 per year and a 7500 initiation free. Also the spending…

I have a dilemma…I recently invested a considerable amount into Chipotle (CMG) and am second guessing myself already. Maybe I’m a little shortsighted in this situation, but I’ll go on.

So, my basis for investing in Chipotle was based on my investment in McDonald’s (MCD) earlier this month. I got in at around $50 and got out at $56 a little over a week later. McDonald’s was down from $63 in early December and was definitely oversold.

It was below it’s bottom Bollinger Band and its OBV, RSI, and stochastics all suggested it was significantly oversold. McDonald’s had dropped so much because they reported slightly lower than expected earning for Q4 of ‘07 and of course, the market overreacted. McDonald’s blamed it on the weather, then predictions came out saying McDonald’s expected higher earnings for Q1 and big growth overseas. By the way, stocks like McDonald’s and Wal-Mart are good stocks to hold this year during the recession, that’s right, I said it.

Now, Chipotle is in a similar situation. It’s down from $160 in early December to about $100. Chipotle also reported low earnings, but doesn’t have support overseas, and hits more upper-income demographics…