February 4, 2009 – stlplace

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Last Updated on February 5, 2009 by stlplace

(Update Feb 5) It appears BoA CEO Ken Lewis bought additional 200,000 BAC shares yesterday (source: bloomberg).

(Original Feb 4) Today Bank of America stock (NYSE: BAC) fell below $5 the first time since 1990s. The company was in trouble earlier this month as the loss from Merrill Lynch turned out to be much bigger then originally thought. There are lots of talk about the potential nationalization, as the rumor also hit another big troubled bank, Citi group (NYSE: C). Some retail investors got excited about the “appears cheap” price, and they bought into the stock and hoped for a big profit in near future.

Don’t !!! Although the insiders of BoA, including its CEO Ken Lewis, bought a bunch of stocks on Jan 20 when the stock dropped under $6 briefly (and around the same time, JP Morgan CEO Jemy Dimon bought JPM stocks), the insider buy looked more like the “confidence showing stock buyback” nowadays. Note in the good old days, companies bought back stocks because they felt the stocks are really cheap. Nowadays many companies bought back stocks to prop up stock price, or to offset the excessive stock awards to its employees. This “Ken Lewis” smelled more like a show to me, just like the Obama’s blaming Wall Street excessive bonus (before he hand out another round of carrots to banks soon).

Join Club Fitness

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Last Updated on February 4, 2009 by stlplace

What is the best investment one can make in 2009? Invest in yourself: health, family, financial knowledge, job skills, business skills,…among all I think health is the most important because without it everything else will get hit or become less meaningful.

club fitness pic

Amid growing belly I decided to do something about it this year. I used to have access to treadmill when I was living in apartment and working for my previous employer. Now I work from home, I need to find a fitness center. Not that I can not walk/jog outside, but you know the winter and summer in St. Louis are not that friendly. I asked the people at Fitness Edge (who does personal training), and they told me about Club Fitness. So I went there right away last Friday afternoon. They have 2 monthly plans: $14.95 and $19.95. I picked the latter plan because it gives more access in terms of time and locations, and it’s still under the reimbursement limit of my current employer fitness benefit. I have been to the facility a few times, and the only complaint I have now is it’s getting crowded in the evening (5 PM).

Interestingly, I thought about a pedometer would also do the job, and now pedometer app for iPhone are available on the iPhone App store (iTune store), such as this one.