If you bought or are now thinking of buying into Visa what are your feelings?

How to make sure you have funds ready

Phone Broker - If you still have one my old phone broker would take my order over the phone and gave me 3 days to get him the money. They may or may not do this for IPO.

Electronic Transfer- If I put an order in right now 9 times out of 10 my funds will be ready to trade before the market opens the next day and I use Ameritrade.

Selling holdings- This is a tricky one, if you cannot get the cash uploaded in time and have current holdings you could sell them and hope the settlement is quick enough to turn around with the cash to buy IPO.

Just a couple of ideas……

If it is really Wednesday then you have more time to act but if it is tomorrow and not a rumor and you really wanted to get a piece of it then you better act now to see if you can make it happen.

I have grown tired of hearing the word recession over and over every single day. Sadly enough here I am contributing to it but in the end I hope this article offsets me using it.

If you say something enough then it is bound to happen. If you want to succeed but you are constantly talking about failing then what do you think will happen? If you are managing a department and you constantly talk about how poor the state of the company is what do you think will be the outcome?

Everyday I hear it on the news, on the radio or read it on the web. The United States is heading for a recession as if we are heading for a great DEPRESSION.  We all know how much the media loves to write about the “bad stuff” and here it is no different.

Why not call it a slow down? What if people just decided to put more money in the bank rather then shopping and traveling like crazy? That would not be such a bad thing but revenue reports would be down and everyone would fear……… a recession.

It seems everyday the people of the United States get a constant dose of how bad things are. If you own a business you will think twice before hiring someone if we are in a recession. If you are thinking about spending money on something you may be concerned about your job so you hold back spending. If you are thinking about switching jobs or starting a business you will hold back because your worried about the recession. If we are in a recession then you may not invest into that stock like you wanted to so the market falls.

The constant talk about a recession slows America down.

As a business owner and capitalist I wake up in the morning with a positive outlook. If I want to continue to be successful and move forward with my life I cannot focus on the negative things. I must pull the trigger ever single say on the items that will continue to move me forward otherwise the negative views and outlook around my life will assist in my failure.

The fact is people still need to eat; they need to buy gas; they need cloths;they will have to travel to visit family;they will continue to get educated;they need medicine;they will need some products from the lumber yard to repair their home.

This country can only slow down so much, people still have to live.

Maybe the country is slowing down and that is cyclical but we do not have to throw up a white flag and say the recession is here, lets all call it a day.

If you plan to buy this IPO then bookmark this site and come back to tell the story. This has to be one of the largest talked about IPO’s I have seen outside the tech boom so I would like to see how each investor did.

As for me I am staying away from it. I know what Mastercard did but I believe these are really two different companies in the same business so I am standing on the side lines for now.

Make sure to come back and tell us about it!

Today we have news that Visa filed an amendment with the SEC to set the opening range between $37 and $42. A shocking price compared to what the investing world was thinking but right on target compared to what their rival MasterCard did.

At this opening price you have to question if there will be an all out frenzy driving up short term prices or does this low opening price set off some alarms about their confidence? If people begin to question this low price then maybe we won’t see this one go crazy right away but simply another replica of what MasterCard did over time.

Another fatal mistake investors may make is thinking that this will do exactly what MasterCard did. The reality is they are both payment processors and they both went public, other then that they are two entirely different companies so keep that in mind before you throw your life savings into it.

For the first time in 3 years you have the CEO at Amazon selling a significant portion of his holdings (although it still leaves him with roughly 25%). Is it time for a new yacht or maybe he likes to gamble? Personally funding a new startup? Well at this point no one knows, it could be all going into 5 star funds.

The total number of shares sold was 1.85 million at $73.21 to bring in a lofty total that rang in at over $135 million.

My honest opinion is that it was a reasonable number to sell some stock off at since it would very easily drop by 50% in the next 6 months so why not stash some coin away while you know the stock is at a reasonable price.

For a short answer yes and I would love a piece of it.

I recall talks a few years ago about this IPO happening then it never did. They are pushing above $200 million in sales and can still find some private financing from places like Starbucks.

Last year you could get a sandwich for $3.79 and now it is up to $4.19. Even at $4 or almost $5 I simply love the food. It is a good quality sandwich served up quickly. In reality they have my favorite Italian sandwich in this area.

With cheap good food and a modern hippie-ish  feel you will find this place packed with suits at lunchtime and just a tad bit before you will find the high school kids. Here is a good place that hits all the age groups.

But at some point with this growth they will need large capital. If you want to add 50-100 stores a year then seeking mini-rounds of financing is not going to get it done. Hell will someone offer to buy them out first? Maybe Starbucks will pick them up and then integrate their sandwiches into the coffee stores since Starbucks recently failed at trying that alone.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see an IPO late this year or in early 2009. I will watch this one closely since if they can keep the same feel of the business without “selling out” then this could be a great investment.

 They have named Strauss Zelnick as Executive Chair and they also inked a deal to keep Ben Feder around as CEO until 2012.

 Take 2 is listed as TTWO on the NASDAQ. The stock did rocket up for some time but it has fallen back some. I would not say it is doing poorly but for now it seems to be stable with some pretty good support around $15.

I like the games they produce so if they keep cranking out winners we may see then retest those highs. With Ben at the wheel I do not see them going back but only time will tell where he takes this company over the next 4 years.

For the small business owners and investors out there making a decent amount of money the goods news is that if your AGI is below $150,000 filed jointly then you will get your rebate. On the other hand I know many that read this make far more then that so they will see nothing yet those whom barely paid any tax will get a check. For all of the capitalist out there don’t let this get you down, chances are you have risen well above the worry of needing income redistribution so keep on charging forward to higher tax brackets.

I am not sure if this break helps me much in terms of a business break. I would have rather seen some kind of incentive to hire or some kind of break on the self employment taxes for those of us out there that grind it out everyday risking our own money to employ others.

Need a good shock to wake you up this Monday? Lets take a look at the large banks and what we can expect this week.

Citigroup may write off as much as $24 Billion and lay off 20,000

Merrill could post up another brutal $15 Billion in write off

That is the big news on just two, we all know there is more to come!

How about all of this as a sign of weakness? If your sitting around the world with major capital how great it must feel to have one of these powerhouse banks knocking on your door to raise some money?

It is just another week where many others outside the United States buy some control for nearly nothing.