ThomasGoodwin.com

It’s Saturday, and I’m being lazy. I want to post on my blog but I want to take a break from the various financial topics you see in the column to the right… the topics listed under the label Categories. So… Let’s explore the various people and websites on my Blogroll and learn who they are and how they got to be so lucky as to have a spot on my list of links. If you hover your mouse over the links in the Blogroll in the right column, a brief description will come up. You can click on any link regardless whether the brief description pops up or not.

You may have noticed the list is in alphabetical order; this is quite simply the best way to organize the Blogroll. As I reference these various websites, it will make them easier to find in my list of links… and it means I can hide any favoritism that I might have deep in my heart for any one of these websites.

Now when you view the list it’s like I love them all equally… just like your children and step-children, we all know it’s not true! Hey, you can tell it’s a Saturday, that last comment probably wasn’t even remotely PC for me to say. But it’s Saturday so I am straying from my normal, formal writing for a little more loose, personal writing. Let’s look at the list and please visit these pages, I wouldn’t list them if I didn’t think they were worth your time and I believe you will get some value out of them…

AaronForgue.com You don’t have to surf far on the Internet to find a web developer that has his head in the game. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you… Aaron Forgue. This guy knows his stuff. And he’s been doing it for a long time, dare I say since the near beginning of the Internet first became widespread. Ok, so maybe he wasn’t there when the Internet was just a cool Star Trek type gimmick in the development stages at a couple of universities (or maybe you should ask him… perhaps he WAS there for that!!!)… but regardless when he started, he has been developing websites and helping improve the way in which we surf for many years.

He created this website, and although I’m sure he has created far more sophisticated sites I like to think that this is as good as it gets! But I’m biased… a little… in this respect. Not only does Aaron know his web development and tools, he holds an MBA with a concentration in Entrepreneurship from Northern Kentucky University. He created the website Pin300.com, which we will discuss later in the Blogroll, and in the interest of full disclosure I should say that I am a proud partner in the Pin300 website.

AndrewTobias.com This gentleman needs no introduction in the world of personal finance. He’s had 3 New York Times Best Seller books, appeared on numerous tv shows and news programs, won too many awards to list and thanks to his hard work has helped pass auto insurance reform in California despite his failed initiatives on the ballot in March of 1996. Makes me wonder what his thoughts would be on my recent blog post regarding the diminished value of a vehicle after an auto accident.

Coldwell Banker - my real estate website. It’s just what it says it is. As many of you may know, or can learn by reading the About the Blogger page on my website, I am an Ohio Licensed Realtor. I have held my real estate license and been with Coldwell Banker since 2001. Assuming I remember to renew my license this year, I will be be licensed through 2009 in the state of Ohio, and I will continue to sell in the Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio area markets. Please visit my real estate sales website if you are interested in learning more about buying or selling real estate - residential, commercial & investment, or land - in the southwest Ohio area.

Nathan Sawaya. Website is NathanBrickArtist.com I had the opportunity to see this guy’s work first hand at an insurance conference in downtown Cincinnati in 2006. Nathan builds some interesting things using Lego brand building blocks. On his website you can see his various creations and the many places he has been along the way.

OneStrayPea.com The nice young lady that runs this website is a personal friend of mine. Her website contains a pretty active blog that isn’t afraid to tackle any issue, from the local traffic in Cincinnati to the recent celebrity gossip or news hitting Hollywood.

You will find One Stray Pea to be a pretty entertaining piece of evolving literary work. It’s like an online soap opera. Once you become familiar with the characters and the ever-changing storyline, she’ll have you hooked. She can be quite sarcastic but she tells it like it is… and you will love the humor in that! She comes across as a Republican but I think she might be harboring some Democratic tendencies, so don’t hold her staunch political views against her… rather, click the link, read her blog and tell her what you think.

If you love her work, give her some rave reviews and pass along her website to your friends. If you absolutely hate what she has to say, I’m sure she won’t care… but you should tell her what you think. She needs to hear it. She thrives on feedback and you might even get to be featured in her blog if you can put her in her place! Oh, and sorry all you single men out there… she’s spoken for. She remains anonymous in her blog so I won’t say anymore… just do yourself a favor and hop off the financial blog for a bit and get yourself a quick dose of reality… served up in a heaping bowl of stray peas.

PJHile.com Like Aaron Forgue, PJ is an excellent web developer. In fact, Aaron and PJ have teamed up on numerous projects. PJ is also involved in the Pin300 venture, which you can read more about in the next paragraph. These two also went to school together… both high school (Moeller) and college (Miami University). Please take a moment to visit PJ’s website, then come back for more fun in financial blogging… or perhaps jump over to Pin300.com

Pin300.com This website is the creation of Aaron Forgue, with some help from PJ Hile, and was originally conceived as a place for bowlers to post and track their individual scores online. The three of us are now working on developing this website even further, to hopefully attract entire bowling leagues and bowling alleys to use the website and make it a much bigger bowling community online.

Check out the Pin300 website now and keep track of your own scores online. It’s free, it’s easy to do, and you can send us feedback and suggestions to help improve the website. Watch it evolve and grow over time. Regardless what your skill level, or even if you’ve never bowled a frame in your life, you will find this website easy to use and easy on the eyes. Thanks to Aaron and PJ for all their hard work in getting the website up and running. I’m looking forward to seeing this thing expand and improve over time! You will probably see more blog posts in the Entrepreneurship category for this venture.

SeekingAlpha.com Are you seeking alpha? Do you know what alpha is? Well, here’s a nice little investing website that is essentially a community of people who all have some vested interest in the stock market world… the visitors, members, and contributors on this website range from the novice investor, college student, and stay at home spouse, to full time day traders, Wall Street Professionals, Hedge Fund and Portfolio Managers, Academia, and so on.

So what is with the name you ask? Alpha, in the investing world is an abnormal return on your investment (most would focus on the abnormally high return of course)! There is a return on your investment that you can expect given a company’s balance sheet, company history, and the industry in which they operate in, the alpha is the edge that every investor is looking for to make that extra money… that higher return.

SoloSignal.com Here is yet another project of Aaron Forgue’s. Mr. Forgue has created a website for business people who need help understanding how the web works and how to make it work for their business. Aaron is building a community space online for entrepreneurs to gather and strive to improve their websites to meet their business needs. In the process this will help make the Internet a better place to do business and to serve more customers’ needs and expectations.

If you’re interested in learning how a website works behind the scenes, how the Internet has evolved and is evolving still, you owe it to yourself to check out Solo Signal and subscribe to the feed… it’s free and it’s informative. If you’re an entrepreneur, you are welcome to contribute and to provide feedback to the site, you will make the site a success and help grow your business in the process. Give it time to get going, it’s at the ground level right now. Check up on it frequently though… I fully expect it to take off in the near future.

I plan to keep adding more links as time goes on, but I don’t want to diminish the value of the links that I already have… creating too many links gives the appearance that the existing ones are cheap or of little value because there are so many. This could not be further from the truth, I will only add links that I find interesting and have some good content and value. The value may be educational (i.e. financial in nature) or may be for some entertainment (hey, we can all use a detour or pit stop on the road sometimes!)

It seems there are little bits of economic news released about the economy every single week, and those announcements affect the stock market in varying degrees depending upon the importance of the data being released.

For instance, the unemployment rate is more likely to help or hurt stocks than say auto or truck sales in any given month. Since different economic indicators are released each month I thought it would be important to highlight some of these factors and how they might affect your investments.

Thus, we begin yet another new series of blog posts. I hope to post, at least on a somewhat frequent basis, a blog entitled “The Week Ahead” looking exclusively at the economic factors affecting the stock market. This blog will not be posted EVERY week as some weeks there are just not any significant pieces of economic data being released.

By the way, the monthly unemployment rate is announced by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, on the first Friday of every month at 8:30am EST. This is one hour before the major stock exchanges open and should be considered required viewing/listening/reading for all investors. If you truly care about your investments and like to actively manage them to maximize your returns you will make sure you know the trend over the past few months to a year and that you pay attention that Friday when this data is released.

Now I mentioned that new car and truck sales are not as important; this would of course change entirely if you were heavily invested in Ford, GM, Toyota or any company that is involved in the manufacturing of cars and trucks. But for those of us that believe in a diversified portfolio, this factor would not be AS IMPORTANT as the unemployment rate. Oh, and just to be fair to the automakers, this data is released by each automaker that is publicly traded and usually done so on a monthly basis. Normally within the first 3 days of the month.

Look forward to seeing what The Week Ahead has in store for us! Both literally and in the Blog sense! As always your comments are welcome…

My name is Thomas Goodwin. I am a graduate of Miami University of Ohio with a B.S. in Finance and I’m a Lifetime Member of the Alumni Association. I am currently working on my MBA at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.

I am an Ohio licensed real estate agent (Realtor) since 2001.

I am an Ohio Licensed Insurance Agent (Series 11-35 & 11-36) since 2002. The series 11-35 license is issued to agents involved in Life & Health insurance and Variable Annuity products. Series 11-36 Ohio Insurance license is for the property/casualty lines of business.

I have held my NASD Securities License (Series 6 & 63) since 2003. You will find that most registered representatives hold either the Series 6 or Series 7 securities license and then most of the people that hold either of those licenses also hold the series 63 license. The explanation of these licenses and the numerous others available to investment professionals are explained in great detail on the NASD website, please refer to the NASD.org website by clicking on this link for more information.

In the past I have served as the Secretary, Treasurer, then finally as the President of my homeowner association.

I have experience in writing business plans and filing articles of incorporation - I am one of the founding partners of a real estate investment company, AG Properties LLC and I am currently the sole owner and founder of another real estate venture called Northern Pine Properties Inc.

I’m sure you will hear more about my adventures in entrepreneurship, real estate, and investing as I write and post more!<

If this were a hard bound book that you picked up in the store the first thing you would probably do is flip open the inside cover to read more about me, the author. After all, what is it about me that makes me so qualified to write and maintain this blog and what is this blog suppose to be about anyway?!

This blog is intended to cover a wide variety of personal finance topics - from the stock market to real estate. You may ask, why have such a broad range of financial topics? To answer the question in short, I believe these various financial components are all intertwined in our everyday lives and one can affect the other. You can’t think about saving and investing without also considering insurance and protecting your assets. You can’t think of owning a home without considering homeowner’s insurance. Over the years, as I have gained more experience and education, I have labeled myself Your Source for ALL things financial. Please take a moment to read the About the Author blog post to learn more about my background and education.

Thanks for stopping by, please check back soon for more updates!

Welcome to ThomasGoodwin.com, my personal website and blog. Over the past couple of years my website has evolved from a simple HTML page to a fully interactive website featuring this blog and the ability for you to send me messages or post replies to my blog topics. I cannot take personal credit for this transformation. The technical details and set up of this website are solely the result of Aaron Forgue’s efforts. You can learn more about the webmaster by checking out his own website and blog on AaronForgue.com On the other hand, all of the content of this website is the result of yours truly, Thomas Goodwin.

I probably can’t do Aaron justice by trying to explain his technical capabilities. I can only speak to the extent that I have seen his work. This man is truly a genius when it comes to website design. I have known Aaron since 1999 and have watched his capabilities grow over time. He has developed websites since before I met him in 1999 and although I don’t know when he first started in this business I wouldn’t hesitate to say that it has been at least a decade of experience now. Aaron graduated from Miami University of Ohio in 2003, the “Harvard of the Midwest”, with a B.S. in Systems Analysis (or perhaps it’s more appropriately called Computer Systems? You would have to ask Aaron to clarify). He has recently completed his MBA at Northern Kentucky University close to his home in the greater Cincinnati, Ohio area. His MBA has a concentration in Entrepreneurship, and I can attest that Aaron has been involved in a number of small businesses, helping them launch and get their websites developed.

Please take a moment to visit his website AaronForgue.com and be sure to come back and read more on ThomasGoodwin.com as I hope to update on a weekly or bi-weekly basis depending on the developments that take place in the world of personal finance, namely real estate and Wall Street. Thanks for blogging! Please bookmark or sign up for notifications of updates so you won’t miss a beat! And as always, your feedback is greatly appreciated and encouraged!