Top New Empire Avenue Stocks – Oct 31, 2011

October 31, 2011

@PaulSteinbrueck Hot Stocks 1 Comment

Just a couple of new players from yesterday made my list with a few other recommendations to consider.

To make my list of the top new stocks, a stock must meet ALL of the following criteria:

  • ROI > 1.2 (ROI is dividend per share divided by stock price)
  • Dividend of at least 0.25e/share
  • The player has bought shares in other stocks
  • The player has connected at least 1 social network to EAv

Here’s my list of the top new EAv stocks from the last 24 hours.

Here are some new players that don’t quite meet the criteria above, but are close enough that I recommend giving them a try:
Have a great day investing!
– Paul (e)PDSTEIN

Top New Empire Avenue Stocks – Oct 30, 2011

October 30, 2011

@PaulSteinbrueck Hot Stocks 1 Comment

Not a good day for newbies yesterday. None made my main list, but there were a handful that were close which you may want to consider investing in.

To make my list of the top new stocks, a stock must meet ALL of the following criteria:

  • ROI > 1.2 (ROI is dividend per share divided by stock price)
  • Dividend of at least 0.25e/share
  • The player has bought shares in other stocks
  • The player has connected at least 1 social network to EAv

Here’s my list of the top new EAv stocks from the last 24 hours.

  • none
Here are some new players that don’t quite meet the criteria above, but are close enough that I recommend giving them a try:
Have a great day investing!
– Paul (e)PDSTEIN

Top New Empire Avenue Stocks – Oct 29, 2011

October 29, 2011

@PaulSteinbrueck Hot Stocks 1 Comment

Five newbies who came on board in the last 24 hours made my primary recommendation list, including one with an ROI < 3%! Several other promising new players too. Here’s the list.

To make my list of the top new stocks, a stock must meet ALL of the following criteria:

  • ROI > 1.2 (ROI is dividend per share divided by stock price)
  • Dividend of at least 0.25e/share
  • The player has bought shares in other stocks
  • The player has connected at least 1 social network to EAv

Here’s my list of the top new EAv stocks from the last 24 hours.

Here are some new players that don’t quite meet the criteria above, but are close enough that I recommend giving them a try:
Have a great day investing!
– Paul (e)PDSTEIN

Top New Empire Avenue Stocks – Oct 28, 2011

October 28, 2011

@PaulSteinbrueck Hot Stocks Leave a comment

Another fairly good group of newbies came on board EAv yesterday.

To make my list of the top new stocks, a stock must meet ALL of the following criteria:

  • ROI > 1.2 (ROI is dividend per share divided by stock price)
  • Dividend of at least 0.25e/share
  • The player has bought shares in other stocks
  • The player has connected at least 1 social network to EAv

Here’s my list of the top new EAv stocks from the last 24 hours.

Here are some new players that don’t quite meet the criteria above, but are close enough that I recommend giving them a try:
Have a great day investing!
– Paul (e)PDSTEIN

Top New Empire Avenue Stocks – Oct 27, 2011

October 27, 2011

@PaulSteinbrueck Hot Stocks 1 Comment

We’ve got a pretty good crop of new EAv players who came on board yesterday and have good dividends and a good ROI.

To make my list of the top new stocks, a stock must meet ALL of the following criteria:

  • ROI > 1.2 (ROI is dividend per share divided by stock price)
  • Dividend of at least 0.25e/share
  • The player has bought shares in other stocks
  • The player has connected at least 1 social network to EAv

Here’s my list of the top new EAv stocks from the last 24 hours.

Here are some new players that don’t quite meet the criteria above, but are close enough that I recommend giving them a try:

Have a great day investing!

– Paul (e)PDSTEIN

Top New Empire Avenue Stocks – Oct 26, 2011

October 26, 2011

@PaulSteinbrueck Hot Stocks Leave a comment

We’ve got 3 new players that joined yesterday that have excellent dividends and ROI plus a few other promising players to invest in.

To make my list of the top new stocks, a stock must meet ALL of the following criteria:

  • ROI > 1.2 (ROI is dividend per share divided by stock price)
  • Dividend of at least 0.25e/share
  • The player has bought shares in other stocks
  • The player has connected at least 1 social network to EAv

Here’s my list of the top new EAv stocks from the last 24 hours.

Here are some new players that don’t quite meet the criteria above, but are close enough that I recommend giving them a try:
Have a great day investing!
– Paul (e)PDSTEIN

Is reciprocal buying a good strategy?

October 25, 2011

@PaulSteinbrueck strategy 29 Comments

A couple weeks ago I made this observation:

There are 2 kinds of players on Empire Avenue.  Those with a good ROI whose strategy is to invest in others with good ROIs, and those with poor ROIs whose strategy is to buy shares in others who will buy back regardless of ROI.

(Chris Voss pointed out a 3rd type of player – those like himself with so much wealth that they invest in anyone with a pulse, but since that’s a very small % of players I’m not going to go there in this post.)

The Pros of Buying High ROI

I have been firmly in the first group – the good ROI group – since I started EAv and have dismissed reciprocal buying strategies.  The reasons are fairly obvious.  Investing only in players with good ROIs earns you the highest dividends.  And if you have a good ROI, you don’t need reciprocal buying agreements to get people to buy your shares and increase your share price.

The Pros of a Reciprocal Buying Strategy 

However, I am beginning to have second thoughts about the high ROI strategy and am starting to give some serious thought to a reciprocal buying strategy.  Here’s my reasoning:

  1. There’s a limit to how far a high ROI strategy can take you.  It’s impossible to continue to increase your dividends by a half to a full percent each day because its impossible to increase your social media engagement that much that fast.  Inevitably we will all reach a point where we no longer have a high ROI and others with a high ROI strategy will begin to sell.
  2. It reduces the pressure to constantly increase dividends.  With the high ROI strategy, there’s pressure to continue to increase your dividends to keep up with your share price.  That often leads to posting low-quality stuff to blogs and social media to increase divs rather than to engage your audience and provide them with quality content. I imagine that pressure decreases to some extent when you know people will buy your shares out of obligation to reciprocate.
  3. It reduces the pressure to be on EAv every day.  Take a few days off from social media and EAv and your divs will drop.  If you and your investors have a high ROI strategy, that drop in divs will probably produce a drop in share price which could spiral out of control.  But if you and your investors have a reciprocal buying strategy, you don’t have that problem
  4. It reduces the tension between the game and friendships.  With the high ROI strategy, there’s a constant tension when the ROIs of the people you’ve gotten to know in the game slip.  Do you sell because it’s best for your portfolio?  Do you hold because of the friendship?  Will they get upset with you if you sell?  That tension goes away with a reciprocal buying strategy.
  5. It saves time.  With a high ROI strategy, it takes a lot of time to monitor everyone’s ROIs.  It also takes time to make decision as to when to sell and when to hold.  It’s much faster and simpler to make buying decisions based on who has bought your shares.

Obviously the downside to a reciprocal buying strategy is you earn lower dividends, but it may be well worth it.

Reciprocal Buying Communities

I’ve heard there are communities on Empire Avenue which are reciprocal buying groups.  Everyone in the group agrees to buy each others shares.  I’m not familiar with any of these groups yet, so if you’re a part of one of these groups (or used to be), I’d appreciate it if you could comment and explain how your group works.

What do you think?

  • Do you have a reciprocal buying strategy?
  • If you do, do you have certain rules, guidelines or caveats as to who you will reciprocate with?
  • Are you a part of a reciprocal buying community?

Facebook Five Experiment Results

October 25, 2011

@PaulSteinbrueck strategy 15 Comments

A week ago, myself and 5 other EAv’ers participated in the Facebook Five Experiment.  Here are the details, data, observations, and conclusions.

Hypothesis: The most recent changes to Facebook give more prominence to those Facebook posts that have more likes and comments.  The hypothesis is, if a group of people was intentional about giving each others FB updates more likes and comments, those updates would be seen by more of their friends and fans and get even more likes and comments.

Experiment: I and 5 other participants agreed to check each other’s Facebook page and profile each day for 1 week and make an effort to like or comment on 5 updates each day.  The result would be 5 participants x 5 actions per day x 7 days = 175 additional Facebook actions on each of our pages and profiles for the week.

Challenges: The experiment was fraught with challenges that made the impact of the experiment difficult to measure:

  • One participant did not begin participating until the 3rd day.
  • One participant posted to their FB page in a non-English language.
  • One participant did not post to their FB page or profile for several days.
  • One participant had 750 likes/comments on their FB profile the week before the experiment, making the impact of 175 likes/comments from the experiment difficult to observe.
  •  I noticed inconsistencies between the number of posts, likes and comments EAv reported on my main profile page and what my “advisors” Sage and Monte reported.
  • We started the experiment only 1-2 weeks after EAv made a major change to their algorithm for calculating dividends.

Raw Data: For each participant I recorded the share price and dividend plus the number of posts, likes, comments, and score for their FB page and profile.   Here’s the raw data.

Anne Thomas (e)ANNET

  • Before: share price 141.07e, divs 1.27e/share
  • After – share price 146.54e, divs 1.43e/share
  • FB Profile – 161 FB Posts, 36 Comments, 154 Likes this week (EAv score: 50)
  • After – 80 Facebook Posts, 58 Comments, 148 Likes this week (EAv score: 53)
  • FB Page – 104 FB Page Posts, 64 Likes this week (EAv score: 13)
  • After – 86 Facebook Page Posts, 40 Comments, 117 Likes this week (EAv score: 13)

Robin Good (e)ROBINGOOD

  • Before: share price 126.13e, divs 0.96e/share
  • After – share price 124.64e, divs 1.12e/share
  • FB Profile – 9 FB Posts, 39 Comments, 30 Likes this week (EAv score: 59)
  • After – 20 Facebook Posts, 63 Comments, 106 Likes this week  (EAv score: 60)
  • FB Page – 24 FB Page Posts, 53 Comments, 37 Likes this week (EAv score: 30)
  • After – 28 Facebook Page Posts, 205 Comments, 83 Likes this week  (EAv score: 30)

Carece H Slaughter (e)CHSLLC

  • Before: Share price 148.54e, divs 1.92e/share
  • After – share price 161.44e, divs 1.81e/share
  • FB Profile – 43 FB Posts, 12 Comments, 120 Likes this week (EAv score: 68)
  • After – 48 Facebook Posts, 55 Comments, 196 Likes this week (EAv score: 69)
  • FB Page – 7 FB Page Posts, 1 Comments, 36 Likes this week (EAv score: 17)
  • After – 22 Facebook Page Posts, 31 Comments, 281 Likes this week (EAv score: 17)

Warren Whitlock (e)WARREN

  • Before: share price 130.26, divs 1.55e/share
  • After – share price 133.78e, divs 1.34e/share)
  • FB Profile – 12 FB Posts, 46 Comments, 22 Likes this week (EAv score: 61)
  • After – 11 Facebook Posts, 70 Comments, 68 Likes this week (EAv score: 60)
  • FB Page – 2 FB Page Posts this week (EAv score: 8 )
  • After – not displayed

Peter Santilli (e)PEOPLEHUBUSA

  • Before: Share price 142.93e, divs 1.47e/share
  • After – share price 147.61, divs 1.23e/share
  • FB Profile – 275 FB Posts, 271 Comments, 498 Likes this week (EAv score: 83)
  • After – 211 Facebook Posts, 141 Comments, 413 Likes this week  (EAv score: 85)
  • FB Page – 11 FB Page Posts this week (EAv score: 3)
  • After – 16 Facebook Page Posts, 1 Comments, 12 Likes this week (EAv score: 4)

Paul Steinbrueck (e)PDSTEIN

  • Before: share price 112.93e, divs 1.20e/share
  • After – share price 119.03e, divs 1.12e/share
  • FB Profile – 29 FB Posts, 24 Comments, 35 Likes this week (EAv Score: 41)
  • After – 31 Facebook Posts, 51 Comments, 111 Likes this week (EAv Score: 42)
  • FB Page – 23 FB Page Posts, 6 Comments, 25 Likes this week (EAv score: 7)
  • Now – 28 Facebook Page Posts, 31 Comments, 86 Likes this week (EAv score: 8)

Analysis

  • Warren’s participation in the experiment was minimal, so I excluded his page & profile from the analysis.
  • Of the other 10 pages/profiles, 7 had a significant increase in likes/comments compared with the previous week.  I decided to focus specifically on those 7.

The main thing I wanted to measure was the number of likes/comments/shares by non-participants on each page/profile  to see if the experiment increased visibility and engagement among non-participants.  However, measuring this would have meant checking every like/comment/share to see if it was made by a participant or non-participant and tallying them all and I just did not have time to do this.  Additionally, if I had measured this and found increased engagement by non-participants, it would have been impossible to tell this was due to the participants likes/comments/shares or the increased number of updates we were making.

Beyond the impact on the engagement in Facebook, I also wanted to try to measure the impact the experiment had on Empire Avenue.  Here are a few things I found interesting…

  • 3 FB profiles experienced a significant increase in likes/comments.  All three also experienced an increase in network score of one.
  • Of the 4 FB pages that experienced a significant increase in likes/comments, only 1 experienced an increase in network score of one.  The other 3 were unchanged.
  • For what it’s worth, the dividends of 2 participants increased during the experiment while 3 decreased.

Latent Results

After the experiment ended last Wednesday, I compared the number of posts, likes & comments shown on my profile to the numbers reported by my Facebook “advisors” and noticed the advisors were reporting numbers that were about half of what was on my profile. Then after the experiment was over and the number of posts, likes and comments each day went down, the numbers reported by my advisors continued to rise. The advisors’ data seems to lag by a few days.

So, I went back yesterday and checked each participant’s Facebook page and profile network scores. On average those 7 pages/profiles that experienced a significant increase in likes and comments during the experiment had their network scores increase by another point after the experiment was over. Whether that is because of experiment or not is hard to say.

Additional Observations

A few other things worth noting:

  • Going into the experiment, I estimated it would take about 20 minutes a day to participate, but because many of the items posted by participants to the FB pages/profiles were videos & articles it actually took me around an hour a day.
  • Some of the comments made by participants seemed forced. One of the participants told me friends & family asked him what was up with all the odd comments.
  • I found it difficult to like/comment on content because I just didn’t share the same interests as some of the participants.
  • On positive note, I came across some excellent content posted by the other participants which I wouldn’t have otherwise seen if it hadn’t been for the experiment.
  • I also enjoyed getting to know Anne, Robin, Carece, Warren, and Peter a little better through the experiment.

Conclusions

  • Did the experiment increase engagement on our Facebook profiles/pages?  Inconclusive.  It may have but there were so many inconsistencies in participation it’s impossible to say for sure.
  • Did the experiment increase our Facebook network scores?  Probably.  The 7 pages/profiles that experienced a significant increase in likes/comments also experienced a combined 12 point increase in network scores during the week of and week after the experiment.
  • Did the experiment increase dividends?  Nope.  There’s no way the experiment would have caused the decrease in dividends some experienced during the experiment period though, so there were obviously other factors involved in the changes in dividends participants experienced.
  • Would I do it again or make this an ongoing part of my social media strategy?  No, not in this way.  However, I do think something like this with 5 people who share more similar interests could work and be worth the time.  If I were to do another experiment like this, I would also do it for 2 weeks in an effort to overcome what seemed to be delays in the data by EAv.

Thank you Anne, Robin, Carece, Warren and Peter!  I appreciate your help with this experiment.

Comments?  Questions?

Top New Empire Avenue Stocks – Oct 25, 2011

October 25, 2011

@PaulSteinbrueck Hot Stocks 4 Comments

Not a single person who started playing EAv in the last 24 hours made my usual criteria – promising players are having their share prices bid way up before the end of the first day – but there are are some new players that are close and worth investing in.

To make my list of the top new stocks, a stock must meet ALL of the following criteria:

  • ROI > 1.2 (ROI is dividend per share divided by stock price)
  • Dividend of at least 0.25e/share
  • The player has bought shares in other stocks
  • The player has connected at least 1 social network to EAv

Here’s my list of the top new EAv stocks from the last 24 hours.

  • none
Here are some new players that don’t quite meet the criteria above, but are close enough that I recommend giving them a try:
Have a great day investing!
– Paul (e)PDSTEIN

Top New Empire Avenue Stocks – Oct 24, 2011

October 24, 2011

@PaulSteinbrueck Hot Stocks 2 Comments

Only a couple of new players from yesterday who make exceptional investments, but a bunch who are decent investments. Here’s today’s list.

To make my list of the top new stocks, a stock must meet ALL of the following criteria:

  • ROI > 1.2 (ROI is dividend per share divided by stock price)
  • Dividend of at least 0.25e/share
  • The player has bought shares in other stocks
  • The player has connected at least 1 social network to EAv

Here’s my list of the top new EAv stocks from the last 24 hours.

Here are some new players that don’t quite meet the criteria above, but are close enough that I recommend giving them a try:
Have a great day investing!
– Paul (e)PDSTEIN

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