Stock Tip

(not a joke)

Whenever a company that you own stock in is about to report quarterly profits, do this:

- Sell all of it a few hours before they report. If they report after hours, sell as close to the bell as you can manage.

- After they report, the stock will dive, regardless of whether it's good news or bad news. I don't know why, but trust me, it will dive.

- So buy it back five trading hours later. If they reported after hours, buy it back the next day at around 2:30pm ET.

The final step: PROFIT! My guess is that you'll pick up a quick 2-3% profit. Not a lot, but over time, it's huge.

ps - You're welcome.

UPDATE 5/7/09: I've gotten three emails about this post (I had no idea that three people even read this blog) and it's clear that my comment caused some confusion. Hopefully this will clear it up.

1) This is not a sure thing. Weird stuff happens all the time in the market. But yeah, it's kind of a sure thing. *wink* Pick any stock you have, go back to the day that they announced their profits, and see for yourself.

2) No, this does NOT work with mutual funds or exchange traded funds.

3) You can't do this with your 401k :(.

4) You CAN and SHOULD do this with your IRA.

5) If you do it with regular taxable monies, remember that it's considered a 'wash' sale by the IRS, and you can't claim any loss you might have incurred if you happen to be selling the stock for less than you originally purchased it for. Don't worry - you still get to claim the loss. But not until you sell the stock for good.

6) Apologies for injecting a serious note into my goofy blog. To lighten things up, here's a cheeseburger!