I saw a great couple of articles in Yahoo! Finance that I thought was worth sharing.

How to Invest Successfully
- How to Invest in Stocks
- How to Invest in ETFs
- How to Invest in Mutual Funds
- How to Invest in Bonds
- How to Invest in Commodities

My inbox if overloaded with submissions. Remember folks, this is the carnival of business. I won’t accept your submission if it’s not even close to the topic of business. I’ve recieved some extremely strange posts but I’m guessing those people were just submitting to every carnival they could find in hopes one would accept their post.

After 9 PM PST, no more posts will be accepted for this upcoming edition.

Submit your posts here.

Another reminder that I’ll be hosting the Carnival of Business on the 25th of this month. So get your submissions in here!

I love these hot deals. Last time with the Jets MBNA Card offer I got a free iPod Nano with the Jets logo engraved on it.

This time I found another great deal from MBNA for you baseball fans. It’s a little harder to get a nano this time however, I guess they learned their lesson.

Here is the fine print found of this page.

To qualify for the first reward (an official MLB™ licensed jersey), respond to this offer and use your new account within 90 days of the date the account is opened by FIA Card Services, N.A., to make any combination of purchase or cash advance transactions (includes balance transfers) totaling at least $75 (excludes transaction fees). Limit one (1) jersey per new account.

In addition, to qualify for the second reward, a 1GB Apple^® iPod nano, respond to this offer and use your new account within 90 days of the date the account is opened by FIA Card Services, N.A., to make any combination of purchase or cash advance transactions (includes balance transfers) totaling at least $2,000. Limit one (1) 1GB Apple iPod nano per new account.

Make $75 in purchases to get your free jersey. Note that you can use the drop down menu to select which team jersey you want. The iPod offered is a regular non-engraved one.

I’m just doing the $75 in purchases to get the free jersey. There’s always someone that instant messages me with “I can buy a jersey for a lot cheaper”. Why would you do that? This jersey is basically free. You’re not wasting $75 to get this jersey. Charge stuff you normally already buy to get up to $75. A couple of gas tank fillups and you’re set for the jersey.

The iPod requires $2000 in purchases or balance transfers. If you’re planning on making any big purchases and want an iPod nano, go for it. I don’t recommend doing a balance transfer as the fee is a one time 3%, which is $60. Depending on the length of a promo 0% apr period. You might just break even if you stick the BT in a high yield savings account. I don’t think it’s worth all the hassle for a cheap iPod. Miss a payment by accident or somehow get universally defaulted and you’ll pay big time.

I recommend you take a screenshot of the page incase you ever need to prove the promotion ever existed if they deny you your gift. Although the Jets iPod didn’t require any hassle on my part and just arrived at my house one day, you never know.

I was not instantly approved and many others I spoke too were not either. I think if you check off yes to the question “I am a current Bank of America customer” then they probably want to review your account manually to decide what kind of credit limit to give you. I wasn’t approved instantly for the MBNA Jets Card but that came within a week or two after filling out the online app. I checked my fico score and it’s pretty good (720) so don’t worry if you’re not instantly approved.

The offer can be found here.

Most reinsurance companies have been gaining value in the past couple of months. One of the reinsurance companies I have a position in is MRH. We’ve passed the middle of hurricane season and MRH along with other reinsurance companies look like they’re finally ready to take off. I’m currently up about 17% on this one since June 13th.

Note: MRH also declared a dividend of 7.5 cents per share payable on October 16th to shareholders of record September 30th. Hey it’s not much but the reason I bought MRH was for the capital gain, the dividend is just a little bonus.

Traditionally MRH trades for about 1.4 times book value. As book value declined after hurricane Katrina insurance payouts, so did the stock price. Book value is $11.64 right now so that would place the price at $16.30. However the current market price is $19.70, which is 1.7 times the last stated book value. So I’m guessing the general sentiment out there is anticipation of an increase in book value.

MRH raised their premiums to cover for any potential disaster on Katrina’s scale. If a disaster of that equal scale hits, the risk is already written into their policies, they break even. If anything of lesser damage hits, they make a profit. If nothing or minimal hurricane damage occurs, they make a killer profit. Profits = Increase in book value.

I poured a good percentage of my portfolio into this one because the upside is just so great compared to the minimal downside. Although this one can be a short term play, it is also a great long term play. The Katrina scare will increase premiums for awhile and MRH will be building book value for more years. The price will follow.

I added small amounts to my long term dividend porfolio the following companies. These were very small positions and I’ll probably dollar cost average into them. It usually helps to open up a small position for me to keep me interested and do more research on the stock.

CTC at $7.12
ETM at $25.03
HRP at $11.89
TTM at $18.11
NZT at $23.28

Possible candidates for next round of purchases:
WWY, HD, WMT, BPOP, ITU, HNP, ACH

I’ll be hosting the Carnival of Business on the 25th. Get your submissions in here!

I can’t seem to update my blog via ftp during some hours. This mostly occurs during the day. You’ll see this post being posted at this time because it’s backdated.

I don’t know how people are so stupid. The three card monte con is extremely old, yet when I saw the con being setup on West 28th and 5th Ave today in Manhattan and there were tons of people just being conned out of their money.

How stuff works has a an article describing how the con works here if you aren’t familiar with it.
Sadly the con is done mostly in big cities only and it is usually tourist who are conned out of their money.