MasterCard was up more than $30 dollars yesterday after their quarterly profit more than doubled closing the day at $273.98 dollars per share. That is the second biggest increase I have seen since I have been actively investing. The biggest increase I have seen was that time when Google was up more than $80 dollars a couple of weeks ago.

Visa was up as well, more than $5 dollars finally closing $80.88 per share. Now we have to wait and see if the market will take some of those gains back today, hope it doesn’t but we are going to have to wait and see.

Another stock that I have been keeping my eye on is (BIDU), the Chinese search engine. It is too bad that the price, $373.81, is a bit too high for my budget but check it out anyway. I remember seeing this stock at about $250 dollars not too long ago.

Last was an ok week, I didn’t lose any money and that is always a good thing. My account was up $60.20 last week mainly because of my Visa shares. I even wrote a post about it, read it here. I wish it had been a lot more than that but right now I just don’t have that many shares so I have to work with what I have. Patience my little grasshopper, patience.

I had no new trades last week.

My investments look like this now,  8 Visa (V) shares, 10 Bear Stearns (BSC) shares, 10 Ford (F) shares, 10 Marvel (MVL) shares and 20 Countrywide (CFC) shares.

I start this week with a total account value of $1,216.21

The powerhouse behind my stock investments is Visa and yesterday it showed just how hard it is working for me. The stock was up more than $2 dollars during regular trading and another $2 dollars plus during after market trading. I paid $483 dollars for 8 shares back in March the 19th, by the way that price includes the $7 dollars I paid for the trade. The stock closed at $72.30 yesterday not including the after market gains for a total of $578.40, again not including after market gains. Now if I had only had a little more money I could’ve bought a few more shares but crying over the past does nothing to help the here and now so I am going to drop the subject and look forward to a Vrighter future.

I bank at Bank of America, have been with then since 1998 I think. Recently I received one offer in the mail to upgrade one of my existing credit cards to their Bank of America Accelerated Rewards American Express Card, that is a pretty long name huh, with no fee which is good if you compare that to the $125 annual fee for an American Express card. I have always wanted to get an American Express card but that $125 stopped me from getting it after all I want to make money not give away my money, when I am a millionaire I won’t mind paying the $125. To be fair to American Express I found an offer that waives the fee for the first year but is $125 thereafter.

With the Bank of America card I can redeem “Points for travel, unlimited cash rewards, and brand-name merchandise”, according to their brochure and that sounds good.I also get 1.25 points for every retail dollar I spend. I also get to “Use the MyConcierge service for VIP access to dining, hotel and sought after tickets” that you get with some American Express cards.

The only draw back about this card in my opinion is that you can accumulate points for only 5 years, at that point I am assuming (because I didn’t find info about it in the B of A website) that you must use whatever points you have and then start over again. If I am wrong about that please feel free to correct me. In the end there are more pros than cons for me so I think I am going to go ahead and upgrade and watch the points add up.

Another weekend came and went and that means that it’s time for the weekly Investing Report. My account was up $56.01 last week and that is the way I like it. Now, that is nothing compared to what some people that own even one Google share made last Friday when the stock was up more than $80 dollars. The day before that huge rally I was thinking of getting one Google share and was ready to sell some of my Ford and Bear Stearns shares to do that but in the end I didn’t do it.

I transferred $300 dollars into my account.

I had a new trade on Thursday buying 10 shares of Marvel (MVL), 10 shares at $28 each equals $280 dollars plus $7 dollars for the trade and a total of $283 dollars.

My investments look like this now,  8 Visa (V) shares, 10 Bear Stearns (BSC) shares, 10 Ford (F) shares, 10 Marvel (MVL) shares and 20 Countrywide (CFC) shares.

I start this week with a total account value of $1,156.01