The value of Gates’ investments fell by $3 billion, or almost 20 percent, in the fourth quarter as the worst financial crisis in decades and a deepening recession hammered stock prices.

The investments of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation fell 19 percent to $9.07 billion, while those of Cascade Investment LLC, Gates’ investment firm, fell 18 percent to $4.02 billion, according to regulatory filings on Tuesday.

The foundation increased its stake in McDonald’s Corp (NYSE:MCD), the world’s largest hamburger chain, to 6.4 million shares as of December 31 from 4.9 million shares as of September 30, according to the filings.

The foundation increased its stake in Coca Cola Co (NYSE:KO) to 5.7 million shares from 2.7 million shares, and in auto dealership group Autonation Inc (NYSE:AN) to 10.2 million shares from 7.7 million shares.

It shed stakes in troubled financial companies American International Group (NYSE:AIG) and Washington Mutual.

The foundation took a one-million-share stake in Coca Cola Enterprises Inc (NYSE:CCE), the largest Coca-Cola bottler, and cut its stake in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE:BRK-A; NYSE:BRK-B).

Cascade took a 7.95 million-share stake in Eastman Kodak Co (NYSE:EK) and a 3 million-share stake in shoe maker Crocs (NasdaqGS:CROX).

Well, the stops are at incredible loss positions so that I’m saved from dying in my account.

I’m curious if any of the stock trading bloggers make money with their blogging. Boogster is straight up about what he makes, but he also talks about poker which would add a decent amount of money to his blogging site income.

For Retard Empire, Retard Trader is a failure so far. Bringing in less than 9% of the monthly income this month (and averaging 6.15% over it’s top 3 months), this is a failed blog in my opinion.

I’m sure I’m not entertaining many people with my rant and writing. I can’t pull Jerome to help with other trading blog attacks, as his resources are used for more financially prudent endeavors.

What’s a blogger to do?

What $60 billion would buy these days.

$1.2 million office makeover.

Microsoft may shut down Seattle or at least cripple it’s businesses.

Harley Davidson might need to share it’s annoying exhaust making patent to make some extra money.

Samsung profits aren’t safe even in Seoul.

I would tell you how much I’m shorting, but then I would have to give a frickin’ screen shot of a trading screen in order to prove that I shorted, and because I’m a slave to trying to fulfill people’s requests, I would do it.

But instead, I’m not sharing my screen shot with you. So there!

I did short at the following though:
GOOG $292.45
IWM $43.40
BIDU $111.01 (I really tried for $111.11)

Well, here’s to success in those that trade and failure in those that don’t!

Toyota Motor Corp. sold more cars and trucks last year than General Motors Corp., stripping the Detroit automaker of the No. 1 global sales crown for the first time in 78 years.

Dunn, who began his career at Best Buy as a store associate in 1985, has been president and COO of the company since 2006.

San Antonio-based Clear Channel, which has operations in radio, television and outdoor advertising, gave pink slips to 1,850 workers at its corporate offices, outdoor advertising and radio divisions.

Investors agree that the world is in recession, but the number expecting an even weaker global economy over the coming year fell from 65% in October to 24%

Securities and Exchange Commission is conducting a review of Apple.

President Obama’s economic team faces an acute crisis in the nation’s banking system that they are not yet prepared to address.

New President. Same market.

More than 2 million Americans lost their jobs last year, the stock market fell by almost 45 percent from its peak, and comparisons with the Great Depression are becoming disturbingly commonplace.

Mr. Obama acknowledged the change his presidency represented, describing himself in his inaugural address as a “man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant.”

Google is no longer offering print ads.

The market action is still pretty decent, it’s much better to watch the market move around than it would be to watch grass grow or some market day when the DJI only moves 50 points in either direction. Getting into the trend usually helps day traders, but that’s not what I’m looking for, I don’t need the market trend. I need time.

Work is busier and since I’m not able to sluff off work and do things that I would like to (like trade) or need to (like get another source of revenue), I will be working more and posting less. I’m not sure if I’ll be trading less, just because there’s great potential for profit to be made.

My posts aren’t very insightful, but to be honest, this website is the smallest grossing website in a series of sites that are in the Retard Empire so dedicating much time to it doesn’t make a lot of sense from a financial aspect. I make good money (so far) when I trade, but posting here and your reading doesn’t really seem to make any financially good reason.

I use to post on here to entertain people. Then to race with Lindsey for fun and entertainment. Then to pick on a trader or two. Now… well, now I’m not sure what the site should be used for. So maybe that’s where I’m currently mentally, unsure what to do with this site.

If I trade, I will still post something about it. Maybe I’ll just encourage people to subscribe to the RSS so that they don’t have the hassle of checking the site for updates.

Good luck to all of you traders. I’m still reading and watching daily.

The market is still heading more downward from here, but I don’t know if BIDU will continue moving down. So instead of taking a protective stance and changing my stops, I’m just going go cash out.

I’m liking trading right now, as I’m sure most of you can tell.

I received an email from MBTrading yesterday telling me that my account, ending in “5512″ had a maintenance call. Since my account doesn’t end in “5512″, I wondered if I should be contacting MBTrading and tell them that someone else isn’t getting a message, or if maybe someone else is getting my messages.

RE: Regular Maintenance Call
call date: 11/11/2008
amount due: $9.27
due date: 11/12/2008

I’m taking the money and running for today.

BIDU = 3,000 shares x ($219.50 - $190.80 = -$28.70) = $86,100
$86,100 minus $60.00 (trading fees) = $86,040

I can tell you that I’ve had friends lose their jobs over the last 3-6 months and some of them aren’t looking for high end tech jobs, but would like to make about $15/hr doing something.

Nothing looks good from their perspective though.

One friend has a master’s degree in some business related field and he can’t find a job that pays more than $35k (which unfortunately doesn’t cover his mortgage payment).

Though I also have a friend that hasn’t worked since the 1990’s and still doesn’t want to. Maybe Obama will be helping out that friend with my tax money.

Short 3,000 BIDU @ $219.50