A little more history.

I just wanted to give my faithful readers a little more information about Duck Brothers and what we are doing here. My brother and I are starting an investment blog, I think that much is clear. Why we are starting the blog is the question I'm going to answer here. My name is Chuck Fletcher and I'm trading stock with my retirement savings. I don't believe that social security will still be around when I plan to retire so I'm preparing for my future by taking an active role in my retirement savings. My brother, Tim Meyer, is doing the same. I'll let Tim introduce himself soon.

We here at Duck Brothers believe in full disclosure, so I have no problems telling you how much I have invested and in what. As you can see I have already posted an image of my 4th quarter investments and what they have done for me so far. I plan on telling our readers all the moves I make in my portfolio and why I made them. This way you can see what I'm investing in, why I choose to make a trade and how that trade went. The biggest advantage to this is that you can see what I'm invested in and therefore you know I'm not just trying to hype a stock. I'm putting my own money forward to back up the articles I'm writting here. More importantly, I'm entrusting my retirement to this process. I'm sure I will make mistakes, but I think there will be some sucesses as well.

My investments are made entirely in a traditional IRA at Charles Schwab. The advantage of investing in stocks with an IRA is that I don't pay capital gains tax when I buy and sell. I'll pay all of my taxes when I withdraw the money in 2045. The funds I have invested here are from a previous 401K that I funded from 2004-2006. The 401K was doing great for me until the market crash in 2008 and I lost almost half the value of my retirement investments. That's when I decided to take matters into my own hands and seize control of my retirement and I began trading in stocks rather than mutual funds. I also am beginning to trade with stop loss orders to prevent EVER loosing 50% of my investments again.