John D. Thomason

I am a retired (as of September 2001) IT manager. While I have always followed the markets, during my IT career my market research time was limited. Upon retiring, I have focused full-time on the markets and my own market education and growth. I have evolved my investment/trading strategy over the years to the point that I am comfortable with my approach, both from a suitability standpoint and from a results standpoint. In addition to reading and re-reading numerous investment classics, my education has been augmented by my experience, particularly the market declines of 2000-2002 and 2008-2010. I make money from dividends, occasional stock sales, and option sales, either covered calls or cash-covered puts. I only own dividend-paying stocks, and I usually am about 75% to 85% invested. I base my investment decisions primarily on fundamental analysis, but I do use technical analysis to some extent to determine entry and exit levels. 

I follow the markets daily, and I publish a Daily Blog at least once per day, usually before the open, at my website: OPTIMUMSTOCKINVESTING.com. All Daily Blogs since inception are available for review. The majority of the website is devoted to a detailed explanation of my approach to investing. I maintain three lists of recommended stocks, dubbed Tier1 (safest), Tier2 (safe, but not as safe as Tier1), and Tier3 (high yield, less safe). I provide buy-under prices and full-value prices for each stock. I also provide links to all of my articles published elsewhere, and information regarding how I can be contacted on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, or by email.