How HubPages Made Me $12000 in Less Than a Year!

Wow!  Making $12,000 with HubPages in just over 11 months is an incredible feat.  I would like to say that it is because I am such a great writer or because people come to my Hubs and buy lots of stuff from my Amazon capsule.  I would like to say that my traffic here at HubPages is phenomenal and that my AdSense earnings are out of sight. 

But alas, I can't.  My writing is pretty plain, and I am sure that most would find the topics that I choose pretty boring.  As far as traffic goes, it is my goal to get one visitor per Hub per day on average.  With just over 160 Hubs, that means 160 visitors is a good day for me.  I haven't even made the $10 payout for Amazon yet so that is a dead end.

So, how can I say that I have made $12,000 because of HubPages in just under a year?  Let me explain.

Some of my Hubs are simply written from my experience and require little in the way of research. But for others, especially many of the Hubs for related to stocks, options, gold and silver, I will spend some time doing research. I have spent almost 10 hours of research for one of my Hubs in the past. I haven't spent that much time in a while but it has been known to happen.

Well in August of 2009, I was working on several Hubs related to investing in stocks and was focusing on stocks that would seem to be good in the event of inflation. I was looking at various industries in the inflation trade and wrote about steel companies, oil companies, etc. One of the sectors that I wrote about was silver miners.

In doing this research, I took the time to read many of the annual reports for the companies I discussed. One of these companies was Silver Wheaton. I was very impressed with the business model for this company. Essentially you can think of Silver Wheaton as a silver distributor and not a miner. The company will get its supply of silver from other miners (such as gold miners) which generate silver as a by-product of gold production. Silver Wheaton will lock in supplies at a fixed price as sell it at market price, buying at wholesale and selling at retail. This is an excellent business model in a rising silver market like the one that has existed recently.

I was so impressed with the business model that I felt that I wanted to invest in the stock. On the day that I published the Hub on silver miners, Silver Wheaton (SLW) closed at $10.07. I didn't have enough in my retirement account at the time and didn't invest that day, but I followed the stock closely.

About three-and-a-half months later, I purchased my first shares of SLW at a price of $15.25. I continued to add shares and have traded the stock using collars since December of 2009. The stock has since run up to close at over $35 per share. Because the stock has run up so much in the last month as has the price of silver, I plan on cutting back my exposure and selling all of my shares when options expiration occurs next Friday. I anticipate that all of my covered calls will be exercised. When that happens, my total profit will be just over $12,000.