In Search of the Perfect Investment

Everyone and their uncle says gold and silver are about to explode. I could quote endless “guru” newsletters and emails. Reasons range from the collapse of the dollar (because we’re been printing so many of them) to the fact that an more and more of the world’s trading is being done in other currencies.

Some of my friends have bought gold coins and bars. Personally I prefer SGOL, which has not done well this year:

Gold is meant to do well when the economy doesn’t. And vice versa. It’s been sort of following that pattern in the past ten years. Sort of.

Many of my friends don’t like gold because it doesn’t pay a dividend. My parents use diamonds to buy their way out of Nazi Europe in 1939. I don’t think the world is coming to that point. But you can understand the mentality that something awful might go wrong from one moment to the next. And it’s nice to have a little insurance.

Risk management via Fidelity and Schwab. Both have excellent, similar trading platforms. Fidelity’s is called Active Trader Pro. Schwabs is called StreetSmartedge. Both have what are  pretty good, automated “Risk Management” tools. Both call them “conditional” trades or orders. Look at this one from Schwab (it’s the simplest to understand):

Profit exit means sell my position when Cisco rises 50%. Trailing stop exit follows the price. It goes up and then turns down and 10% down and I’m out. Stop loss exit is simply a straight stop loss based on the bid price at the time I put the order in.

Schwab also has a bunch of “templates” for conditional orders, including Ask Increase, Buy in, Day Alert, Margin Equity Warning, Stop Loss, Straddle, Trailing Stop and Volume Alert. Powerful tools if I could understand them all.

Here’s Fidelity’s:

A strong warning on Lyme disease. My friend Kristin Zhivago has had Lyme Disease for over ten years. It’s been awful. Yesterday she emailed a warning everyone in the east should read:

Regarding Lyme – if you do get bitten, you won’t necessarily get the bullseye rash. But you will start to feel achy all over and tired, and you won’t be able to shake it. Run, don’t walk, to the nearest “Lyme Literate Doctor” (look it up) and get on a course of antibiotics for more than a month. The spirochetes that have invaded your system are still swimming around in your blood, and can be killed with the antibiotics, for up to two weeks after you are bitten. You need more than a month’s worth of antibiotics, because they have a month-long life cycle.

If you wait longer than the two weeks (timing is approximate), they will corkscrew their way into the non-blood areas of your body (nerves, joints, brain, heart valves, etc.), where they can’t be reached by antibiotics, and you will be – well, let’s just say your life will change, and not for the better. Memory loss, flu-like symptoms, chronic fatigue, nerve damage, heart palpitations, stroke, seizures, paralysis, and yes, death. It doesn’t happen overnight, but if you don’t fight back first and fast you will be in a battle for years. They are insidious, and persistent.

Lyme is called “the great imitator” because it is so often misdiagnosed and it takes people forever to figure out what is wrong. By then, they are really in a world of hurt, losing jobs, friends, and family. I highly recommend books written by a friend of mine, Connie Strasheim, and also checking out “Under Our Skin,” a documentary about Lyme on YouTube. Look for the full movie.

Whatever you do, take it seriously.

Obama’s exchange of five top Taliban for one U.S. soldier was not smart. From today’s New York Times,

“Since Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was freed after years in captivity, a number of the men who served with him have called him a deserter. Some have gone further, blaming him for the deaths of six to eight soldiers.”

The Times today asks the question, ” Did the search for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl cost the lives of American soldiers?” Answers the Times:

Since last weekend’s prisoner exchange in which the Afghan insurgents turned over Sergeant Bergdahl after five years of captivity, a number of the men who served with him have called him a deserter. Some have gone further, blaming him for the deaths of six to eight soldiers.

That second claim is hardening into a news media narrative. CNN has reported as fact that “at least six soldiers died” looking for Sergeant Bergdahl after senior American military officials say he wandered off his base. The Daily Beast published an essay by a former member of Sergeant Bergdahl’s battalion, Nathan Bradley Bethea, who linked the search to the deaths of eight soldiers whom he named. “He has finally returned,” Mr. Bethea wrote. “Those men will never have the opportunity.”

But a review of casualty reports and contemporaneous military logs from the Afghanistan war shows that the facts surrounding the eight deaths are far murkier than definitive – even as critics of Sergeant Bergdahl contend that every American combat death in Paktika Province in the months after he disappeared, from July to September 2009, was his fault.

The Times piece is worth reading. Click here.

Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone wrote the classic piece on Bowe Bergdahl back in 2012.

Bowe Bergdahl prepares for graduation from basic training near Fort Benning in Georgia.

Hastings’ piece began:

America’s Last Prisoner of War. Three years ago, a 23-year-old soldier walked off his base in Afghanistan and into the hands of the Taliban.

You can read Michael Hastings piece here.

Bergdahl’s release has unleashed a torrent of nasty articles and blogs, many calling for his being tried for treason. There’s one on CNN today. Click here.

I would not have done the deal Obama did. Too many murky unanswered questions. Was he really a deserter? Did he cause the deaths of his fellow soldiers?

I think it will also seriously hurt what remains of his presidency, giving his opponents further excuse not to cooperate with him on critical issues, like immigration reform.

Thank you Larry Rose, brilliant real estate lawyer. Larry has a service from a company called RingCentral, which rings all his phones simultaneously — office, home and cell. I have home office landlines from Verizon FiOS. It comes with a service called “simultaneous ring,” which I can turn on via Verizon”s neat web site. Now my office and cell phone ring at the same time. Super.

Feel good, save the animals video. People come together to save animals from being trapped in nets, bottles and deep holes. Show this YouTube video to your kids. Click here.

Harry Newton who is seriously impressed by what he’s been reading from Apple’s developer conference. It may change his opinion on Apple. He’s not impressed with the warning letter Heartware (HTWR) received from the FDA. I’m convinced Heartware management will resolve their FDA concerns. But meantime, it doesn’t look good for the stock. I am impressed with the number of stocks reaching new highs, especially in the airline and oil business. Click here.

 Don’t do anything stupid because you have a lot of cash sitting around. Everyone else does also. I have friends earning 2% on real estate they could sell at a gigantic profit. But they have zero ideas what they’d do with the money.