In Search of the Perfect Investment

BX, ADSK and  QCOM moving higher.

The Presentation Of A Lifetime. Reports Business Insider reports: At 9:15 a.m. ET, Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman will give what he has called “the most important presentation” of his career. “You’re going to learn why Herbalife is going to collapse. And that’s a pretty strong statement. But this is the largest fraud – public fraud in terms of scale, of countries involved, harm to people,” he said on CNBC Monday. Ackman has been shorting the multi-level marketing company, betting that its stock price would go to $0.

Herbalife shares are down nearly 11%. Here’s their last year:

I’m not playing this game. I need it like a another hole in the head. Herbalife’s stock goes up and down faster than a whore’s drawers — Australian expression.

Apple reports its Q2 earnings tonight after the closing bell. I suspect it won’t be exciting. Many fans are waiting for the larger iPhone 6. (But not me.)

Here’s how to save your wife’s life. Or maybe yours. This is important. Read on:

Ask your doctor one simple question: “If reimbursement were not an issue, which tests would you do?”

The story: As preparation for eyelid surgery, the wife is about to have, the hospital does certain tests. But not as many as in the past because it won’t be reimbursed by insurance.

The patient asks, “If reimbursement were not an issue, which tests would you do?”

The hospital answers, “A chest x-ray.”

The patient says, “Good. Do it. I’ll pay.”

The x-ray catches a tumor on her lung.

Suddenly, things get serious. Real serious. She’s rushed into surgery. The peach pit-sized tumor is removed.

Good news: She’s now 100% cancer-free.

Had she not asked the insurance reimbursement question, she may have waited another two years for a chest x-ray. By then, it might have been too late.

This is a true story. I know and love the woman. I suspect we should all get regular chest x-rays — whether we smoked, have smoked or never smoked.

Things I’ve learned:

+ Many banks drag their feet on your wires. I always thought wires went through immediately. But they don’t, any longer. Some banks pass their wire requests to departments of bureaucrats who fiddle for hours, and occasionally days. If you want your wire to go through quickly, I’m guessing you need to beg. Yesterday’s wire took over five hours. I don’t know why. I’ll find out this morning. I’m seriously annoyed. Meantime, Interactive Brokers took three days to wire money out of my account to my bank. Why? Who knows?

+ Harry, Thanks for the identity theft information.  Another situation to guard against, I had a friend selling her home and a realtor came with a couple interested in looking at her home.  While the realtor and one spouse talked with the homeowner in one area of the house the other spouse went into the woman’s bedroom and finding her purse took several checks out of the middle of her checkbook.  My friend found a week or so later that her checking account had been depleted. — Richard.

+ Verizon FiOS will upgrade you to symmetrical service — you upload will be as fast as your download. Verizon tells me:

Upload speeds are being increased to match the subscribed download speed of the internet plan. This is being done in phases starting in September. If do not want to wait for the  upgrade you can expedite the process by enrolling in the Verizon “My Rewards” program.  To sign up, Verizon customers who subscribe to our consumer Internet and/or FiOS TV services* can visit My Verizon, sign in with your User Name and Password and look for My Rewards+ in the list of tabs along the left.”

+ Portion control is key. Take what they serve you in the restaurant. Chop it in half. Take the half home for lunch the next day. There is no joy (or benefit) in eating the vast quantities of food restaurants now feel obliged to serve us.

+ Get yourself a temporary email address from Gmail. Use it until the spam overwhelms your inbox — then junk it. Though I will admit, Google’s Gmail actually does a good job filtering out spam.

Are the Obamas buying a home in Rancho Mirage, California?

According to the LA Times,

President Obama and his wife, Michelle, could be the owners of a home in Rancho Mirage listed at $4.25 million before the month is out.

The First Family is believed to be in escrow on a contemporary home in a gated community where entertainers Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby once maintained estates.

The White House said rumors regarding a home in Rancho Mirage are not true.

But area real estate agents, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Obamas are the buyers of the Rancho Mirage home.

My friend, who has a house nearby to Rancho Mirage emails this morning, “It’s been rumored for a few months around the desert but the White House denies it so that probably makes it true. They lie about almost everything.”

 Airlines are gambling with our lives: Why? To save a few nickels? (If you can’t see the entire clip, left click on it or tap on your iPhone/iPad screen.) Australia is concerned about the flight paths of these Asia-traveling planes because it’s the route many Australians use from Europe to Western Australia. There were 27 Australians on MH17 — the Malaysian Airline that got shot down over Ukraine.)

 Lesson: Don’t fly any airline from Europe east to Asia. Go the long way round, through the U.S.

Harry Newton who remains amazed at how many things go wrong with private companies — from incredibly stupid management to total lack of marketing. My rule is simple: For every $1 you spend on engineering, you need to spend $10 on marketing. Minimum. For now, stay away from small companies.