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The disipline or the agony

The discipline? Stocks are on sale.

Or the agony? It hurts when they fall. And your portfolio is now suddenly worth less.

If you like what you owned a month ago, you should continue to like it today. The stocks you own are now cheaper. You should buy some more. After all, isn’t that why you have a little cash, for rainy days?

Annaly was one of the few that rose yesterday

.NLYYTD

Here’s Annaly over ten years.  It’s close to its low. Be nice if it went a little lower. It has an 11% yield.

NLY10Years

Buffett was on MSNBC this morning. He said that his businesses were coming back over the past five years —  he said the recovery was “overall remarkably consistent.”

He did say that “Mood swings have substantial.” (Yesterday?)

He likes the dips. He buys when stocks are on sale. Takes discipline. something I wish I had more of.

News this morning:

08:59 AM EDT, 10/02/2014 (MT Newswires) — Credit Card company Visa Inc.(V) has been downgraded by analysts at
Sandler O’Neill to a hold rating from a buy. The firm also lowered its price target on the stock to $220 from $240 a share.

Visa closed last night at $210.01, less than the lowered price target. Go figure!

Check. Check. Check

+ UPS won’t take 0.25 inches as a width. it changes it to 25, which changes the price dramatically UP.

+ Don’t waste your money on Crizal lenses. And be wary of all the fancy coatings your guy tries to sell you. Coatings have have an awful tendency to scratch and/or peel off. And all these fancy, pricey “see in the dark” lenses don’t work. Trust me. I’ve been there. done that.

+ Don’t do stupid. The day I wrote the piece (yesterday), I did stupid. I yanked on a heavy couch. The morning my chest muscles hurt. That was stupid. Ask for help.

+ Ask your bank if they can get you a two-factor authentication. That’s a userID, then a password, then another userID and then a second password. It’s much safer. Much harder to crack.

Vanguard gets its timing all wrong?. In the middle of the steepest decline yesterday, I receive this nice invitation:

VanguardREtirement

I think my retirement plan is on track, sort of. And I probably won’t register for their nice webcast. But I have to be PC about my reply. Should I send a Vanguard a one-word reply, “NO.” Or should I send them a note about Mr. Nathan Zahm being young enough to be my great grandson, and presumably clueless about retirement.

Am I’m being unfair? I have to admit their timing was superb — right at the wrong time — at the time of 250 drop in the Dow.

The gorgeous air hostesess.

AirHostess

Business man: What’s your name?

Hostess: Angela Benz, sir!

Business man: Lovely name, any relation to Mercedes Benz?

Hostess: Yes sir, very close.

Businessman: How close?

Hostess: Same price!

Sorry about this stupid joke. But I love the stupid picture. I can’t stop laughing at it.

Why Mercedes so good at corning?

Because Mercedes Benz.

Laugh now, but one day you’ll be in Florida driving a Mercedes and eating dinner at 4:00 PM.

HarryNewton
Harry Newton who’ll drop by the annual meeting of an LBO fund he invested in many, many, many years ago — when he was flush with money from the sale of his business and thought all LBOS were destined for Nirvana. The fund is still limping along, way after it was meant to have ended and given the handsome returns to its investors. It’s been a miserable performer for investors, but a great fee producer for the promoters. Lessons:

+ Don’t do closed funds, i.e. ones you can’t sell.

+ Don’t expect the management of the fund to listen to you — even though you know far more about a particular investment situation than they do.

+ They have your money. While there is so, there are fees.

+ Most importantly, don’t make instant decisions. Always give yourself a week (a month?) o mull, a.k.a. think and research alternatives.

+ Cash has its charms. It gives you choices later.

One Comment

  1. devon says:

    Actually I think Vanguard’s timing was pretty good, it would have kept people from watching the market dropping and panicking and maybe selling, instead they would have been watching a seminar on investing for the longer term .