I’m persuaded that Brazil’s Petrobras (PBR) remains a great short.
This Sunday Brazil holds run-off presidential elections. If the president, Dilma Rousseff, is re-elected (and it looks like she will be), PBR is likely to fall another 10% on Monday. It’s already fallen 13% since I first recommended shorting it earlier this week.
Under Rousseff, Petrobras has become a political plaything — replete with money-laundering, huge bribes, major political contributions (to her party) and weird economic theories. From a recent piece in the New York Times:
Since becoming president, Ms. Rousseff has asserted greater control over the energy giant, in line with her view that huge state-controlled companies should be the pillars of Brazil’s economic development.
You can read the fascinating Times piece here.
My Brazilian friends tell me that Rousseff will make Brazil the next Venezuela. Many are packing their bags — for the U.S.
Please don’t load up on computer viruses. This applies to PCs and Macs.
+ Don’t open files attached to incoming emails.
+ Don’t say YES when your computer says “Update this software.”
+ Don’t go to web sites you’re told to go to.
+ Don’t enter personal information into “pretend web” sites, like those that look like banks and PayPal.
+ Don’t download software that you didn’t request.
+ Don’t do stupid. NO works. But ignoring it works even better.
My daughter’s computer no longer works because she clicked on something. And my wife just downloaded “anti-virus” software she didn’t ask for. Hers is still working, for now.
The lesson is: All the anti-virus you didn’t ask for contains viruses. I continue to recommend Norton Internet Security and nothing else.
Life thoughts
+ Now is the time to get a mortgage. You can pick up a mortgage on your primary home for under 3%. Put the money into a index fund. You’ll make twice that.
+ Tighten your spectacles regularly. Otherwise your lenses will fall out. Trust me. Mine just did.
+ Don’t buy wireless clocks that purport to hone in on some government signal in Colorado and always give you accurate time. Two things are wrong with these stupid clocks. They’re too hard to get started. They often randomly change the time. This morning my bedside clock deducted an hour from the real time, thus making me get up an hour later than I wanted to… And making today’s blog late and short.
+ Watch out our bank fee jackups. They’re adding new fees and jacking up the old fees. But they will reverse the fees if you bitch, loudly.
More wonderful quotes:
“Ah, yes, divorce, from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet.” — Robin Williams
“Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place.” — Billy Crystal
“According to a new survey, women say they feel more comfortable undressing in front of men than they do undressing in front of other women. They say that women are too judgmental, where, of course, men are just grateful.” — Robert De Niro
“There’s a new medical crisis. Doctors are reporting that many men are having allergic reactions to latex condoms. They say they cause severe swelling. So what’s the problem?” — Dustin Hoffman
“The problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time.” — Robin Williams
“It’s been so long since I’ve had sex, I’ve forgotten who ties up whom.” — Joan Rivers
Harry Newton who suggests low bids on NLY, LADR, SUNE — check out the charts on HON and EOG. See what you could have achieved with low bids. Don’t buy when on days the market is rising.
New York City has its first Ebola patient. Not good.
Ebola burns so hot it will never get completely out of control. HIV is still by far the most dangerous. 6 million people died of AIDS last year alone.
What specific stocks do you like now?