Skip to content
 

A class-act guy. Without an exit plan.

As the U.S.’s economy  improves, so startups are flooding us with great opportunities. Sample from yesterday,

Our new CEO is a class-act guy all the way. … You’ll never see a deal like this again in your entire life.

And pigs will fly:

pig3

Be wary. Most startups fail. Those that don’t fail, actively resist a liquidity event for their shareholders. Keeping it going keeps the CEO in a job.

I used to enjoy listening to the PowerPoint Pitchers. I don’t any longer. I’d rather be playing tennis and sitting in a simple S&P500 index fund, e.g. VFIAX.

There are more banks than there are bankers. Warren Buffett’s words stick in my brain.

If you did the numbers, what would they be? One in a hundred?

Apply that rule to every potential investment you look at. Check out 100. Buy one. Money does not burn a hole in anyone’s pocket, including yours and mine. Better to have it in your pocket  than in an illiquid investment.

My friend Dan argues that one should never invest directly in a private company. Do it only in conjunction with a venture capitalist, whom you know will be angling for an early (and profitable) liquidity event — and will have the power to force one.

The best way to find anything.

Searching for a recent piece I did? Try this in Google: Jim Chanos inurl:TechnologyInvestor.com or Jim Chanos inurl:InSearchOfThePerfectInvestment.com.

This method of searching does a better job of finding articles in places in the New York Times, the New Yorker, etc. than going to their own web sites and using their own inadequate search engine.

One of our nice recommendations. See chart in right hand column for others.

AGIO

Stuff:

+ Your bank should provide “bank by photograph.” It shouldn’t charge you for incoming wires. It should allow you to send wires directly from your account via your laptop in the comfort of you own home. Your checking account should also be free of fees. If your bank doesn’t provide these services, change banks. I like JPMorgan Chase. They do. They’re great. And their software works beautifully.

 + You and I are paying too much for cell phone service. Call your provider. Tell them about the competitor (make one up) that’s offering you $20 a month less. You’ll be surprised what will happen. It always worked for me. I can’t understand their bills. I assume I’m being overbilled by anyone in the telecommunications industry. This is good assumption. It’s worked for about 40 years.

+ Call your Internet Service Provider and tell them your Internet speed is slower (and more expensive) than your neighbor’s.It probably will be. But that doesn’t matter. You can always get more speed by switching out modems, upping the speed from the central office, etc.

+ Never hang a wireless clock on your wall. Every time there’s a daylight savings change, the thing screws up. I have several that still haven’t adjusted themselves to the latest change. In fact, I’m giving up on wall clocks altogther. Cellphones are the best clocks. Wall clocks are always wrong and take too much effort to change twice a year. Ditto for the clock in Susan’s Mercedes which takes nearly an hour to change. They call it Daylight “Savings” Time. It doesn’t save my time.

Microsoft intends to pay CEO Nadella $90 million for 2014. Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), which advises institutional shareholders, thinks that’s too much and recommends shareholders that they cast a “No” vote at Microsoft’s shareholder meeting in two weeks. Seems a lot to me. But this year, the stock has done well:

MicrosoftDoesWell

Nadella was appointed CEO on February 4, 2014. The market seems to like what he’s going. For more on ISS’s feelings, click here. Microsoft’s present P/E is 19.1, but its yield is 2.54%. Seems fully priced to me. Don’t see any hot new products.

Microsoft’s PowerPoint has a new competitor. It’s called Prezi, which according to the Wall Street Journal has now raised $57 million. Prezi launched its cloud-based presentation software from Hungary in 2009 and says it now has more than 50 million users—nearly double the number it had last year.

Prezi’s software is unusual because the presentations it produces aren’t the usual lists of bullet points — as in PowerPoint, which I personally abhor.  They are based on zooming mages and making their creators tell a story, which helps an audience absorb and remember the information, according to co-founder and Chief Executive Peter Arvai. I watched a couple of Prezis  last night. They were impressive and far better than PowerPoint. Click here and here.

The best solid state drive. The best way to speed up your laptop is with a solid state hard drive (SSD). The Samsung 850 Pro is THE best SSD ever built. It is fast. It will last longest. And it’s not expensive. A Samsung 850 Pro 256 gigabyte drive will cost you only $170.

Samsung850Pro

I have many Samsung SSD drives. They are flawless. For this one, click here.

Why do I think this is funny?

I bought some toothbrushes from Costco recently. Today they sent me a promotion for another item:

DurexPleasurePack

Nice of them wanting to protect all parts of my body. But sixty of them? It seems to be less a promotion and more a compliment — not based in fact or reality. But heck I’m sufficiently intelligent to understand the value of flattery. Maybe I’ll invite 60 of my closest friends and give them party favors?

HarryNewton
Harry Newton, who’s happy today. The guy from Thermador says he’s coming to repair our busted oven door. Good lesson: Be very gentle with doors on ovens, dishwashers, fridges, etc. To repair this one will cost probably close to $1,000. I was ready to junk the whole oven until I checked the new price — $8,700.Ouch.

Our stove. A sorry picture. The boxes are holding the door. I removed the kickplate because, behind it, are the model and serial numbers. You need those numbers otherwise the service guy won’t know which parts to bring. Fixing stoves gives excitement a whole new meaning. He’s due today between 11 and 1.

ThermadorStoverdoor

9 Comments

  1. Natosoco says:

    I used Prezi all through college. My professors thought I was some kind of wizard. Basically, it is pretty cool.

    Nate
    http://www.gatewayrealtysc.com/

  2. Richard Grigonis says:

    According to Google, If you include inurl: in your query, Google will restrict the results to documents containing that word just in the URL. For instance, [ inurl:print site:www.googleguide.com ] searches for pages on Google Guide in which the URL contains the word “print.” It finds pdf files that are in the directory or folder named “print” on the Google Guide website. The query [ inurl:healthy eating ] will return documents that mention the words “healthy” in their URL, and mention the word “eating” anywhere in the document.

    Note: There must be no space between the inurl: and the following word.

    Putting inurl: in front of every word in your query is equivalent to putting allinurl: at the front of your query, e.g., [ inurl:healthy inurl:eating ] is the same as [ allinurl: healthy eating ].

    In URLs, words are often run together. They need not be run together when you’re using inurl:.

    What Harry is actually referring to is searching in a site, which is done with site:

    If you include site: in your query, Google will restrict your search results to the site or domain you specify. For example, [ admissions site:www.lse.ac.uk ] will show admissions information from London School of Economics’ site and [ peace site:gov ] will find pages about peace within the .gov domain. You can specify a domain with or without a period, e.g., either as .gov or gov.

    Note: Do not include a space between the “site:” and the domain.

    You can use many of the search operators in conjunction with the basic search operators +, –, OR, and ” “. For example, to find information on Windows security from all sites except microsoft.com, enter:

    [ windows security –site:microsoft.com ]

    You can also restrict your results to a site or domain through the domains selector on the Advanced Search page.

    Other nifty Google tricks can be found at http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html

  3. Bill Teter says:

    Many thanks to Barry Merchant, Lucky and, of course, Harry, — For steering me toward the appropriate Sennheiser headphones. You are all so nicely generous with your advice. After recommending Harry’s blog to my entire family, I am SURE I will receive them for Christmas. …..maybe from Harry, ……

  4. jon says:

    After a lifetime, I’ve learned one thing, pigs really do fly……Jim Chanos seems like a bright guy, but his ideas on shorting China are a bit dim….Had a break-in when I was living in AZ,the policeman’s only advice to me was, buy a gun.

    • Lucky says:

      Good advice…I have one by my bedside as well as ADT to let me know if some bad guy is coming after me! Yes, it is loaded.

  5. Cliff says:

    Harry – is this a good time to buy stocks?
    Also, how about a contest to find the reader with the worst mutual fund company/mutual fund company experience? My vote goes to Janus.

  6. Lucky says:

    You can probably get a reduction in your security provider too. My 3 year contract was up for my ADT security on our home. I was approached by the fellow who installed it and still works for ADT, telling me he could switch me over for a good savings…I called ADT who were charging me just under $50. per month…told them the deal I was offered for $31.50 per month…they dropped my rate to $31.99 per month immediately and even deducted the savings on my current bill that pays in advance.
    P.S. move to Arizona and you do not have to worry about changing to daylight savings time…same for HI.

    • cliff says:

      Any problems with the alarms going off for no good reason? Say, wind blowing? I had that problem with ADT years ago, maybe they got the kinks out.

      • Lucky says:

        We have never had a false alarm in the past 3 years…we have no sensors outside, however. The wind does turn on our outside lights when the bushes move…not a problem.