It turned on a dime.From gloom to boom. An example: Intel year to date.
I don’t know why on Intel or most of the others now rising.
Except that Morgan Stanley upgraded BHP this morning and that caused a 6% jump in its price.
I have the feeling that a lot of this is very artificial, unrelated to future earnings. Just part of the “new volatility.” The new normal.
Here’s the biggest MLP. These guys get paid a fixed price to carry gas and oil. So why would a rise in oil (it’s still depressed) cause this sort of behavior. Maybe because their customers are now more solvent, able to pay their MLP carriage fees.
Will it arch down again? My guess is yes.
My latest strategy is to place some limit buys in at prices much below where we are now. You never know what bargains you might snag.
VZ at $39? AAPL at $102? NLY at $9.20? FB at $82? MSFT at $41?
My second strategy is to stay well away from gambling — or if I’m tempted to do it only with one day moves. Make some money, cover and be out by the end of the day.
Goldman Sachs’ most overpriced stocks:
UA, FE, CPB, OXY, FLS, DO, CELG, TSS, ORLY, MSI, CVC, NDAQ, INTC, NVDA, SIAL, RIG.
For more, click here.
Harry’s remaining shorts:
VLKAY, EWZ, BHP, WMT, XOM, GS and REGN. This morning they’re all in the toilet. This morning I covered VLKAY (VW is now booming) and EWZ (ditto for EWZ Brazil). Makes no sense. So much for that great hedging idea. I was doing great on REGN until this morning. Shorting is a day thing in volatile markets.
God bless Home Depot.
They have nice, helpful people. You can find things you want. I can take my bicycle into their 59th and Third Avenue Store. They’re 1000% better than Lowes. Thank you HD for having the tiles that sort of match the color of the others. We had to tear a hole in the wall, because of a leaking pipe. Lesson: Always keep spare tiles.
If you own a nice functioning old car, don’t even think of buying a new one. The NYTimes did a piece called “The Weak Spot Under the Hood.”
Excerpts:
Complex Car Software Becomes the Weak Spot Under the Hood
New high-end cars are among the most sophisticated machines on the planet, containing 100 million or more lines of code. Compare that with about 60 million lines of code in all of Facebook or 50 million in the Large Hadron Collider.
“Cars these days are reaching biological levels of complexity,” said Chris Gerdes, a professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University.
The sophistication of new cars brings numerous benefits – forward-collision warning systems and automatic emergency braking that keep drivers safer are just two examples. But with new technology comes new risks – and new opportunities for malevolence.
The unfolding scandal at Volkswagen – in which 11 million vehicles were outfitted with software that gave false emissions results – showed how a carmaker could take advantage of complex systems to flout regulations.
Carmakers and consumers are also at risk. Dr. Patel has worked with security researchers who have shown it is possible to disable a car’s brakes with an infected MP3 file inserted into a car’s CD player. A hacking demonstration by security researchers exposed how vulnerable new Jeep Cherokees can be. A series of software-related recalls has raised safety concerns and cost automakers millions of dollars.
When things go awry, an auto mechanic is lost. We had one problem with Susan’s 2004 Mercedes. The battery died, killing the car. We had to replace the car’s entire computer board. Cost $1,300. The software is insane — if we don’t tighten the gas cap, we get a “Check Engine” light that looks as though the world has come to an end. the light sticks around for weeks until the car’s computer’s figures out that the gas gap is on. We still have a permanent bight red malfunction light we can’t shut off and don’t know what it’s telling us.
Read the NYTimes piece here.
Favorite quote:
There may be flowing water on Mars, but is there intelligent life on Earth?. Posted on Facebook.
Answer your emails:
The busiest, most successful people I know answer their emails promptly. The deadbeats take eons. Emails are a good test of whether you want to do business with them.
Great new Apple Watch apps, courtesy the New York Times.
Carrot Weather, Citymapper, and Just Press Record. Explanations and others here.
I upgraded to watchOS 1.0.1 last night. Took forever, but seems to work fine.
Corruption, soccer style. From the Economist:
Mr (Jack) Warner is at the heart of one of the charges levelled at Mr Blatter: the allegation that in 2005 FIFA sold the Caribbean television rights to the Caribbean Football Union controlled by Mr Warner for $600,000, only for the rights to be sold on to a Jamaican broadcaster for $20million through a Warner-owned company.
Packing tape from Staples is awful. This is the only one that’s any good:
These say it all.
Helps me sleep at night.
At her next checkup, the new doctor told her to bring a list of all the medicines that had been prescribed for her.
As the young doctor was looking through these, his eyes grew wide as he realized she had a prescription for birth control pills.
"Mrs. Smith, do you realize these are birth control pills?
She reached out and patted the young doctor's knee....
Harry Newton who dips into this incredible book every week or so. Worth a read. The operative words are “How Religion Poisons Everything.” And, boy, does he have a lot of examples.
Buy the paperback at Amazon. Click here.
