Here’s a few to fit our “Buy low, You never know what you might snag” investment strategy:
AAPL $92, NFLX $60. BX $30. FB $80. SBUX $50. V $60. HD $110. GE $25. GOOG $590.UA $92.50. UNH $112.
Mutual Funds and E.T.F.s.
The New York Times just published their quarterly review of Mutual Funds & E.T.F.s. It makes for interesting, if slightly irrelevant reading — now that the market has bounced a little. Still, here are the charts the Times led off with. You get a clear picture of just how hard the third quart really was.
What I learned from the Times’ report:
+ There are thousands of mutual funds. Those which charge less tend to do better for you the investor.
+ Good performers tend to hunt for stocks with steadily-growing earnings and stick with them. “Thus their portfolio is filled with familiar names like Apple, Nike, Starbucks and Nestle.”
+ “Sitting on your hands can be a discipline in investing. It’s difficult for humans, especially in a business where there’s a scoreboard every day.”
+ Emerging markets can be no-win. They now account for more than half of global economic output. “They’re not the small, exotic, growth stories of 10 or 20 years ago.”
To read the Times’ articles, Google:
+ NYTimes Riding the Rapids
+ NYTimes The Ease of Index Funds Comes with Risk
+ NYTimes Investing May Be Cheaper, but fees still hurt
+ NYTimes Top-Performing Funds Won by Losing Less
+ NYTimes Spread Out INvestment Risk by Company, not Country
New slow laptops. Headsup: Many new laptops are slower than older ones. Slower ones work longer on batteries and cost the laptop maker less money. That’s why they use them, which, to me, is sad. Want to check? Find the name of the processor in your potentially new laptop, then Google “Intel (name of processor, e.g. Core i7-3520) processor benchmark.” You’ll find the results on Passmark.com. You’ll be horrified to discover how slow some new Windows laptops are. Ditto for Apple’s.
Two smiles this morning.
A rich Beverly Hills lady got very angry at her French maid. After a long list of stinging remarks about her shortcomings as a cook and housekeeper, she dismissed the maid
The maid couldn’t allow such abuse to go unanswered. “Your husband considers me a better housekeeper and cook than you, Madam. He has told me himself.”
The rich woman just swallowed and said nothing.
“And furthermore,” the maid continued, “I am much better in bed than you!”
“And I suppose my husband told you that, too?”
“No, Madam,” said the maid. “Not your husband … the mail man & the gardener!”
After a long night of making love, the guy notices a photo of another man, on the woman’s nightstand by the bed. He begins to worry.
“Is this your husband?’ he nervously asks.
‘No, silly,’ she replies, snuggling up to him.
‘Your boyfriend, then?’ he continues.
‘No, not at all,’ she says, nibbling away at his ear.
‘Is it your dad or your brother?’ he inquires,hoping to be reassured.
‘No, no, no! You are so hot when you’re jealous!’ she answers.
‘Well, who is he, then?’ he demands.
She whispers in his ear.. ‘That’s me before the surgery.’
Harry Newton whose friend is pounding the table for Pandora (P), which just bought Ticketfly, a mini-Ticketmaster. Here are some words from Ticketfly that will give you a flavor of the importance of this transaction for Pandora:
Pandora is massive. I didn’t realize just how massive. Nearly 80 million people use Pandora each month, most of them on their phones. The Pandora app is the single most-used mobile app in the world (more than Apple, Google and Spotify). Eight billion stations have been created on Pandora. Pandora is the #1 radio station in 36 U.S. markets.
The combination of Ticketfly and Pandora will be game-changing for our clients. Ticketfly and Pandora will be a marketing and event discovery powerhouse, giving our clients unprecedented access to a massive and targeted audience of nearly 80 million music fans. We will solve the longstanding problem of event discovery by seamlessly connecting Pandora’s enormous audience to events they’ll love. This will enable promoters to sell out more shows, and will strengthen the bond between artist and fan.
Pandora and Ticketfly are both deeply data-driven. We will harness our combined data to improve recommendations for fans and create new tools for artists and promoters. Pandora also recently joined forces with Next Big Sound, the leading provider of online music analytics. The coming together of Pandora and Ticketfly, plus Next Big Sound, will create the most powerful fan analytics platform in the world for venues, promoters, and artists.
You can read the rest of this piece. Click here.
Pandora is not as cheap as it was a few months ago. But think what Netflix is to streaming movies, Pandora is to streaming music. Think of it as the biggest collection of radio stations in the entire world.
