Friends worry about:
+ They have too much money in real estate.They don’t. Household formation and new business formation is strong.
+ Stock prices are too high. Some are.
+ Nobody seems to be worried about anything — since they can’t think of an imminent black swan event. Derivatives? Student loans? Lousy mortgage-backed securities? Nup. Think again. I’m striking out.
There are several amazing stats:
+ 4.4% unemployment in the U.S. That’s full employment.
+ The emergence of the sharing economy. Everyone is working part-time for someone else — e.g. Uber and TaskRabbit. For more, read this week’s New Yorker. The long, detailed article is called “The Gig is UP.” Click here.
+ WeWork now has 38 offices in New York City. I have no idea how many businesses are in each one. Figure at least 100. Probably at least five thousand in total. Maybe more. And then there’s the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which has 330 businesses there, about 7,000 total employees. They have businesses with three to 200 people. Startups everywhere. Crye Precision is a major sucess story at the Yard. New York’s startup scene is thriving.
Walmart is coming after Amazon. And pigs will fly.
Exhibit 1. Amazon’s stock versus Walmart over the past ten years. Which should you have owned?
Exhibit 2: Cover of the May 14 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek:
Exhibit 3: The spread that begins the story:
Then you read the story. Oih, the story. You’d expect something awesome. You’d be wrong. Items in the story:
+ Walmart bought Jet.com for $3.3 billion and has paid its founder $244 million. The founder visits Walmart’s Bentonville headquarters once a month in a private company plane!
+ Walmart has also bought Bonobos for $300 million, Modcloth for $75 million, Shoebuy for $70 million and Moosejaw for $51 million. You ever bought anything from any of these? Do you even know what they sell?
+ None of these seem to be integrated into Walmart. I tried buying my favorite Canon G5X on Jet and Walmart. You won’t find it if you search for Canon G5X. If you keep fiddling you will eventually find it. It has no user reviews on either site (unlike Amazon which has zillions). And it’s skimpy on technical information. And, worse, it’s the same price as Amazon — to the penny.
+ And here’s a delicious paragraph fromBusinessweek’s story: “Wal-Mart a consistent “everyday low price” inside its stores. It’s one of the most sacrosanct brand promises in retail, practically inscribed onto holy tablets by Walton himself as a way to assure customers they won’t have to comparison-shop. The philosophy created problems on the web, though. Whenever the online price dropped below the in-store price, the merchants in Bentonville would balk. They were worried about siphoning away customers from their stores, which account for more than 97 percent of Wal-Mart’s sales. The company was also hesitant to let outside sellers list their wares on Walmart.com. This “marketplace” idea generates half of Amazon’s unit sales. …
You can read the entire Businessweek cover story here. But seriously, don’t waste your time.
My business of “searching” for investments is horribly frustrating. You’d figure that Businessweek would be onto something with a cover story headlined “They’re coming for you Bezos.” But Wal-Mart is no more “coming for” Bezos than I am for flying to the moon this afternoon. It’s very depressing. I once worked for Businessweek as a cub reporter.They were a much better magazine in the summer of 1968.
I’ll stay with my Amazon shares. And I’ll continue to shop there.
Chicago from afar. Click on the image for the full effect.
This magnificent image is from John Pratt’s web sit of amazing images. For the rest, go here.
Doctor humor
“You’ll be fine,” the surgeon said.
But, she asked, “How long will it be before I am able to have a normal sex life again doctor?”
The surgeon paused and his face reddened as his facial expression became strange. The girl was alarmed.
“What’s the matter Doctor? I will be all right, won’t I?”
He replied, “Yes, you’ll be fine. It’s just that no one has ever asked me that question after having their tonsils out.”
Marriage Humour
Wife: ‘What are you doing?’
Husband: Nothing.
Wife: ‘Nothing…? You’ve been reading our marriage certificate for an hour.’
Husband: ‘I was looking for the expiration date.’
Harry Newton, who finds nothing untoward about Trump firing Comey. Think of it like this: A policeman gives you a ticket. You have two choices. Pay the fine and get points on your licence, which will up your insurance. Or fire the policeman. Not a difficult choice. Except most of us can’t fire the policeman. But, if we could, wouldn’t we? When Trump’s casinos went broke in the early 1990s, the buzz on Wall Street was no one in America would lend him money. He was a bad businessman. Hence he turned to rich Russians who, amongst other things, needed to move money out of Russia. No one has any idea how much money was involved. I’m guessing enough to give the Russians some influence somewhere.
Hi Harry,
Three things:
1. If you keep giving your political opinions, expect push-back.
2. Using your flawed copy analogy, it’s more like this: you see there is an incompetent cop doing far more than he should: he pulls people over and makes judgement calls on his own, some he gives tickets to, some he doesn’t but tells everyone what a shitty driver you are. Then he gets a new boss who sees how incompetent the guy is, and knowing what’s involved these days in firing someone, he gives a recommendation to the Chief of Police that he should be fired. The Chief sees that this cop has been sitting on the side of the road with his radar out on the exact route the Chief takes to work every day. And the Chief knows that he could get pulled over, rightly or wrongly at any time. So he FIRES the bad cop before he can do something incompetent. The traffic laws will still be enforced but hopefully the incompetent cop’s replacement will do his job correctly.
3. Do you have any links that document Trump turning to “rich Russians”, or is it just cocktail party banter?
That unemployment number is very tricky. Many people get laid off, go on unemployment, max it out and then still can’t find work. So yes, technically they are not on unemployment insurance anymore so the numbers seem low (%4.4) but yet they are still out of the workforce. That unemployment # is manipulated all the time by those in finance.
With regard to stocks that are preforming well in your portfolio, which ones are socially and environmentally the most responsible or progressive?
Hey Harry, you stupid fucking liberal asshole. If your Washington DC evil liberal democrats had a “SINGLE SCINTILLA OF EVIDENCE” regarding Trump/Russia the satanic liberal media would have reported on it months ago, even before the inauguration. And with all the leaks that happened early on, thanks to the evil corrupt Obama holdovers and their media connections, I’m quiet sure that if they had any evidence against Trump we would all know about it!!! The democrats have nothing on Trump/Russia, because their is nothing.
Special prosecutor, oh yea, maybe we can get Fitzgerald to head-up that circle jerk. You remember Fitzgerald, the procecutor who found Scooter Libby gilty of NOTHING! WHAT FUCKING BULLSHIT.
….go shit in your hat, you evil liberal Trump hater. I hope your hatred eats you alive.
….fuck off asshole
Harry Newton
50 Central Park West
New York, NY 10023
212-712-2833
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