The stockmarket keeps going up.
The economy is doing well. Investors are piling into equities. There is talk of tax reform.
The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch just published “Here are the actual tax rates the biggest companies in America pay.“
They looked at the 30 companies in the Dow Jones.
United Health paid the most at 40%. Home Depot paid 36%. Verizon 34%. … The lowest were Nike at 14%, Microsoft at 12%, IBM at 10% and GE at 1%.
If Trump succeeds in getting the corporate tax reduced to say 20% — these companies in the Dow will benefit and, hence show higher profits:
UNH, HD, VZ, MCD, AXP, WMT, V, MMM, CAT, JPM, GS, UTX, AAPL, TRV, BA, PG, DWDP, INTC. CSCO, and MRK.
That’s a big list.
You can find the full MarketWatch list here.
The Wall Street Journal’s editors this morning noted:
Investors piled $2.7 billion into funds that invest in equities in the week through Wednesday, the fifth straight week of investor inflows, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. And money managers are putting that money to work. “Fund managers are fully invested because the average U.S. cash ratio in equity funds is down below 2.8%,” Mr. Rosenberg said in a research note last week.
It’s a reversal from the persistently pessimistic view investors have taken for much of this bull market, now in its ninth year. Many have even said that the lack of exuberance about this bull market has been a key factor keeping it going higher.
But perhaps that’s shifting. A composite of three widely watched sentiment surveys about equity market sentiment, including the Michigan survey, also climbed to the highest reading of this economic cycle recently, according to Mr. Rosenberg’s calculations.
That optimism, if it continues rising, may pose a challenge to this market rally.
In short, there are reasons for the market to stay buoyant. But financial editors always end their happy stories with “But can it continue?“
My favorite stock remains Square (SQ). I wish it were my only holding. Here’s the last wonderful two years:
Don’t open email attachments
An idiot at a mid-sized Colorado firm opens an attachment in spam mail he received. The attachment infects his company’s computer servers. The hacker who sent the attachment steals all the company’s employees’ social security numbers. His aim is to apply to the IRS for that year’s refunds from all the employees.
The company discovers the hack, informs the IRS, who closes down electronic tax filing for all employees. They now file their taxes manually on paper by visiting the local IRS office. The company idiot is not popular.
Lesson: Don’t open emails and especially attachments from people you don’t know. And even from people you know.
Hint: Check the email address: Maybe it’s “Harry Newton” but with a strange email address like thisre@458irt.com. This is called spoofing. It’s another way to entice you to open the attachment.
All Your Equifax Breach Questions (and Some Answers) in One Place
Courtesy, the New York Times. A long complex article answering lots of questions.
Best advice yet:
+ Freeze the credit reports over everyone in your family who has a social security number. The four companies and their freezing web sites are:
+ Experian. Click here.
+ TransUnion. Click here.
+ Equifax. Click here.
+ Innovis. Click here.
+ Monitor all your monthly bills.
+ If your credit card company calls you with fears about unauthorized charges, get back to them instantly, if not sooner.
For the New York Times piece, click here.
My son Michael’s favorite podcasts
Here’s the list and their explanation. You may have to paste them into Word (or whatever) to get the two screen shots to line up. My personal favorite is Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!. It’s funny. Really funny. You get these podcasts via’s Apple’s podcast app on its App Store. This is the app you want:
Here are Michael’s favorite podcasts:
Silencers?
A reader asks: What possible justification could there be for legalizing silencers?
My answer: It’s simple. It will give the gun makers something else to sell.
It’s all about the money.
Another reader writes “The best way to stop a maniac with a gun is a good guy with a gun.“
It would not have worked in Las Vegas.
Today HuffPost Australia published this story:
While America Again Debates Gun Reform, Australians Hand In 26,000 Guns
“This is for those who say gun control doesn’t work.”
As the United States grappled with yet another senseless mass shooting, this time in Las Vegas, Australia was dealing with a gun problem of its own.
Namely, just exactly what to do with more than 26,000 firearms surrendered to authorities during a three-month national gun amnesty.
More than 59 people are dead and more than 500 are injured after a gunman opened fire from the window of a Las Vegas casino on Monday, spraying bullets into the crowd of a country music festival below. U.S. Senator and former presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders lamented there had been “been more mass shootings than days this year” in America, and just as they did in the wake of other such gun massacres — in the wake of San Bernardino, and Orlando, and Charleston — many looked to Australia as a test case in how tighter gun control regulations can reduce gun-related deaths.
In a twist of timing, Australia completed another gun amnesty — where people with unregistered, illegal or unwanted firearms could hand them into their local authorities, without penalty or prosecution — just two days before the Las Vegas shooting.
After the Port Arthur shooting in 1996, where 35 people died when a lone gunman opened fire with an assault rifle, Australia brought in strict and controversial gun laws including a weapons buyback scheme and banning semi-automatic rifles and shotguns. Australia has not had a mass shooting since.
The 1996 laws are often held up internationally as an example of how gun control legislation can work, famously being the focus of a John Oliver TV special on The Daily Show. The recently-closed amnesty, a federal government initiative, was the first national scheme of its type since the Port Arthur shooting.
“The fact (is), we’ve got a deteriorating national security environment,” federal justice minister Michael Keenan said when announcing the amnesty in June.
“We’ve got an environment where there has been five terrorists attacks on our soil and sadly in the vast majority of those cases it has been an illegal firearm that’s been used.
“This is an opportunity for people to present the guns to authorities, no questions asked and with no penalty.”
The amnesty opened in July, and closed on September 30. Keenan’s office told HuffPost Australia that final figures for the total number and types of guns surrendered were still being collated, due to logistics around collecting firearms and data from rural and remote areas, and final figures were hoped to be released in coming days.
Back on September 8, the Minister gave an update that 25,999 guns had so far been handed to authorities. At that point, there had been 13,468 guns surrendered in NSW, 7000 in Queensland and 2150 in Victoria.
“This is a great result, and shows Australians are serious about protecting themselves, their families, and their communities,” Keenan said at the time, revealing that an 1856 revolver, a WWI-era rifle and two M1 carbines from WWII were among the more unusual weapons surrendered. NSW Police said they had been handed nine military-grade SKS assault rifles.
“The Amnesty allows anyone with unwanted or unregistered firearms or firearm-related items to legally dispose of them at approved drop-off points in each state and territory.”
While authorities were happy with the amnesty figures, it is thought there were more than 260,000 illegal firearms in Australia prior to the drive.
“Outside the current Amnesty period, anyone caught with an unregistered firearm faces a fine of up to $280,000, up to 14 years in jail, and a criminal record,” Keenan said.
On Monday, Western Australia’s police minister Michelle Roberts said 1242 guns had been surrendered in that state, including 186 shotguns, 860 rifles, 196 handguns and 65,618 rounds of ammunition.
“What it means is there are now 1242 fewer illegal guns which will no longer have the potential to fall in to the hands of criminals,” she said.
“Disturbingly, among the surrendered items was an assortment of high-powered weapons and guns that had been modified, presumably for no other reason than criminal purposes. I’m pleased to say these are now on the way to the scrap heap.”
You can read the full HuffPost Australia article here.
Please be careful with personal trainers
My friends go to personal trainers to fix their body to live longer.
Personal trainers are typically half the age of the people they’re training.
They encourage their trainees to do wonderful things like bench press too much weight, grapple with grotesque medieval torture machines or jump all over the place “to strengthen your balance.”
Please, you’re not 25. You should not push your body to insanity.
My friend just broke her arm with jumping exercises her ambitious trainer suggested.
If you don’t look like this …(and I don’t)
… take up tennis.
Perfect logic
A biology teacher wished to demonstrate to his students the harmful effects of alcohol on living organisms. For his experiment, he showed them a beaker with pond water in which there was a thriving civilization of worms. When he added some alcohol into the beaker the worms doubled-up and died.
“Now,” he said,” what do you learn from this?”
An eager student gave his answer.
“Well the answer is obvious,” he said ” If you drink alcohol, you’ll never have worms.”
Harry Newton, who’s enjoying the early fall weather. Heck, it’s 61 and sunny with bright blue skies in New York City.
Don’t forget to update you iPhone to the latest software. Ditto for your Windows machines.
