In Search of the Perfect Investment

I feel guilty for not being here this week.  You’ll see why below.

Meantime, our tech stock focus continues to do well. Today Apple, Square, Baba, Netflix and Facebook are up — while the Dow is down.

Square reports this evening.

Some people are buying it ahead of earnings. Here’s a chart showing how much better it’s done over the past two years compared to Visa and MasterCard.

How about a 9% return?

Try Ladder Capital Corp. It stock has not done well over the past two years, compared to Visa and MasterCard.

It’s part-REIT, part-mortgage lender — an out of favor sector. But it has serious management who are ultra careful about the loans and investments they make. Obsessively careful. They haven’t lost one yet. The 9% dividend yield at present looks rock solid.

Here are three excerpts of a March 2018 PowerPoint investor presentation:

Don’t believe me. Read the March 2018 investor presentation. Click here.

Faith in America

How can you not love a country that has Shark Tank and Kickstarter — two public ways to raise money for your craziest idea.

Some of the nuttiest projects get financed. Some fulfill their inventors’ dreams. Some don’t. The inventors go onto to another crazy project. Eventually one succeeds and the country is better off.

This is called the Tennibot and I want one. It’s a robot that picks up tennis balls. It’s controlled from — where else — your iPhone and your Apple Watch.

Totally brilliant idea. They plan on selling it for $1,000 which is very reasonable. Click here.

I’m semi-addicted to Shark Tank, less for the inventions and more for the bickering between the sharks and the comments to the presenters. Last night I loved:

+ I think you should stick with being a nerd.

+ When a magician starts to believe his own tricks, we have a problem.

We had a bad car accident on Friday afternoon. Lessons:

+ Feeling tired? Stop. Change drivers. Pull over. Take a nap.

+ For long trips, you need a hefty car.

+ Always fasten your seat belt. Even in a taxi.

+ Take the ambulance to the hospital. Emergency rooms give preference to people arriving by ambulance.

+ Protect your cell phone. You may need to call 911 – especially if you’re off the road.

+ You’ll lose your laptop. Make sure it’s backed up. Ditto for your phone. The Cloud shines for backup.

+ You won’t get enough back from the insurance company to pay for a new car. But it will pay your hospital bills and replace your laptop and maybe the camera.

+ Be grateful you’re alive. It’s better than the alternative.

Every second phone call I get is a scam

+ The IRS is about to put me in jail.

+ The electric company is 45 minutes away from turning off my electricity.

+ I’ve won a vacation to someplace exotic.

+ My Windows computer needs urgent fixing.

 + Microsoft called to say I had refund due. On what? I hadn’t bought anything recently.

I have tried blocking “unknown” callers. But they keep calling from different numbers.

Warren Buffett fest this weekend.

+ CNBC has one hour special with Buffett on Friday night at 10 PM.

+ Yahoo Finance will be live streaming Berkshire’s annual meeting from early Saturday mornng.

Favorite recent New Yorker cartoons.

My government working for me

Susan received this email today:

Dear Susan:

The required annual New York State inspection for the vehicle listed below expired on 05/31/2018.

Harry Newton, who got a bit banged up, but now wants to play. Shucks.  His tennis partners are jinxed. One tore his Achilles tendon and is having surgery on Friday. The other had gum surgery!