Here's a first shot at some interesting high yielders. The chart is current as of last night.

Protect yourself with our inviolate 15% Stop Loss Rule.

EWZ is great. I've been pushing it for some time. CNBC is reporting from Rio today.

We're at a juncture. Two companies send out daily charts with a tinge of information and a plea to subscribe (i.e. pay money). Here's the latest: and their comments:

For some perspective on the current state of the stock market, today's chart presents the long-term trend of the Russell 2000 (small-cap stocks). As the chart illustrates, from late 2002 into 2007 the Russell 2000 traded within the confines of an upward sloping trend channel. However, since mid-2007, the trend has been down. Fears of an outright collapse of the financial sector resulted in support (green dashed line) of an already fairly steep downtrend to be breached. As it became apparent that the financial sector would survive, stock prices rose with the Russell 2000 moving back into its original downtrend channel. Currently, the Russell 2000 is testing resistance (red dashed line) of its two-year downtrend channel for the second time since the financial crisis.

Personally, I think the market will continue to slowly edge up.

AOL went public yesterday.

When AOL announced it was buying Time Warner ten days into 2000, the two companies had a $350 billion market value. Today their combined value is just $50 billion, a decline of 86 percent -- much worse than the Nasdaq’s 45 percent decline.

Personally I think AOL is a great short -- except you can't yet. From Breakingviews.com:

The going will be tough for Mr. Armstrong (AOL''s CEO). Breakingviews.com suggests. He wants to convert the company into a content and advertising company, but according to RBC Capital Markets, as much as a fifth of AOL’s traffic comes from dial-up Internet subscribers checking e-mail and such. So the continued decline of AOL’s access business — five million subscribers today compared with 26 million in 2002 — does more than pressure overall company cash flow. It threatens the company’s transformation to a pure content business,

Bulls point to AOL’s apparently cheap valuation. Its enterprise value of $2.4 billion is just five times projected free cash flow for 2010. But much of that cash comes from the declining access business. There may be opportunity to improve advertising profit margins in line with peers. That’s what management is seeking, though they concede it will take at least a few years.

Mr. Armstrong is essentially in a race against time, He must reinvest much of the cash from the access business into content to get the wider Internet audience to re-engage with his site. AOL managed to survive this choppy decade, but may not endure the next.

Today's lead story on AOL is "Tiger Woods, Sex Addict?" The story contains:

A week after details of Woods' extramarital affairs began to emerge, the Woods mistress count includes two porn stars, a lingerie model and a host of waitresses. L.A.'s Sexual Recovery Institute's Robert Weiss told CBS' "The Early Show" that living very different public and private lives -- keeping covered a "hot bubble of secrets" -- is classic sex addict behavior.

A great web site. You can't get to the top of Google by paying the most. You must also have a great web site. Check out Paul Bond Boots for a gorgeous web site.

Hanukhah starts tonight at sundown. It known as the Festival of Lights. It is an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BCE. Hanukkah is observed for eight nights.

Each night a candle (or light) is lit on a special candelabrum, the nine-branched Menorah or Hanukiah. An extra light called a shamash (Hebrew: "guard" or "servant") is also lit each night for the purpose of lighting the others, and is given a distinct location, usually above or below the rest.

I bought this while out in Portland, OR. It's Patagonia's Micro Puff vest. It has three pluses. It's superlightweight. It fits me snugly. It kept me warm in cold Portland. I look sexy in it.

It's not easy to buy. Try Moosejaw. $125.

Tiger Woods problems. Scuttlebut around the tennis club is that Tiger got in trouble not because he cheated on his wife, but because he cheated on his mistress.

Absolutely not.

Dear Neil, remember what the Rabbis say:

A modern Orthodox Jewish couple, preparing for a religious wedding meets with their rabbi for counseling.

The man asks, "Rabbi, we realize it's tradition for men to dance with men, and women to dance with women at the reception.But, we'd like your permission to dance together,like the rest of the world."

"Absolutely not," says the rabbi. "It's immodest. Men and women always dance separately."

"So after the ceremonyI can't even dance with my own wife?"

"No," answered the rabbi."It's forbidden."

"Well, okay," says the man,"What about sex? Can we finally have sex?"

"Of course!" replies the rabbi."Sex is a mitzvah, a good thing within marriage, to have children!"

"What about different positions?"asks the man?

"No problem," says the rabbi"It's a mitzvah!"

"Woman on top?" the man asks.

"Sure," says the rabbi."Go for it! It's a mitzvah!"

"Doggy style?"

"Sure! Another mitzvah!"

"On the kitchen table?"

"Yes, yes! A mitzvah!"

"Can we do it on rubber sheets with a bottle of hot oil, a couple of vibrators,a leather harness,a bucket of honey and a porno video?"

"You may indeed. It's all a mitzvah!"

"Can we do it standing up?"

"No." says the rabbi."

"Why not?" asks the man.

"Could lead to dancing!"

This column is about my personal search for the perfect investment. I don't give investment advice. For that you have to be registered with regulatory authorities, which I am not. I am a reporter and an investor. I make my daily column -- Monday through Friday -- freely available for three reasons: Writing is good for sorting things out in my brain. Second, the column is research for a book I'm writing called "In Search of the Perfect Investment." Third, I encourage my readers to send me their ideas, concerns and experiences. That way we can all learn together. My email address is . You can't click on my email address. You have to re-type it . This protects me from software scanning the Internet for email addresses to spam. I have no role in choosing the Google ads on this site. Thus I cannot endorse any, though some look interesting. If you click on a link, Google may send me money. Please note I'm not suggesting you do. Read more about Google AdSense, click here and here.