Stops. Unpredictability. Risk management. You can’t predict. So you put in tight stops. They protected us when gold fell.
But I got out too late. I should have tightened my stops to 8%. Then I would have been out at $175 in mid August. I let my emotions rule and stayed in too long. Dumb.
Gold fell because of three reasons: Hedge funds selling gold to finance redemptions. The Indians bought less. Click here. And it had risen too fast. See my first line.
Gold will come back, perhaps in the New Year. For now, I’m watching and mulling.
Friends swear by investment rebalancing. The concept is you don’t know which category of investment is going to do well that year. So, buy an array of different assets — let’s say ten mutual funds. Spread your money evenly over the ten funds. Every six months or so, re-balance your holdings by reducing the ones now above 10% and buy more of the ones that have fallen under 10%. The technique is explained in this book:
The preferred funds are from a company called DFA, as in Dimensional Fund Advisors. But you can’t buy their funds if you’re not a client. (Of course, you can easily become a client. Click here. They have a stellar, consistent track record.) If you’re not a client, you can choose Vanguard funds. Here’s a chart that explains which Vanguard funds. Click here.
While the Congress debates 100 WATT light bulbs. I like saving money. I can clearly save money by replacing my incandescents with compact fluorescents (CFLs). A 100 WATT CFL uses only 23 WATTs, lasts ten times as long and these days costs roughly the same as an incandescent.
But these are two issues: First, the BIG issue, the spouse issue. Wives think the light CFLs give out is awful, sort of greenish and harsh. They don’t want them in their house, no matter how much they save.
I went to Bryan Trainor, VP Marketing at Bulbs.com and said “Prove my Susan wrong, send me one each of your best 60, 75 and 100 WATT CFLs.” He did. The 60 and 75 WATT CFLs are from Philips. The 100 WATT is from EcoWatt. All three are called “soft white light.”
All three produce a light that, behind a shade, is identical to incandescent light. Soft and warm.
OK. They look fine. They save money. So? They don’t fit in many fixtures. CFLs are often larger than incandescents. Some are much larger.I can’t fit most CFLs into ceiling top hat fixtures. Here’s why. Here are Bryan’s three bulbs:
The stronger ones are not only taller, they’re also wider.
Bicycle pump to go. My main bicycle had a flat tire. It cost $60 for a new inner and outer tube. Better than taxiing my crippled bike to the bike store would have been riding it. That would have required a tiny hand pump. Here’s the best one. It’s from Germany. It’s called a Lezyne Alloy Drive High Volume Hand Pump.
Buy it on sale for $26 here. I bought mine for $45. Dumb me.
70% of our economy is consumer sales. That includes these things. I found both in my local Rite-Aid pharmacy. Which would you buy?
If you were an advertising copywriter, which line would you choose, “Get toasty warm from head to toe!” or “The Blanket That Has Sleeves!“
These have real benefits, according to copy writers. For example, the Snuggie says you can read a book, use your laptop, talk on the phone. Forever Lazy says it has deep pockets, two-way zipper, a cozy hood and a zippered back hatch.
Susan says I find stuff like this endlessly fascinating “because I don’t get out very often.”
She’s right.
A touching Christmas story
A married couple had been out shopping at the mall for most of the afternoon. Suddenly, the wife realized that her husband had ‘disappeared’.
The somewhat irate wife called her mate’s cell phone and demanded: “Where the hell are you?”
Husband: “Darling, do you remember that jewelery shop where you saw the diamond necklace and totally fell in love with it and I didn’t have money that time and I said, ‘Baby, it’ll be yours one day’?”
Wife, with a smile and blushing: “Yes, I remember that my Love.”
Husband: “Well, I’m in the bar next to that shop.”
Harry Newton who wonders why he still can’t beat Skip at tennis. Other than losing, it was a nice weekend.
CFL Bulbs are like politicians. They're dim, very crooked, and you can't get rid of them!
I would buy neither…I would just wear my dressing gown backwards!
Harry, you are correct on the GOLD comment, you COULD have gotten out at 175. Rules don't do any good if you don't follow them and your 8% (or 5% after a fast move) is a good rule…. it works both ways, Up and Down.
Also, there are two ways to go blind, one is trying to figure out why the price changes. The simple answer is there have been more SELLERs, therefore the prices go South.