In Search of the Perfect Investment

Annaly and AGNC are getting a lot of downgrades from “analysts.” Also from readers of this column. The truth is that neither stock — nor the other mortgage reit I like, namely MITT – have fallen significantly. My NLY stock is down 3% — but its high dividend yield — presently around 14.6% — more than compensates. My AGNC are down 1.8%. It’s paying 18.6%. More than compensates.

I don’t believe these stocks are for the faint of heart. Their fundamentals revolve around interest rate spreads (staying constant) and the early pre-payment of residential mortgages, which I don’t see accelerating significantly — certainly not at the rate the negative analysts are forecasting.

You got to have a little faith in their managements, which seem to me to be pretty good. Still, I watch them like a hawk.

The reality is that stocks paying a dividend tend to do better than stocks not paying a dividend. Which is why I checked out a site called Dividend.com for its top picks. You’ll notice that some are losing money — dividend yield less % off 52 week high minus. Some are not.

VectorVest’s crazy portfolio.You see their ads on bubblevision. Like all services, they do good and bad. My friends tell me their calls on the market are pretty good. Right now the general market is not overpriced, nor underpriced, i.e. not a screaming buy. What VectorVest does occasionally very well is to pick portfolios. Here’s one of interest:

4805 shrs of BPZ —
8364 shrs of CYBI
9799 shrs of HIMX
6490 shrs of MTSN
4208 shrs of MEMS
4899 shrs of MOSY
5447 shrs of NLST
5522 shrs of ODP
4336 shrs of RDN
6469 shrs of SLTN

Yet more airline tips:

+ Cheapest flights are about 6 weeks before departure. The best time to buy is late Wednesday or Thursday morning. — from reader Don Twist.

+ There remains no single airline booking site — whether Kayak, Expedia or Orbitz, etc. — that will let you check out all the airlines flying the route you want to travel. These sites ignore the cheaper, but perfectly fine airlines like Allegiant and JetBlue. Let’s say you want to fly into Palm Springs, California. I don’t know of any simple way of finding a list of all the airlines flying there. One way is to call your local travel agent. They seem to have better airline booking services than what’s available on the Internet. Maybe a reader knows of a comprehensive site on the Internet?

Adobe’s Photoshop is getting better. It’s already the best photo editing software, and the choice of all professionals. You can download a free beta version of the new Photoshop CS6 here. Be aware Photoshop is an immensely complex piece of software. I use it every day to amend, fix and improve the images I run on this site. I  figure I use about 5% of Photoshop’s abilities. That’s not because I’m stupid but because I’ve not invested the time to learn more. I’ve learned the parts of it I need. You can read about Photoshop CD6’s new skills here. The new, free beta is available for Macs and Windows.

Windows 7 is better. I’m changing my mind. I recently bought a Lenovo ThinkPad X220 running Windows 7 64-bit with a fast Intel i7 processor  and 8 gigabytes of memory — ie. top of the line. Around $1,500. It works faster and more pleasurably than my Windows XP machine.

One key improvement: the new machine addresses the full 8 gigs of memory, as against the 3 gigs XP can only address. Hence the new machine hasn’t run out of memory. The XP maxes memory often as I write this column and futz with images and multiple software programs open simultaneously. That’s a tentative endorsement. I haven’t moved completely over. I’m writing today on XP.

Fixing the new machine with software I need has meant scouring the web for software that works on 64-bit — my XP was 32-bit — and then spending the time to configure the software the way I like. All this takes time and patience. By the time I do move over, I will have invested at least ten hours of basically wasted time. Such is the price of  “progress.”

Please beware of the Apple nazis. Every Apple owner will try to convert you to Apple. Rarely has a brand inspired this much mindless enthusiasm or this much dogma. If you don’t drink their kool-aid, you’re a bad (and worse, stupid) person who’s antediluvian, i.e. fighting modern times.

In fact, Apple’s laptops are an acquired taste. You can do everything — and more — on them than on a Windows  machine. But — and this is the BIG but — you can’t easily move everything you have on Windows over to a Mac machine. There are differences between the way Macs and Windows encode files and run software — even software with the same name.

Start from scratch, both machines will serve you fine. Moving from one to the other can be a royal pain.

There, you were warned.

Logic for our  times.

We met a very old neighbor shuffling along with a cane in his hand.

“Good morning,” we called out. “How are you these days?”

“Not well,” said the man in a feeble voice. “I used to walk around the block every morning before breakfast. Now I feel so weak I can only get halfway and then have to turn around and come back.”

Harry Newton who feels lucky. Son Michael and daughter-in-law Anne are visiting us for a long weekend. This is Michael with Rosie yesterday afternoon after we played tennis, hot-tubbed  and swam.

This is my favorite daughter-in-law Anne enjoying the local pool. It was 80 and the distant mountains glistened in the afternoon sun. California’s Coachella Valley has major charms in March, not July.

Before they left Portland, their plane had to be de-iced. Portland, Oregon, is enjoying its normal, awful weather — except for those 17 minutes of sun in July.

This is our anniversary weekend. 36 years of blissful marriage.