VectorVest has issued a Confirmed Down signal. This means it thinks the market is going down and last week’s down movement was just the beginning. The warning is:
Prudent Investors should take and/or protect profits and not buy stocks at this time.
Aggressive Investors and Traders should play the market to the downside.
What do I make of this? VV has a pretty good record on market calls. Hence I’m cautious, certainly staying away from “hot” stocks with huge P/Es, but searching for nice stocks, with good buzz and nice earnings growth.
P.S. VectorVest’s “crazy” portfolio which I mentioned recently is now down 10%.
Evaluating real estate. I’m eying a syndication of a commercial office building being bought today for exactly half what it sold last for in 2005. The price you pay for a property is the major determinant of the success of your investment in the property. You should re-read this sentence several times. Accept the fact that you cannot influence what rents are, what interest rates are on borrowing, how much you’ll spend on fixing up the property for new tenants and how much you’ll sell it. It all depends on how much you pay upfront.
Rents have come down dramatically. But there are tenants around at lower lease prices. The economy is picking up, albeit slowly.
Long distance with VoIP.32% of American households (and rising fast) don’t have landlines at their house. They use their cell phones. For people with poor cell phone reception landlines remain critical. Getting long distance and international service from a landline is a quagmire. your phone will probably rip you off with a high monthly flat rate service, which you’ll probably never use. There are so-called long distance providers that you can be equal accessed to. And we used one until they cut us off because my credit bounced — it was hacked and Citu changed the card. And the long distance provider decided it was no longer in that business. Which forced me to hunt around for another alternative. (This gives boredom a whole new meaning.) The good news is that I found netTalk. It’s totally super. It’s about the size of cigarette box. It has three plugs — one for a phone, one for an RJ-45 standard Ethernet connection to your broadband service (i.e. your router) and one for power:
That netTalk costs just under $50 one time charge, but that includes a year’s worth of unlimited phone calls (the U.S. and Canada) and your own phone number, which you choose from a list they give you.
You can plug netTalk into your home cordless and use it around your house or office. Many people use netTalk as their only home phone – it will make and receive — just give your friends your new number.
I made and received many calls on netTalk on the weekend. I gotta say: it’s the best quality phone service I’ve spoken on for years. It’s crystal clear. Everyone I called was impressed.
You can buy the netTalk for $49.95 from Walmart. NetTalk is just out with a WiFi version, which is just out and costs a little more. I haven’t tested the Wifi unit. I’ generally prefer to plug in. You get stronger signal strength. Oh yes, I’m running netTalk on a DSL in the country, miles from civilization. And its sound is better than the landline the local erstwhile bankrupt phone company (Fairpoint) delivers.
How to search any web site, including this one.
Google searches and indexes my blogs and your comments. Let’s say you are looking for my favorite iPad apps (the ones I mentioned recently. Type this into your Google search box:
favorite ipad apps inurl:technologyinvestor.com
You can read more on how Google searches in Google:Inside Search and Google Search Features. The latter is most interesting since it will tell you how to use Google to convert temperatures, find stock quotes, find the time in Sydney, Australia, find a restaurants, and get movie times in your area.
The key to successful searching is to keep your search simple. search for one or two words. Try different words with the same meaning. What you remember may not be the precise words I used.
You can search for companies, e.g.
aapl inurl:TechnologyInvestor.com
Google doesn’t care about capital letters.
Don’t use the url www.InSearchOfThePerfectInvestment.com. It’s not a real site. It’s simply a site that points all its visitors to the main site, which is called www.TechnologyInvestor.com. There’s no logic for this. It’s historical. I started with tech stocks on www.TechnologyInvestor, but then broadened the focus when I discovered others stocks.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email me.
Favorite recent New Yorker cartoons:
Harry Newton who just bought 51% in a vampire search company.
This makes me now the main stake holder.
Sorry about that.
The new MagicJack no longer needs a computer, like the old one did. (I think the new one is called MagicJack Plus.) With the new one, you plug it into a wall for power, attach your phone, and attach a broadband cable. Thats it, no computer needed. The only thing you need to provide is the broadband service. It sounds identical to NetTalk.
I bought a MagicJack several years ago and it was a bunch of junk…I got my money back. I am sure they have improved it by now, however, as near as I can determine you “must” keep your computer running 24 hours per day for it to work…no sleep mode…running full speed! MagicJack may not operate well with all computers.
NetTalk, on the other hand, seems to work off your router but not necessarily “wireless”. Neither works in the event of power or internet access failure…simple CELL like TrakFone would be good idea for emergency back-up. Google both of them and check out user comments.
I use SKYPE all the time and find it works great now, after several years of getting the bugs out.
Also, SKYPE, has great video for computer to computer with friends and grand kids.
How's that AAPL working out for you? Hit your stops?
Harry
Since you already did research on some alternatives to long distant phone systems, have you looked into MagicJack? Can you contrast this with NetTalk for us? MagicJack is all over TV. The ad says they charge just 19.95/year (I dont know if there are other charges or what it costs for the second year), is also available at WallMart, and also RadioShack, and the description sounds to be exactly as NetTalk is above. Just plug in a regular phone, a power cable, and plug into your internet. I have a friend who has MagicJack as a second (backup)phone line and he says it is great.
You said NetTalk is a one-time $50 which includes a year’s worth of unlimited phone calls – what happens the second year? No charge?
And, I am assuming both of these services can also be used for local calls. You obviously have to have internet service for both of these services, so if you have that, and TV, from your cable company, you get the phone line at basically the same price per month (the so-called triple-play.) That is why my friend has Magic Jack as a second phone line, cable already provides the primary line. However, if you can drop cable TV and move to internet TV (Hulu, YouTube), then either of these VOIP offerings could become your primary line.
I have no tried the MagicJack. According to my reading, they both throw in the first year's calling with the price of the equipment and then they charge $20 to $30 for the next and subsequent years' calling.. So far I really like the netTalk's quality.