In Search of the Perfect Investment

Hoorah for my RIMM short. It’s losing money and it can’t get its promised new products out on time. Down the gurgler more.

Hoorah for my RadioShack short. I’ve even given up buying batteries there. They don’t last long.

Hoorah for AGNC.  it just keeps on edging up. And it’s still paying a 15.94% yield.

My living expenses are escalating — largely because of things out of my control like skyrocketing real estate carrying costs. (See below) I bet yours are, too.

Hence my increasing with gambling less and dividends more. Long live my muni bond portfolio. Thank you Todd again. And thank you to AGNC, NLY, MITT and VWALX, and stabilized real estate with paying tenants.

Nike’s products are great. Its stock less so. Michael and Anne work at Nike. They love the place. And theyve turned me onto great Nike gear, which I proudly wear — n the tennis court or on the gym. I figured if I like their products, I should like their stock. That’s Peter Lynch’s investment philosophy. I bought the stock and recommended it. In fact, it went up for a little while when there was much buzz about Nike. Then it fell.

After it had fallen about 6%, I dumped the stock. I had no idea if anything was wrong. I simply invoked my stop loss order. Well, somebody must hve know something, because last night Nike reported lower profits:

June 29 (Bloomberg) — Nike Inc., the world’s largest sporting-goods company, tumbled after fourth-quarter profit unexpectedly declined for the first time since 2009 as marketing and labor costs increased.

And this morning the stock will fall even further. The moral of this story: An inviolate stop loss protects your tushy.

I wish I could short BusinessWeek — the magazine. Last week’s cover story was on the porn business. This week’s is on John Paulson, the wildly successful hedge fund manager.

Read the words, “Nothing could go wrong for John Paulson — until everything did.”

Forbes says Paulson is currently worth $12.5 billion. I mean… let’s get real, BusinessWeek, Is $12.5 billion “The Big Loser.” Are you nuts?

Anyway, the best news is that BusinessWeek’s latest 76-page issue has only 10 paid ads. That’s a miserable ad-edit ratio of 13%. When I was publishing magazines, we had 50% ads. Andwe were profitable. BusinessWeek isn’t. It’s losing money. Trust me. I was a publisher of magazines for nearly 20 years. If BusinessWeek keeps publishing garbage editorial, it won’t have any ads or any editorial.

You can read BusinessWeek’s article on Paulson here. But, don’t bother. You won’t learn anything. Except maybe that BusinessWeek’s reporters are paid a pittance, and Paulson isn’t. And guess who’s jealous?

Wimbledon continues this weekend. There’s been some really great tennis. Yesterday’s upset of Nadal, number two in the world, by Rosol, number 100, was an incredible match. I’m sure they’ll replay it again and again. Watch it. ESPN, with the live matches and the Tennis Channel, with the reruns. Watch in HD. After the match, Nadal said, “It’s not a tragedy. It’s only a tennis match.” Rosol equated his victory with a B soccer team from the Czech Republic beating Real Madrid.

My eyes are short-sighted. That means I need glasses to see anything further than about eight inches. I have three sets of glasses — those for reading, those for computer work (like writing this column) and those for driving and playing tennis. This is a good strategy, which most optometrists won’t suggest. They’ll sit you down in a blackened room and ask you to read letters off a screen that’s simulated to be at infinity. But infinity is not where our eyes spend most of their time. It’s at computer screens — 18 to 24 inches away. Hence my strategy of having three sets of glasses which put my eyes into focus for different activities.

What I’ve also discovered is that my eyes change. in recent weeks, I’ve been doing things with one eye closed, sometimes the right, sometimes the left. Yesterday I hauled myself to my glasses guy. He has this little gadget with four 0.5 lenses — two plus, two minus. You hold it up to your glasses, close one eye and see how you see. I discovered that the left eye on my computer glasses was too strong and needed weakening, while the right eye on my distance glasses need strengthening. I’ll have those lenses changed.

My optometrist man tells me that since some people’s eyes change, it’s not uncommon to need a modified set of glasses every few months. Of course, he’s selling the stuff. But, in my case, I do need new lenses. I do see better with the addiiton of his magic plus or minus 0.5 strength.

Owning real estate is getting prohibitively expensive. I’m now the treasurer of our New York apartment building. When I ask, “Why are we spending this?” the answer I get is usually “The city needs the money.” If we don’t do it, they’ll fine us big-time”

“But it’s an old regulation they never enforced,” I say. “But they are now. They need the money.”

Real estate taxes are rising. Towns are making up new taxes. There’s now a tax on commuters in New York City. A friend got a ticket for 35 in a 30 mile an hour zone upstate New York. “They need the money.”

Susan thinks renting is best. “You leave. You hand them the keys. Let them worry about the various nonsenses of new taxes and new regulations.”

We ought to have a contest on Cell phone etiquette
After a very busy, tiring day at the office, the young woman settled down in her seat and closed her eyes as the train left he station.

As the train rolled out of the station, the guy sitting next to her pulled out his cell phone and started talking in a loud voice: … “Hi sweetheart, it’s Eric, I’m on the train – yes, I know it’s the six thirty and not the four thirty but I had a long meeting – no, honey, not with that floozy from the accounts office, with the boss. No sweetheart, you’re the only one in my life – yes, I’m sure, cross my heart” etc., etc.

Fifteen minutes later, he was still talking loudly, when the woman sitting next to him, who was obviously annoyed by his continuous loud blabbing, yelled:

“Hey, Eric, turn that stupid phone off and come back to bed!”

Eric doesn’t use his cell phone in public any longer.

I told one train blabber that “i was from the SEC and, based on his conversation, he could be indicted for insider trading.”

That shut him up.

You got a good technique? Add yours in Comments below.

Harry Newton who is playing proud father. This is Michael, my son, and his wife, Anne, at last weekend’s wedding of Anne’s sister in Ireland. He’s wearing my shirt. He complains I don’t have enough in his size, i.e. “trim fit.” He’s a lucky man. Anne is gorgeous, smart and bloody talented. She is, of course, my favorite (and only) daughter-in-law.