Tends in recent weeks:
+ Investors flock to dividend-paying stocks, including the high-yielding REITs (AGNC, MITT, NLY, ARR) which are running with the bulls. Interest rates are staying low, hence the interest in dividends.
+ Big cap stocks are doing well. The New York Times did a piece: Giant Stocks Are Walking Tall Again. Excerpt:
MEGACAP stocks, which in 2000 had a frothy price-to-earnings ratio of 33, are now trading at 13 times estimated earnings. By comparison, shares of medium-size companies have an average P/E ratio of 16, while the figure for small companies is nearly 20.
Full article, here.
+ Many tech stocks are under serious pressure, e.g.
The key is to figure which tech stocks are bound for the garbage heap while they’re still pricey. I remain short, RSH, RIMM and HPQ. I suspect Facebook could fall much further.
Do not open any emails from anybody at Yahoo. Over 450,000 Yahoo email addresses got hacked, i.e. compromised. I recently received an email from my daughter, allegedly. The “from” address is
Claire Newton [hampton.jermey@yahoo.com]
I don’t know anyone by that name. She doesn’t either. If I went to the site the email is pointing me too, I think I’d be in big trouble.
To repeat: Do not open any emails from anybody at Yahoo.
They gave their father an iPad for his birthday. He found it very useful. You’ll die laughing. Please watch the short clip.
My Continuing Obsession with backing up. If I started again, I’d buy Apple computers without hesitation. Steve Jobs left behind a real company devoted to improving and simplifying Apple’s customers’ experiences. Bill Gates left behind a bureaucratic mess in which each employee spends his life protecting his own tushy and not improving Microsoft’s customers. Several weeks ago, I moved from Windows XP to the newer Windows 7. The experience has been a total nightmare with huge swaths of my time wasted trying to get Windows 7 to work the way I want it to work. I finally got my Windows 7 machine backed up and cloned — using FreeFileSync and the Aluratek external SATA hard drive duplicator. That’s taken several weeks. Microsoft’s own backup system, FileSync2, simply doesn’t work.
Now read how much easier things are on a Mac. This email is from my friend Dan Critchett:
Thank you so much for recommending the Apricorn backup drive and exhorting “Backup Backup Backup” in your column. A while back I fried my MacBookPro by spilling Gatorade into it on a train ride. (Note to self: Do not put computer and Gatorade in same bag anymore.) Although I was devastated that I had to go out and spend 1800 bucks on a new computer I was even more devastated that it would take days, if not weeks, to get my life back together trying to recreate the world. (Computer = World, right?) The Apple rep and I discussed how they could take the hard drive out and in a couple days days–days?–clone it to a new computer IF the hard drive hadn’t been damaged, blah blah blah. As they were testing the dead machine in the back, however, he off-handedly asked me whether I use Time Machine, Apple’s proprietary backup software that requires absolutely no brains at all to use. (You just tell the MacBook to turn it on and what drive to use.) I said sure, I guess it backs stuff up onto my Apricorn. He said, “Oh, forget it, just take the new computer home and plug in the Apricorn.” I said, “But what about all my browser preferences, folder structure, downloaded programs, applets, add-ons, and…all that other stuff. It’s going to take forever to set it all up again.” And he said, “Trust me, just do it”.
Well, I went home, turned on the new MacBook and, no joke, the first thing that appeared on the screen was: “Do you want to set up this MacBook as a new computer or clone an old one?” I clicked “Clone”. It asked me to be sure my Apricorn was plugged in and told me to click “Start”. I did and it replied, “See you in a couple hours, Dan”. Well it didn’t say exactly that, but I went to lunch anyway and when I came back: there was my exact previous computer in front of me, right down to the desktop, the add-ons and start-up programs, files, virtual Dropbox files, browser preferences…even the previous volume setting. The whole process took 3 minutes and a long lunch, and I was left feeling like the luckiest guy in the world and oh my what are we ever going to do now that Steve Jobs is dead.
Apricorn: best $100 I ever spent. Harry Newton: best guy I ever met.
For The Best Benefits, Take an Ultra-Brief Nap. From Lifehacker.
Naps are a great way to recharge our brains and boost our energy, but we don’t always have time for long siestas. Good news: Research published in Sleep suggests the best nap length is just ten minutes.
Australian researchers studied twenty-four young adults who sleep well at night but don’t normally nap. The participants napped for 5, 10, 20, and 30 minutes (plus a control of no napping) and then were measured across a range of benefits for three hours afterwards. The results:
The 5-minute nap produced few benefits in comparison with the no-nap control. The 10-minute nap produced immediate improvements in all outcome measures (including sleep latency, subjective sleepiness, fatigue, vigor, and cognitive performance), with some of these benefits maintained for as long as 155 minutes. The 20-minute nap was associated with improvements emerging 35 minutes after napping and lasting up to 125 minutes after napping. The 30-minute nap produced a period of impaired alertness and performance immediately after napping, indicative of sleep inertia, followed by improvements lasting up to 155 minutes after the nap.
We’ve seen before that naps that are too long or timed poorly can actually backfire.
While the perfect amount of time you should nap for may vary, if you’re not sure how long to snooze or your naps just aren’t cutting it, give the ten-minute power nap (also known as a nano nap) a try.
Personally I prefer 20 minute naps. Experiment to figure what’s right for you. For the full piece click here.
How not to convince me to invest in your business. Actual recent conversation:
Harry: You’re the CEO and founder?
Him: Yes.
Harry: You’re had a successful career as an entrepreneur and businessman, so far?
Him: Yes.
Harry: You’re not investing anything in your new business — the one you want me to invest in?
Him: Correct.
Harry: Why not?
Him: I just went through a major divorce.
What would you do? I said, No, thank you.
Fixing the house up? A new kitchen? A new bathroom? Visit Houzz. Over half a million pictures of bathrooms, kitchens, bedrooms, exteriors etc.Sample photo:
Friends used Houzz for ideas for their revamped kitchen. Be careful. They said the site was “addictive.” You can waste many happy hours fantasizing what your house might look like if only you had the money (and were willing to put up with many months of contractors.) Click here.
Harry Newton who loves small-town America. The town of Spencertown, New York, held a retirement party for Sandy Jackson, our postmistress for 23 1/2 years. Here is Sandy seated among some of her 16 grandchildren and great grandchildren. She is receiving accolades and presents from her daughter, Holly.
Several hundred residents turned up to honor Sandy, who is universally loved in our little town, 127 miles north of New York City.
Thanks Lucky-I will look into that one!
Hi Harry-what is you suggestion/solution for a new home printer. I hate the razor/blade gotcha where the printer is fairly cheap but you pay through the nose for color and black cartridges! Is the best deal to just buy a new printer at Costco when the old one runs outs of ink?
My HP Laserjet color printer has not run out of ink in 5 years…I do not print a lot…was told the first ink cartridges might not last long…I am still waiting. The higher cost (less online) is worth the price to me, for the high quality I receive.
Harry, Many thanks for drawing my attention to ARR — got some, got more, so far very happy with it.
Gotta love those Norman Rockwell small towns — misguided liberal politics have ruined most of the mega-cities. ie Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, Cleveland,San Francisco and yes, New York.
cheers, :>D
I lived in Stockbridge Massachusetts, home of Norman Rockwell. Great small town.
Wanna know who my neighbors were?
Norman Mailer
Arlo Guthrie
Glenda Jackson
Eli Wallach
James Taylor
Of course Hawthorn, WEB DuBois more in the past…
And lots more writers, musicians, painters, and all types of artists. All Liberals? Who knows, and more importantly, who gives a f?
Yes wonderful people live in small towns, some of them Liberal, some not. Same with big cities.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a Conservative, but there is something very wrong with being bigoted and ignorant… -not saying you're either of those but to postulate Big City = Bad and Liberal, Small Town = Conservative, Good… is silly.
Au contraire, my friend. From Jefferson forward, all of urban history teaches us that inhuman scale and the politics of social engineering in places like Mexico City and Bejing finally leads to corruption and collapse. Obviously, some big cities work better than others. Why is that, I ask you?
A spammer doesn't need to hack someone's email. They just spoof the email address.
Divorce is the greatest “liquidator” of wealth….and in vast majority of situations, it is the man's wealth that is savagely reduced to a mere shadow of its original amount…………!!! The emotional devastation is priceless………The “ex” and the attorneys get all the money….a skeleton remains after the vultures have picked the bones clean………!!