In Search of the Perfect Investment

The world’s central banks are pumping money into their economies. (See the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal.) That’s good. What’s bad is they have to. Recent economic news has not been buoyant.

In this world, you can’t be bullish or bearish. And you cannot predict anything. You have to be super-vigilant. Keep those stops tight. About the only constant is that there’s a huge amount of money sloshing around looking for a little yield, a little pop, a little anything. From today’s Journal:

Investors like Alessio de Longis, a portfolio manager at Oppenheimer Funds, which has $182 billion under management, have been buying currencies of countries such as Poland, Norway, Mexico and Canada, whose central banks are seen as less likely to act to push down their currencies against the U.S. dollar.

Would you take this gamble? Poland? Mexico? Norway? ??

AGNC and MTGE went ex-dividend yesterday. That’s why they fell. They always fall after the last date on which you’re entitled to the latest dividend.

You can see how the stock tends to bounce back after the dividend (in blue).

I like Business Insider because it’s quirky and fun (though not usually relevant). It’s a financial “news” site run by Henry Blodget who was famously banned from Wall Street for life after his emails revealed that he didn’t believe many of his public recommendations for Merill Lynch. Recent Business Insider stories I enjoyed:

+ The 10 Most Notorious Doomsayers On Wall Street. Click here. My favorite is Marc Faber. Earlier this year, Faber guaranteed that we’d be in a global recession by Q4 or early 2013.  In a recent interview, he warned that Fed policy would “destroy the world.”

+ The 10 Worst Hyper-Inflation Horror-Stories Of The Past Century. Click here.

+ How 9 Countries Completely Lost Control Of Inflation. Click here.

+ Jim Chanos Is Finding Short Opportunities All Over The Place. Click here.

+ 11 Crazy Things People Used To Think Were Healthy. Click here.

+ 7 Healthy Foods You Should Be Eating, But Probably Aren’t. Click here.

Sign up for its free newsletter. You’ll get alerted to the fun stuff. Click here.

The iPhone 5 now does 4G/LTE. It’s faster than most of us have at home — through a cable modem or a paltry DSL line. Huge speed makes a huge difference. Suddenly, your smartphone becomes a real tool for getting things done. Trust me on this one. You want 4G. I haven’t touched the new iPhone 5. But I have used, and use Verizon’s 4G/LTE (on Verizon’s MiFi device — see right hand column). It’s amazing.

4G/LTE is the reason to switch to Verizon and the reason I’ll be switching the moment I come back. Here are 4G maps courtesy CNN.

Makes your decision (and my decision) easy? As to the iPhone 5, David Pogue of the New York Times writes:

If you have an iPhone 4S, getting an iPhone 5 would mean breaking your two-year carrier contract and paying a painful penalty; maybe not worth it for the 5’s collection of nips and tucks. But if you’ve had the discipline to sit out a couple of iPhone generations — wow, are you in for a treat.

If you’d like to read David’s entire piece, “The iPhone 5 scores well, with a quibble” (the new,  smaller connector), click here.

Abe and Ester in the Pacific.
Abe and Esther are flying to Australia for a two-week vacation to celebrate their 50th anniversary.

Suddenly, the Captain announces: “Ladies and Gentlemen, I have some bad news. Our engines have failed. We must make an emergency landing. Luckily, I see an uncharted island. We will land on the beach. We may never be rescued. we may have to live on the island for the rest of our lives!”

The plane lands safely on the island.

An hour later Abe turns to his wife and asks,

“Esther, did we pay our Visa and MasterCard bill yet?”

“No, sweetheart,” she responds.

Abe, still shaken from the crash landing, then asks, “Esther, did we pay our American Express card yet?”

“Oh, no! I’m sorry. I forgot to send the check,” she says.

“One last thing Esther. Did you remember to send the installment check to the IRS this month?” he asks.

“Oh, forgive me, Abe,” begged Esther. “I didn’t send that one, either.”

Abe grabs her and gives her the biggest kiss in 40 years.

Esther pulls away and asks him, “What was that for?”

Abe answers, “They’ll find us. They’ll find us.”

Harry Newton who is going to Granada to see the Alhambra palace and fortress complex. It was built during the 10th century. Moorish poets, according to Wikipedia, described it as “a pearl set in emeralds” — an allusion to the color of its buildings and the woods around it. Neat?