In Search of the Perfect Investment

Equities will languish with the political uncertainty. CEOs are wary. Polls suggest an even race. Personally I’m convinced Romney will win.

Learning timing is key. The volatility of today’s economy — fads and products coming and going faster than ever — is turning us all into “day traders.” Check out natural gas, Apple, Google. Trust your instincts. Measure the momentum. Not easy.

Fascinating article on natural gas and its horrible impact on investors. Excerpt:

At its peak, Chesapeake (Energy) ran 38 rigs in the region. All told, it has sunk more than 1,200 wells into the Haynesville, a gas-rich vein of dense rock that straddles Louisiana and Texas. Fed by a gold-rush mentality and easy money from Wall Street, Chesapeake and its competitors have done the same in other shale fields from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania.

For most of the country, the result has been cheaper energy. The nation is awash in so much natural gas that electric utilities, which burn the fuel in many generating plants, have curbed rate increases and switched more capacity to gas from coal, a dirtier fossil fuel.

Companies and municipalities are deploying thousands of new gas-powered trucks and buses, curbing noxious diesel fumes and reducing the nation’s reliance on imported oil.

And companies like fertilizer and chemical makers, which use gas as a raw material, are suddenly finding that the United States is an attractive place to put new factories, compared with, say, Asia, where gas is four times the price. Dow Chemical, which uses natural gas as a material for producing plastics, has assembled a list of 91 new manufacturing projects, representing $70 billion in potential investment and up to three million jobs, that various companies have proposed or begun because of cheap gas.

“The country has stumbled into a windfall on the backs of these entrepreneurs,” said Edward Hirs, a finance professor at the University of Houston who contributed to a report that estimated that the nation’s economy benefited by more than $100 billion last year alone from the lower gas prices.

But while the gas rush has benefited most Americans, it’s been a money loser so far for many of the gas exploration companies and their tens of thousands of investors.

The drillers punched so many holes and extracted so much gas through hydraulic fracturing that they have driven the price of natural gas to near-record lows. And because of the intricate financial deals and leasing arrangements that many of them struck during the boom, they were unable to pull their foot off the accelerator fast enough to avoid a crash in the price of natural gas, which is down more than 60 percent since the summer of 2008.

Read the entire piece here.

How to get Google Maps back on your iPhone. Click here.

Shorts to eye:

+ BestBuy. Showrooming continues to hurt Best Buy, especially as Amazon speeds up its delivery. Big depressing weekend article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Click here.

+ Caterpillar. Global turndown. Slowing in China.

+ Microsoft. Slowing software sales, especially Windows 8. Windows 7 works and companies like it.

+ Google. Limited growth in Internet advertising.

+ Intel. Ditto.

+ Yahoo. Ditto.

Great salesmanship..

Harry: Do you think Rosie is getting fat?

June, dog-walker: No. Rosie is perfect.

Rosie on the weekend. Cute?

Tying your stuff into your TV. Your PC, Mac and digital camera will display their stuff on your large-screen TV — which is an impressive way to surf the Internet, watch a movie you’ve downloaded or simply show pictures off your camera. The good news is that increasingly all these devices have standardized on 16 x 9 aspect ratio and 1080p high definition. This photo is me surfing the Net on my laptop connected to a 42 inch Samsung LED. I like this arrangement for showing travel pictures and movies.

Here’s how it works: All digital TVs have an HDMI female connector — designed to connect to your cable or satellite box. Typically you’ll use a male to male cable, say 6 feet. To connect your laptop you’ll need a mini-DisplayPort to maxi connector . Get the one with audio support — this one. To connect your digital camera to your TV, you’ll need a mini-HDMI to HDMI connector — this one.

The first will set you back $13. This one  $1.50. More fun looking at your brilliance on a big screen.

The perfect investment. Get on board quickly.

This is totally tasteless. If I offend anyone, please accept my sincere apology.

A Canadian engineer just started his own business in Afghanistan .

He’s making land mines that look like prayer mats.

The business doing well.

He says prophets are going through the roof.

Harry Newton who eyes another sleepy time: tonight, debate time. Starts at 9 PM. Moderator: Bob Schieffer (Host of Face the Nation on CBS). The format for the debate will be the same as the first presidential debate. It will focus on foreign policy. You can watch the full video of earlier ones. Click here.

Bloomberg has tough words for both candidates. Bloomberg is our talented Mayor. Click here.