In Search of the Perfect Investment

Here’s the VIX over ten years.

Friends are worried that the market is too complacent. One writes “The real story is the VIX and total complacency and lack of volatility–That’s usually right before the sh*t hits the fan.”Wikipedia explains VIX:

VIX is a trademarked ticker symbol for the Chicago Board Options Exchange Market Volatility Index, a popular measure of the implied volatility of S&P 500 index options. Often referred to as the fear index or the fear gauge, it represents one measure of the market’s expectation of stock market volatility over the next 30 day period.

I personally think his concern is overdone. The reality is that corporate America is — on the whole — doing pretty well. Productivity is up. Interest rates will stay down for at least another 2-3 years. Corporate profits will keep rising. Only problem? Lagging employment.

But as housing comes back, it will absorb many of the young unemployed.

A friend bought a multi-family residential property. The bank gave him a loan at 3.1% for 80% of the LTV (loan to value). The loan amortizes, which means he pays off the principal each year. Amazingly cheap financing.

Paul Jacobs keynote presentation to CES — a video. Click here.   I like the new vision at Qualcomm.

 Sad reading. Letter from Caracas. “Slumlord. What has Hugo Chávez wrought in Venezuela?” From the latest New Yorker. Excerpt:

 Hugo Chávez has said that he wants to remake Venezuela into “a sea of happiness and of real social justice and peace.” His pronounced goal was to elevate the poor. In Caracas, the country’s capital, the results of his fitful campaign are plain to see. For decades, as one of the world’s most oil-rich nations, Venezuela had a growing middle class, with an impressively high standard of living. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the rest of Latin America and from Europe helped give Caracas a reputation as one of the region’s most attractive and modern cities. That city is barely perceptible today. After decades of neglect, poverty, corruption, and social upheaval, Caracas has deteriorated beyond all measure. It has one of the highest homicide rates in the world; last year, in a city of three million, an estimated thirty-six hundred people were murdered, or about one every two hours. The murder rate in Venezuela has tripled since Chávez took office. Caracas is a failed city, and the Tower of David is perhaps the ultimate symbol of that failure. The Tower, a ziggurat of mirrored glass topped by a great vertical shaft, rises forty-five stories above the city. It is visible from everywhere in Caracas, which is still mostly a city of modest buildings. The Tower is named after David Brillembourg, a banker who made a fortune during Venezuela’s oil boom, in the seventies. In 1990, Brillembourg launched the construction of the complex, which he hoped would become Venezuela’s answer to Wall Street. But he died in 1993, while it was still under construction, and shortly after his death a banking crisis wiped out a third of the country’s financial institutions. The construction, sixty per cent complete, came to a halt, and never resumed. Seen from a distance, the Tower gives no indication that there is anything wrong with it. Closer up, however, the irregularities in its façade are clearly evident. In places, glass panels are missing and the gaps have been boarded up; elsewhere satellite dishes poke out like toadstools. The whole complex is an unfinished concrete hulk-one in which people are living. Roughly built brick houses, similar to the ones that cover the hillsides around Caracas like scabs, have filled vacant spaces between many of the floors. Only the upper floors are open to the air, like platforms for a great wedding cake. Guillermo Barrios, the dean of architecture at the Universidad Central, says: “Every regime has its architectural imprimatur, its icon, and I have no doubt that the architectural icon of this regime is the Tower of David. It embodies the urban policy of this regime, which can be defined by confiscation, expropriation, governmental incapacity, and the use of violence.”

To read more,  click here.

Thoughts from the long weekend.

+ The more you own, the more maintenance you’ll need. The more computerized your car or your boiler), the more expensive your repairs will be.

+ Please re-read their emails before you send them. Emails with typos, spelling mistake and grammatical errors create such a lousy impression.

+ Your junk email folder often has the emails you’re looking for.

+ NewSkin remains best for fixing boo-boos.

The Australian Tennis Open is on. The previous day’s matches  are on The Tennis Channel during the day. It’s playing live on ESPN2 beginning at 9 PM and going through the night. Australia is 16 hours ahead of EST in the U.S. and 13 hours ahead of the west coast.

The lesson from yesterday is the value of perseverance. Ferrer is is down two sets and 5-3 and he comes back and wins the match. That’s a testimony to huge mental fitness.

Using an iPad? The Zagg keyboard is really great. Nice to type on. It holds the iPad firmly. It weighs nothing. It folds up nicely. It becomes a beautiful protective case for your iPad. I see people using them on the subway. $87. Best iPad accessory, bar none. Click here.

 

 

Favorite recent New Yorker cartoons.

The Australian Tennis Open continues. The previous day’s matches  are on The Tennis Channel during the day. It’s playing live on ESPN2 beginning at 9 PM and going through the night. Australia is 16 hours ahead of EST in the U.S. and 13 hours ahead of the west coast.

The lesson from yesterday is the value of perseverance. Ferrer is is down two sets and 5-3 and he comes back and wins the match. That’s a testimony to huge mental fitness. A lesson for anyone in business. Translation: Get on the phone and sell. I remain stunned at how businesses return their phone calls. Item: One advertiser on the Tennis Channel is Sportsmaster. They don’t return their phone calls or emails. Why both advertising? Yuch.

Harry Newton, who eyes SITO. It’s up three-fold. Perhaps time to take a little off the table? I’m still mulling those Vanguard index funds.