I screamed at the entrepreneur. He’d fired his CEO, who had pissed away the company’s money, but failed to produce the sales he was hired to produce. It is a story I’ve heard several times in the last few months. Techie entrepreneur makes great product, but can’t sell it. He hires wrong marketing type who binges on the company’s money. The company runs out of money and bingo, it’s back on the money-raising circuit, again. Which is where I come in.
“You have no marketing. You do have a great product.”
“But I’m the president. I founded the company. We’re back on track.”
“No, you’re not. You still don’t have marketing and sales.”
“Give us money and we’ll hire marketing and sales.”
“No. You’ll just do the same stupid thing you did last time.”
Starwood CEO was on CNBC this morning. Ultra-smart guy. Barry Sternlicht. I have them lSTWD as one of the stocks we like — see right hand column. STWD is doing nicely.
Even better, it’s yielding 6.83%
Cash. The biggest bull in analyzing stocks. “Apple has got $100 trillion on their balance sheet.” “Microsoft has $200 trillion (or whatever) on its balance sheet.”
Let’s get this straight. Money on the balance sheet is irrelevant — unless you have something productive to do with it (i.e. making new products that earn profits, that pays a regular high dividend to shareholders, that buys back stock). But sitting on the balance sheet doing nothing … the money has no value.
I’m sick of Apple and all the stupid articles everyone keeps writing about it. I don’t care if its innovation is, or is not over. I don’t care if it has a tax problem with overseas money. I don’t care if it has $500 billion in cash. I don’t care if I can still own Apple? Or whether Apple is bargain, based on a DCF Analysis. I don’t care if the press can’t stop writing about Apple. I can. And that’s all that counts. I made my money on Apple. I got out of it a while back. And I’m still out of it. I’ll revisit Apple when I see them introduce an exciting new product — one I will want. For now I’m out. Meantime, the average Apple analysts price target has fallen to $617. Apple closed last night at $449.83.
Ask and yea shall receive. I have domain name — www.HarryNewton.com. It’s held by Network Solutions. They do nothing except hold the site for me. They send me a renewal notice – $34.99 a year. I called them said “that was ridiculous.” The nice lady dropped it to $24.99. I said that was ridiculous. She said she couldn’t negotiate further. But I could be transferred. They offered $15.99. I offered $10.99. They accepted.
I don’t make this stuff up.
16 Apps for your iPhone that are better than the ones Apple made. The apps include:
+ Mailbox
+ Google Maps
+ Check The Weather
+ Clear — a simple to do list
+ Google Chrome (faster than Safari)
+ Camera+
+ Bloomberg
+ Rise — a better alarm clock
+ Google Voice
+ Prey — better than Find My iPhone
+ AudioMemos, instead of Voice Memos
For the entire list, click here.
Meantime, don’t forget to install Temple Run, the most popular game for the iPhone.. Everybody on the New York subway is playing it. The best game.
Harry’s chairs. Susan convinced me (a) I knew nothing about William Savery mid-1700’s chairs and (b) we didn’t have anywhere to put them.
And then I heard from my friend via SMS that items at the auction were going for many times the amount in the catalog. And I thought, “OK. Susan is right.”
In fact the price suggested in the catalog was $60,000 to $90,000. The chairs went for $50,000. Which, I think, was a bargain. But then what do I know about “important American furniture.”
In successful investing, knowledge is probably useful. I did like the chairs, however. The owner had bought the chairs about 5-8 years ago for $200,000. I’m told he has done better with other things.
As in all investing, knowledge is foremost. Diversification is key.
Fortunately Christie’s runs regular auctions.
How to grab the cheapest airfare. The short answer is 49 days before your departure for domestic and 81 days for international flights. The most expensive time is the day before you fly, with the second worst, two days in advance and the No. 3 spot, three days ahead of time. That pattern sticks through 11 days out, underscoring the need to buy tickets as soon as you can.
The best time to travel is in the middle of all that, spring and fall when prices are discounted, the weather is mostly decent and seasonal places and events are still open. Sunday and Friday flights are going to cost you more than a Tuesday or Wednesday. All this from MarketWatch.
Want a cheap upgrade? Print your boarding pass 23 hours and 59 minutes before departure.
Psychiatrists vs. Bartenders and their “logic”
Ever since i was a child, I’ve always had a fear of someone under my bed at night. So i went to a shrink and told him: ‘I’ve got a problem. Every time I go to bed I think there’s somebody under it. I’m scared. I’m going crazy.’
‘Just put yourself in my hands for one year,’ said the shrink. ‘Come talk to me three times a week and we should be able to get rid of those fears.’
‘How much do you charge?’
‘Eighty dollars per visit,’ replied the doctor.
‘I’ll mull on it.”
Six months later the doctor met me on the street. ‘”Why didn’t you come to see me about those fears you were having?’ he asked.
“Well, Eighty bucks a visit three times a week for a year is a lot of money! A bartender cured me for $10. I was so happy to have saved all that money that I went and bought me a new pickup!”
“Is that so!” he said with an attitude, “and how, may I ask, did a bartender cure you?’
“He told me to cut the legs off the bed! Ain’t nobody under there now!”
The Pickle Slicer
Yossel Zelkovitz worked in a Polish pickle factory. For many years he had a powerful desire to put his penis in the pickle slicer. Unable to stand it any longer, he sought professional help from the factory psychologist.
After six months, the therapist gave up. He advised Yossel to go ahead and do it or he would probably never have any peace of mind.
The next day he came home from work very early.
His wife, Sacha, became alarmed and wanted to know what had happened.
Yossel tearfully confessed his tormenting desire to put his penis in the pickle slicer.
He went on to explain that today he finally went ahead and did it, and he was immediately fired.
Sacha gasped and ran over to her husband. She quickly yanked down his pants and shorts only to find a normal, intact penis.
She looked up and said, “I don’t understand. What about the pickle slicer?”
Yossel replied, “I think she got fired, too.”
Harry Newton, who never ceases to marvel at what a wonderful country we all live in:
“money doing nothing has no value” – True, it has no current value, but it does have potential value. But wait a minute, that could be lost by some dumb marketing manager.
The one trouble with those beautiful ancient chairs, as my grandfather’s dining room set taught me, is they tend to dry out and become fragile. Crack!
Despite Harry’s sage wisdom, the not-so-secret secret for a new, or even experienced, CEO to successfully build a game-changing company is not only to hire a great sales/marketing person, but to find and fully use battle proven, knowledgeable advisors or mentors. Success is no accident, as my chapter in the best seller “The Secret to Winning Big” explains.” Experience counts!
Hey Harry,
Repeatedly for the past two years I’ve been reading this blog, you have written “Cash is king.” It turns out that during that two year period, we were in the throes of one of the great bull market runs of all time, with gains now in excess of 130 percent in the S&P 500. Cash during that period usually paid less than one half of one percent. In light of these stats, how can anyone continue to take you seriously?
Cliff, your comment sounds good because there WAS a big gain. But you can’t really say stocks were the smart move over the last two years. If you gained 130% you were lucky, not smart. Everyone knows that over the last two years, the potential for a huge drop was there. One bomb, or one missle, or one assasination – many things it seemed- could have killed the market in a couple weeks. Economics is a social science not a mathmatical science. People’s fears or confidence move markets. No, the smart money was in cash. Right now, I think the smart money is in stocks for a couple years. The election is over, money is going out of bonds, the FED is pumping up the banks. It’s true, we still could have a major disaster yet to spook the market, so good luck. If some terrible event had happened over the last two years, and the market tanked so badly even the FED couldn’t save it, would you then call Harry Newton a financial genious for playing it smart?
Too bad Nassim Taleb doesn’t actually say the name of the stocks that he owns? It’s obvious but true to never invest in companies/markets that you don’t understand…Lastly, maybe I misunderstood him but from the early part of the interview he made it sound as if he doesn’t like to have cash on the sidelines.