In Search of the Perfect Investment

My God it’s hard to concentrate on finding “The Perfect Investment” when the stockmarket keeps going up and it’s 80 degrees, with no humidity. And we have cloudless, windless  blue skies and the tennis courts and swimming pools beckon. And the grapefruit are ripe. They hang outside our window, ready to pluck and make delicious juice.

March in California’s Coachella Valley is the perfect place to be. We’re in a townlet called Palm Desert, but they have other towns with equally cute names, like Indian Wells, La Quinta and Palm Springs. Virgin America now has a nonstop flight from JFK. For the first time ever, this paradise is as easy to get to for New Yorkers as Florida is, where the weather is not as reliable.

Virtually everything I’ve touched (and recommended) in recent months has turned to gold. This says absolutely nothing about my investing skills. It’s pure luck. We’re in the right place at the right time. I looked at my Fidelity online and eyed the ten best percentage gainers. In order — NRF, RWT, IRWD, WEN, V, TWO, HON, STWD, GOOG, and MITT.

TBT is coming to life, according to various friends. I’ve personally never made any money with it.

Of the four private equity companies I mentioned recently, BX, KKR, and APO are up, while CG is down. If you buy a bundle of these — and I recommend you buy all four — you must hold them until February, 2014. They pay their BIG dividends in February. Meantime read today’s Dealbook piece called “squeezing out cash long after the I.P.O.” Click here.

I’ve gone shopping here and eyed lots of stores. To my cursory eye, it looks like the retail scene is way-over built. There simply aren’t enough people to go around. My favorite retailer is HD (Home Depot), but its P/E ratio is 24.8 — not cheap by any standard.

Half of Wall Street is upgrading Apple. The other half is downgrading it. Strikes me this is NOT a stock to go anywhere near. It’s no longer a growth stock nor a value stock. It’s a rumor stock. No one can trade a rumor stock. Trust me on this one. To repeat: No one can trade a rumor stock. Stay right away from Apple.

Paper is not dead. Click here.

Is there any hope left for MidEast Peace? Probably not. President Obama is about to visit Israel. Read a professor’s view. Fascinating stuff. Click here.

Alternatives to Microsoft Office. Life’s BIG lesson is “If it works, don’t mess with it.” That particularly applies to computer hardware and software. Microsoft is “updating” Office, again. It’s hard to look at the upgrade — Office 2013 — and say it’s designed for anything other than to boost Microsoft’s revenues. As far as I can, there’s no compelling benefit to “upgrading.” Two alternatives:

1. Do what I’m doing. Stick with your old Office. I’m still running Office 2003. It works perfectly for my meager needs. It doesn’t have all the bloatware of later editions, which slow them down and make them more unreliable. You can buy a copy of Office 2003 on eBay for as little as $30.

2. Go with a free alternative —  LibreOffice and Open Office. Only downside: Neither have an Outlook lookalike for calendar and email. There are plenty of free versions on the Internet.

To read:

+ The gun industry’s nine most outrageous marketing ploys. That’s the headline. Actually the “ploys’ demonstrate substantial marketing prowess we could all learn something from. Click here.

The Indian Wells Tennis tournament continues on the Tennis Channel. This evening Nadal plays Federer. It may be one of their last matches. So please watch. The semi-finals and finals are this weekend.

How the pros organize now (according to my inside-the-tournament sources):

1. The pros are going to smaller grip sizes. Nadal is using a 4 1/8″ grip.

2. The pros are stringing their racquets much looser — typically 55 lbs. Some go even under 50.

3. 85% of points are lost because of unforced errors.

4. The average length of a point is 4.5 shots.

My coach here says tennis progresses thus: First, placement, Second, spin. Third, speed. In short, keep getting the ball back until your opponent hits you a short ball. Then step in and put it away.

Latest wonderful New Yorker cartoons:

Harry Newton has given up on his new Lenovo X230 ThinkPad and gone back to his older X220 ThinkPad. Though the X220 is slower, it’s far more reliable (they messed with the software on the X230) and the older keyboard is much, much better than the new chiclet monstrosity, which arbitrarily dropped five useful keys . I still believe that the X220 is the best Windows laptop around. The good news is you can still buy one — on Lenovo’s Outlet Store. Make sure you get one with the fast Intel i7 processor. Click here.

Apple’s Siri is the greatest travel aide ever. “Siri, find me a pet shop, a bike shop, a Wallgreens…” Siri answers, “I have found you 12 pet shops, three of which are close to you.” She gives me their names and driving directions. How I lived without Siri on previous vacations, I have no idea.

I couldn’t live out here without my Slingbox in New York. I can tell it to record shows I can’t watch because of the time difference. I can watch shows I can’t get here. It’s remarkable how well it works and how little bandwidth it seems to require. Item: I was sitting outside a supermarket, babysitting Rosie (our little dog) while watching Sixty Minutes over Slingbox on my X220 ThinkPad via the Personal Hotspot feature of my Verizon iPhone 5 LTE connection. Amazing stuff. Thank you to Qualcomm (QCOM) also.