In Search of the Perfect Investment

My smart friends are loading up on TBT. It’s a double bet on long-term treasury interest rates. My smart friends believe that ultimately interest rates will skyrocket (and then they’ll clean up). Meantime, they are losing their shirts:

They’ve been losing their shirts for a remarkably long time — especially recently. With the overhang of  all the government debt to repay, low interest rates make no sense — except they’re working. Keeping rates low keeps the government’s interest bill lower, while making the banks richer and screwing savers (like you and me). This U.S. policy will continue to work while Europe has its sovereign debt problems. Our dollar holds its value, while the Euro falls. We’re in awful shape, but we’re relatively in less awful shape.  I’m not playing the interest-guessing game. I’m just furious at the Federal government for screwing savers — people like me who have a few shekels and would like to earn something — anything — on the money. I have $200,000 in one bank. I earn each month not enough money to buy a decent restaurant meal. My wife is not pleased. She likes nice restaurants.

Talking “relative,” here’s the present that Europe has given us with — a sharply deteriorating Euro:

This has a lot of implications: Not good if you earn a living in Euros and have your wealth in Euros. Good for us because it makes our dollar look great. And our fiscal management look relatively superb. Good for tourists to Europe this summer.

Buying electronics? Cameras? Washing machines. Dryers? I like Abt. Their web site is a bit corny. But their prices, delivery and service are great.

And the best feature: You can speak to a real live human and negotiate prices below even those on the web site. Click here.

My friends taunt me with their iPads. Dan Good calls me up via Skype with his iPad acting as speakerphone. Then he sends me an typo-free email he dictated into his iPad using a free app called Dragon Dictating. He discovered new iPad goodies every day.  He gives  annoying a whole new meaning.

AT&T cell phone service sucks. So why hasn’t Apple taken the iPhone to Verizon which is a far better phone company?

Computerworld – AT&T and Apple probably have a quid pro quo in place that has extended the mobile carrier’s exclusive deal with the iPhone in exchange for heavily-discounted data plan pricing for the iPad, an analyst said today.

“AT&T had to do something dramatic to get the iPad,” said Brian Marshall, a Wall Street analyst at BroadPoint AmTech. AT&T’s move was to discount their normal wireless data plans by 50% to iPad customers.

As part of the tit-for-tat, AT&T got what it wanted. “For that pricing [on the iPad], AT&T was able to negotiate a six-month extension on the iPhone exclusive,” Marshall said.

Most analysts had expected the AT&T-Apple deal to expire this summer, three years after the two companies first partnered on the iPhone. At one time, Marshall was among those who figured that the expiration meant Verizon, the country’s largest mobile provider, would also sell the iPhone this year.

Marshall now believes that Verizon won’t have the iPhone until the first quarter of 2011. He based his opinion on the failure of Verizon earlier this year to land an exclusive wireless deal with Apple for the latter’s iPad media tablet, a move he said numerous sources had told him was a “certainty”.

When that didn’t happened — something Marshall said “floored” him — he began to think there had to be a reason why AT&T landed the iPad and offered such cut-rate deals on its data plans. Thus arose the idea that Apple and AT&T exchanged an extension on the iPhone for lower-priced 3G data plans on the iPad.

“And they’re pre-paid,” he noted, referring to AT&T’s willingness to forgo contracts with iPad owners, something it’s never done for the iPhone. AT&T offers two iPad data plans, a $15 per month plan for 250MB of data and an unlimited data plan for $30 per month.

Talk of Apple dumping its exclusive deal with AT&T this summer and adding one or more rivals to its U.S. partner list have circulated for some time, and continue to pop up now and again. Two months ago, for instance, rumors that Verizon would get the iPhone drove up the price of Verizon’s stock.

AT&T and Apple did not immediately reply to requests seeking comment on a deal to extend their exclusive iPhone contract.

Gold inches up and down. Richard Russell writes: I just received an advance copy of Tony Boeckh’s terrific new book entitled “The Great Reflation”. Tony was editor-in-chief of BCA Publication from 1968 to 2002, they publish the famous Bank Credit Analyst, which I’ve read since the 1960s. The book is an even-headed and brilliant work dedicated to surviving difficult years ahead.

As a sample, I include below Tony’s level-headed discussion of gold. entitled. “Why Gold Has Enduring Value” —

The real price of gold (i.e., after inflation adjustment) has fluctuated enormously since the end of the gold standard in 1914. These fluctuations have become even more extreme since the first Bretton Woods system collapsed in 1971 and the official price of gold was freed. In spite of this volatility, gold has retained its special mystique based on a track record that goes back thousand of years. The properties that have made gold so attractive are well know. It is indestructible, it is revered for jewelry and the arts, and its high value-to-weight ratio makes it easy to store and portable – critical qualities in wartime. It is not a liability of anyone. It is easily transferable outside normal banking channels and hence useful to avoid the grasp of predatory governments. It cannot be blocked in time of war or sanctions against regimes that are out of favor. People have used it for tax-free inheritance planning for centuries. It is useful for hiding wealth, which is important in many countries. But, above all, it has provided long-term protection against destruction of wealth by maintaining its purchasing power over very long periods compared with paper money. For these reasons, gold has built a track record of trust over thousands of years in preserving wealth, and this is not going to disappear anytime soon, if ever. People who own gold for wealth preservation are long-term holders. They own gold for insurance and hope they don’t need it.

Please change your airconditioning filters and wash your condenser fins. Filthy stuff means you’ll more energy and you won’t get as cool as you’d like.

Oprah’s new campaign. It’s called No Phone Zone. And it focuses on not cellphoning and texting while driving. She’s one thousand per cent right.

Oprah has stories of families who lost loved ones to texting/phoning/distracted drivers. For more, click here.

Harry Newton, who looks at muni bonds (not today paying enough for their risks), who looks at NLY, CMO, ANH and other high yielders  (falling in price) and looks at EWZ, EWA  and ECH (Brazil, Australia and Chile) and sees them falling, also. He concludes, today, cash is king. Yuch. Is that a failure of my imagination? My tennis is improving. That’s one plus.