Mark Twain described a mine as “a hole in the ground owned by a liar.” I never liked miners. When mineral prices go up, people open new mines. Then the prices fall and they close the mines. Hence few make money on mining. Horrible things happen along the way, viz what has happened to BHP recently as the price of iron ore has fallen:
Gold is a good example of how to deal with this weird stockmarket. I used to recommend gold. I liked SGOL. Then, suddenly, last September things began to go awry. China was slowing. Indians were not getting married any longer. The central banks were selling the stuff. Mr. Bernanke was talking of higher rates. Gold was out of fashion. There were lots of stories. But, like yesterday’s 4%+ fall, no one really knew, or knows.
And that’s the point…No one really knows. Just like no one knew why stocks fell so badly after Bernanke said the economy was doing better.
As prices of stocks are falling you have two choices:
+ Continue to believe in the companies you own.
+ Sell when a stock drops 8%. That’s your stop loss. As you can see from the charts above on gold and BHP, inviolate stop loss rules really do work — except when a stock like Oracle plumets overnight, as it did recently.
This business is not difficult. Load up on great companies. If something awry happens – cockroach news or 8% price drop — get out.
Stick with your winners. Kick out your losers. Not hard. Maybe.
I recently have become interested in LINE, OXY, DIS and GAP.
Try this for how things have change. From my friendly money manager, Paul Lobosco:
My friend wrote a piece in Institutional Investor on all the things stockmarket traders are worried about. Read it and get worried.
Remember the definition of a Jewish telegram:
Start worrying. Details to follow.
Susan, my wife, loves her Nike FuelBand. She aims for 10,000 steps a day and some zillion trillion fuel points (whatever they are). Personally, I’d prefer my guilt to be self-inflicted, not by an electronic bracelet:
There’s a whole explosion in wearable gadgetry that monitors your health. As David Poque writes today:
It’s the rise of watches, clips and bracelets that monitor your physical activity, sleep and other biological functions. The idea is that continual numerical awareness of your lifestyle works to motivate you: to park farther away, to get off the subway one stop sooner, to take more stairs. You study the graphs, you crunch the numbers, you live a longer, healthier life. (And you try to avoid being a crashing bore at parties.)
I once had Fitbit and wasn’t impressed. It was too fiddly for my impatient tastes.
David sort of likes the devices, concluding:
In the end, though, comparing features is splitting hairs. All of these gadgets perform the Big Feature well: making you constantly aware of your inactivity and lack of sleep — and motivating you, gently and engagingly, to pilot your life onto a healthier track.
If you really need motivation, go to to you 30th (or worse 40th) college reunion. all the ladies you salivated over in college are now overweight, their husbands gimpy. It’s all about portion control, getting a little exercise and don’t skimp on sleep. You can read today’s piece by David here.
Best Buy stinks as a retailer. But it keeps going up — for reasons I don’t understand. A short squeeze? Fortunately I resisted shorting BBY and sit on the sidelines in awe. Its stores remain desultory. Its web site lacks variety. You can’t find electronic or camera things you can on Amazon — like the new lens for Michael’s camera.
BBY’s chart is spectacular:
A fellow called Kaspars Peisenieks writing for Seeking Alpha says Best Buy is worth $98.30. (It closed last night at $27.28.) I want what he’s smoking. I especially like his conclusion:
When I did research on Best Buy, I was surprised that there are so many things that a company so big as Best Buy has not yet done. It looks like the market has picked up many of them before me, and it seems that I have missed the best entry point. Still, taking into consideration all mentioned and not mentioned future improvements, as well as DCF valuation outcome, I must say that Best Buy is a potential target for purchasing. Time frame for my price target is as follows: I do believe that, in 1-2 years, the price will reach previous heights at $50; further if more improvements will be made, I think that, in 5 years’ time, the price could reach $100. Of course, both of these levels can happen sooner if Best Buy outperforms all expectations and the market’s hype will be big enough.
What a neat way of getting my email address. Walk into Uniqlo’s huge Fifth Avenue Store. There’s a photo booth. The printed photos are free and they email you the result.
I love Uniqlo.
Wimbledon continues — but without Federer, Nadal and Sharapova, who got knocked out by no-names. The grass at Wimbledon is very slippery. Everyone is falling and hurting themselves. Many are withdrawing. My bet is on a Andy Murray/Novak Djokovic final.
The Rabbi’s babies
A Rabbi’s wife was expecting a baby, so he stood before the congregation and asked for a raise. After much discussion, they passed a rule that whenever the Rabbi’s family expanded, so would his paycheck.
After six children, this started to get expensive and the congregation decided to hold another meeting to discuss the Rabbi’s expanding salary. A great deal of yelling and inner bickering ensued, as to how much the Rabbi’s additional children were costing the shul, and how much more it could potentially cost.
After listening to them for about an hour, the Rabbi rose from his chair and spoke, “Children are a gift from God and we will take as many gifts as He gives us.”
Silence fell on the congregation. In the back of the shul, little old Mrs. Goldberg struggled to stand, and finally said in her frail voice, ‘Rain is also a gift from God, but when we get too much of it, we wear rubbers.’
The entire congregation said, AMEN.
Harry Newton who marvels at how the photo industry keeps sucking his wallet. Once upon a time he bought a new Nikon every five to seven years. That was when we had Kodachrome, Tri-X and Eastman Kodak making their wonderful films. Now Kodak is bankrupt and all our photos fit on little SD cards made by SanDisk. We don’t go into the darkroom to dodge and crop. We do it all in Adobe Photoshop. And the cameras are computers and software. They get better and appear more often. I just upgraded my three-year old Nikon D7000 to their new D7100. And now…. they want me to update the software on the new D7100. I’m genuinely blown away. Upgrading Windows is one thing. But upgrading my shiny new camera. And that’s what I”m doing this morning. The upgrade, which repairs bugs, is free. If you need an upgrade for your D7100 (a magnificent camera), click here.
I love Kindle for reading. Its BIG plus: You can increase the type size. My eye doc says he’s gong to fix my cataracts later this summer. He’ll make my eyesight long distance. I won’t wear glasses any more — except for reading. I’ll look super handsome. And I think Medicare will pay for it. “I’m from the government. I’m here to help you.”
If this column is not updated tomorrow, forgive me. It means my Italian Internet is on the fritz. Or I’m still at the Bunga Bunga Party.
Newton’s telecom Dictionary now available on my iPhone. Great idea and now being downloaded. It’s the best source of terms and acronyms in the tech world. And a lot lighter than 1400 pages! If you haven’t gotten it yet, now’s the time!
A bargain at $19.95.
“He’ll make my eyesight long distance. I won’t wear glasses any more — except for reading.” — Think that over again. Which do you do more each day, Read (including the computer screen!) or look at long distances (tennis & driving)? When you’re out, you’ll wear glasses on the end of your nose to read your subway or tramway ticket. You’ll wear glasses on your nose all day to read the monitor screen, Kindle screen, your beloved New York Times, to button your shirt, to cut your toe nails, to read the wine (or prescription) bottle, and to see what you’re eating. And THEN,, when you DO go play tennis or ride a bike, you take off your prescription glasses and (probably) put on sun glasses! I suggest that you have your eyes fixed for the monitor screen and wear prescription glasses/sunglasses (probably only 1 diopter) for tennis and biking. It makes a lot more sense.
I don’t think I told you that at your suggestion my Grand Daughter and I walked up 5th Ave in the pouring rain to go to Uniglo. It’s a great store, but they were out of stock of that nifty jacket you had and didn’t expect any in “until Fall.”
I think that’s a brilliant idea of getting my eyes adjusted to computer screens….I do spend more time in front of them than I do playing tennis, sadly.
How can the government finance its own debt? They won’t be able to take in enough money to pay the interest on the debt by my calculations…
10-Year U.S. Treasury rates:
5/02/13: 1.63%;
Yesterday: 2.56%.
They print the money, which often causes inflation and maybe hyperinflation…The hope is we’ll grow our economy out of our debt…
You’re right, Harry. “We’ll grow our economy out of debt”. The correct subject in that sentence is “We’ll”. Get the government out of our way and off our backs and there will be some chance – if done before that debt burden becomes unbearable – that “We’ll grow our economy out of debt.” And address social security, Medicare and Medicaid which are rapidly growing on their own now. and into the future. Oh, and ObamaCare.
Well said, pahowley! Well said. It’s interesting to note that in Brazil and Egypt they are rioting in the streets over government that is too much in their life. Big government can not help but be bad government. Our government is engorged like a deer tick.
Have a nice trip Harry