Sometimes you just don’t like stocks because of your own personal experience with them. And often you’re right.
+ EBay frustrates me. I put in a high bid. It doesn’t tell me I’ve been outbid. It won’t let me let me place a “looking for” note and alert me when someone offers what I want. It’s so bad it can’t even tell me when my auction is closing — in my own time.
+ Intel confuses me in the way it names its new microprocessors. Is this one faster than another? Good luck. And why does it take them so long to introduce a new, faster chip? It just reported a 29% drop in earnings. Somehow, it forgot about mobile.
+ Verizon is just plain irritating to deal with. Waits for someone to answer the phone are too long. And their “My Verizon” web site (an alternative to a live operator?) gives confusing a whole new meaning.
+ Microsoft hasn’t enticed me with a new product in ten years — except for forced upgrade to Windows 7 which came, with no choice, on a faster laptop I bought early last year. I’m still running Office 2003. I can’t find a single reason to “upgrade” to anything newer from Microsoft.
+ HP also hasn’t enticed me with anything in ten years — laptops, PCs, printers, scanners or services.
+ Yahoo’s new management has failed to entice me to visit them or use their search engine or their new pricey ($1.1 billion) acquisition Tumblr. Sadly they haven’t done much (if anything) to improve finance.yahoo.
+ And then there’s Apple. It’s now three years since they introduced the iPhone. Need I say more? Fortune has a big piece on them in the new issue, which says basically nothing — like most of the pieces in that dying magazine.
In contrast, my experiences with Google and Amazon are sterling. Every day, they improve their service. I”m a very happy user.
All this confirms one important rule of investing: Get out when the founder leaves.
And you thought all hedge funds did great. Yesterday I received their June 2013 report, in which was:
News from CNBC’s Seeking Alpha Conference.
+ Jim Chanos says short HP and CAT. I’m not impressed with his arguments sufficiently to short the stocks. But I did sell my CAT. There’s too much talk of China and the mining boom slowing. That’ll affect sentiment and this is a very emotional market.
+ John Paulson is unbelievably impressive. I recorded his talk. Here are highlights:
— There’s been little new home construction. There’s shortage of homes to purchase. The inventory of existing home has come way down — five months supply. “The housing market has bottomed,” he said. “It’s not too late to get involved. I still think buying a home is the best investment any individual can make. Affordability is still at an all-time high.” Housing prices rose 12% last year. If you had bought a house with 20% down, your return for the year would be 60% — better than you could earn in any of Paulson’s funds.
I’ve run out of time to transcribe more of what Paulson said. I’ll continue tomorrow. I wish I had money with him.
Favorite recent New Yorker cartoons.
Harry Newton notes with pleasure that Seeking Alpha publishes written transcripts of many earnings calls. Very useful stuff. Click here.
The Tour de France bicycle race is on. Susan is addicted. Yesterday my bike shop tried to sell me a 13.5lb bike. That’s unbelievably light. Most bikes weigh 30 lbs. For 13.5 lbs, I’d pay $12,000. There are bikes out there that cost $50,000 and $60,000 — more than a decent car. And people are buying them, And not leaving them on the street. Amazing world.
I have an explanation why: “outsourcing” and H1B’s. Amazingly bad work but they tell management whatever they want to hear. It’s taken a decade for the karma to catch up with them.
If bikes were autos, you would pay more for the added weight, as a ‘caloric burn stimulator’. (I get a kick out of the commercial with a ‘forward collision mitigation system’).
Wow, $12,000. I recently bought an excellent used road bike for $340 after negotiating the price down from $350.