Ultra-depressing watching every stock in your portfolio turn red. That was yesterday.
It hasn’t been an inspiring week.
I sat there yesterday feeling helpless. It’s not intelligent to sell on such strongly down days.
Friends asked, “So where’s it going now?” I read all the pundits.
I think this market will be weak — though not a disaster — until after Labor Day when everyone returns from the Hamptons or wherever else they’ve been goofing off the summer.
Best: Sit and watch. If your favorites fall, buy a little more. My favorites haven’t fallen enough … I’m still watching. Maybe Amazon?
Someone helped themselves to $3,811.22 of cash advances from my Visa. To their credit, Visa is removing the charges and checking — how did someone get the money out? Visa is sending me new replacement cards. And — my idea — I’m having them cut my limit on cash advances to $0. I don’t do cash advances on my Visa. That should solve the problem in future.
What weighs nearly 4lbs (more than my laptop) and is full of ads?
Not bad for a print magazine. One part of the economy — women’s fashion — is doing well — in fact, very well.
Harry Newton who’ll spend the day writing and eyeing some new real estate syndications. Big properties are slowing edging their way out of the portfolios of lenders who ended up with them after foreclosing them… and then finally figuring that a big bumbling financial institution is not good at the day-to-day job of managing individual properties — painting the lobby (which color?), weeding the car park (they keep growing back), etc.
In the second quarter, Berkshire Hathaway bought new positions in Dish Network, with 547,312 class A shares, and Suncor Energy (17,769,457 shares). Both are up, and appear at present a little pricey for my taste.
Hi Harry-
We’re in the summer doldrums and your columns have been short. So apropos of nothing, I thought I’d take this opportunity to ask you a question. And while I don’t always (usually don’t) agree with your medical advice, I very much respect your computer and tech advice. So here goes…….
I am using an 8 year old Dell computer running Win XP. I’ve been wanting to upgrade, but it’s running fine and I keep waiting for the introduction of other things, i.e. SSD’s, before I get something new. I also am a firm subscriber to your philosophy that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” And I’m sure my perfectionist tendencies have also been a factor in my procrastination as well. In any event, at this point it’s time. My dilemma is whether to get another windows machine or switch to a Mac. I’m thinking the latter, since the new iMacs now have most of what I want: SSD’s w/o fusion drive, USB 3 ports, magnificent screens, silent operation, a decent MS Office for Mac program and the promise of allowing me to get rid of the rat’s nest of cables behind my desk. But there are things that worry me. The Macbook Air that I got for my wife (but she doesn’t use favoring an iPad and now I only use for travel)….. won’t support Java plug-ins under Chrome. I wonder what else it won’t support that I’ll only find out about later. And the Mac keyboards and the “Magic Mouse” don’t look like they’re designed for someone (me) who does serious inputting. And the icons on the initial screen that bounce when you open a program look positively “Mickey Mouse.” Moreover, I’ve read that Office for Mac (I depend on MS Office) is deficient compared to the Windows version. I worry about what other Mac differences may annoy and frustrate me.
On the Windows side, Microsoft totally shot themselves in the foot with Win 8. The tiles on the opening screen are hideous, un-business like and give ugly a whole new meaning. And touch screens on a desktop? What were they thinking? And since there’s a learning curve when coming from previous Win OS versions, that neutralizes the learning curve issue of moving to a Mac. So if I go Windows, I’d have to get Win 7, and I’d be starting out with a brand new computer running a 4 year old OS. Huh?
Harry, I know it’s summer and you’re trying to rest up a little and you’ve got house maintenance issues of your own, so I apologize in advance for pushing our relationship. But, like you, when I’m not playing tennis, I’m on my computer….. a LOT. So the next machine I get is a big issue for me. Any advice and/or recommendations you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
All best wishes,
-Barry