In Search of the Perfect Investment

Money on the sidelines is trickling back in. The market is not overpriced. But stocks are pricey. You got to be careful. If  it goes against you, get out quickly. (That’s what stop losses are for.)

My friend, the successful daytrader tells me the secret of his success is you to have to accept that you’re wrong. You can be right in the long term, but wrong in the short-term. On any given day he trades only 5-8 stocks. He’s intimately familiar with them all. He’s been trading this bunch for years. He follows about 50 stocks. Each morning he reads and reads and reads more. His success “depends on the news that day. What the quality of the news and what type of news on the stock and the market.”

Now is the time to load up on APO,  BX, and KKR. The first quarter will see big dividends from each of them. But then I’ve been saying this for some time and three have done well — APO is up but has lagged a little. It should catch up in coming weeks.

Weekend reading:

+ eBay’s new strategy for taking on Amazon. Click here.

+ How thieves get your credit cards. Click here.

Really super products and services we love:

+ Fresh Direct deliveries groceries you order on line. Their prices are great. Their food is fresh and good. Perfect for feeding all the family and friends visiting in the next few days.

+ JPMorgan Chase Private Bank has two services I absolutely love: Bank by photo and wire by computer. Using my iPhone and the J.P. Morgan mobile app I snap a picture  of the check I want to bank. And bingo, it’s in my account. I need to send a wire. I logon, fill out the online form and hit send it. Chase’s two services are brilliantly convenient.

+ Amazon Answers is a seriously great enhancement. You’re interested in a product. But you have a question. Ask it and an Amazon customer / user of the product  will reply within a day or two.

+ Norton Internet Security — explained now on the right.

+ The Canon G16 — on the right.

+ Apricorn Aegis Padlock drive, which I use every day as a non-cloud backup. On the right.

+ Slingbox and Roku just keep getting better and better. Slingbox lets you watch your home TV or watched your recorded shows from anywhere in the world. Roku is like Apple TV but much better. It has more “channels”, has more to watch and is easier to use. We now own three Rokus and one Slingbox.

+ Robin Hood charity. They do super work for the needy of New York City. It’s “paying back” on a grand scale. I’ll give them more money as a sort of “thank you” for Apple finally inking its deal with China Mobile.

Form the wrong corporation and screw yourself. My friend has a C corp. Had he had an S corp, he’d being the Feds $11,000 less in taxes for 2013. Little people like us should never ever have a C corp.

I can’t figure Christmas cards. Two vendors sent me cards reminding me I was still their client and  reminding me they were doing a bad job for me. I closed both their accounts. I’m not a grinch. But I am simplifying my life.

Favorite prediction of 2013:

Favorite photos of 2013:

Harry Newton who proudly displays his weekend efforts at his country palace. This stuff is called pine rope. You buy $75 of it for $75 in Manhattan or 25 foot of it for $40 in the country. Which says something about economics, since they certainly don’t grow the stuff in Manhattan.

I strung the lights on this Chanukah bush all myself, going round and round the thing like an obsessed Whirling Dervisher.

I learned such wonderful things: LED lights are white and awful. Half the bulbs don’t work when you finally unravel them. Susan said I should start stringing the lights from the top. She said it was easier. By then I had strung all the lights I could find in the box in the basement. I strung from the bottom. And the top, you’ll notice, doesn’t have any lights. She was right, as usual. This morning I’ll visit Bed, Bath and Beyond. Hopefully they’ll have yellow incandescent Christmas lights. Not the ghastly white LED ones.

I’m Jewish. Jesus was a Jew. They invented electricity about three years before his death, which was convenient for that industry. Sadly, I couldn’t find a “pure play” Christmas light maker on the NYSE or Nasdaq. I’ll stick with Apple and Macy’s. Didn’t one of them have a Miracle on 34th Street?

I don’t think Target has a real cockroach problem what with its 40 million stolen credit cards. But then, its chart truly sucks. And I don’t like catching falling knives.