In Search of the Perfect Investment

This morning Sam Collins, InvestorPlace Chief Technical Analyst said

S&P 500’s Double-Top Does Not Bode Well for the Bulls. The near and intermediate trends are bearish.

Here’s one of his charts:

But my friend who knows about these things writes this morning:

Yes, but it may be over.  I’m not sure….  January’s decline erased all of December’s gains. But it also left the S&P 500 with less of a premium over its 17-month moving average, which was at an astounding 16.7% at the end of December. This was a clear message that the market was overbought and due for a correction. Due to January’s poor performance, the price premium over the 17-month moving average is now down to 11%.

Harry’s thoughts: You can’t play this from day to day. Hang on. Watch those individual declines. Have they dropped 8%? Is anything fundamentally hurting the company? For example, the price war in cellular.

CHECK. CHECK. CHECK. This is Fidelity on AT&T. Note the P/E ratio of 22.98. That’s the number I quoted on Friday.

This is the Wall Street Journal. Note the P/E ratio of 9.77.

Finance.Yahoo had 9.83.

Bloomberg had these numbers — 13.3 and 12.6. Much higher.

And my friend Steve Schoen says:

All this makes it less of a screaming short than I figured on Friday. Still, this price war they’re in with T-Mobile and Verizon is going to hurt upcoming earnings.

The Economist’s excellent report Tech Startups: If you’re wondering how tech startups start and how you might be able to get involved, you must read the Economist’s big report.

I had mentioned this report before and gave you  a link. Here now is the entire report in on PDF. Click Tech Startups

What they have built in Macau. Much bigger than Vegas. Amazing stuff. Check out this little video. Click here.

The 72 Virgins
An 18-year-old suicide bomber blew himself up and appeared before Allah.

He said, “Oh, Allah, I did your bidding. I have a request. Since I’m only 18 and spent all my time in terrorist training school. I never was with a woman. So, instead of 72 virgins, who also won’t know what to do, can I have 72 hookers?

Allah regarded him for a moment, then replied, “Actually, the 72 virgins are here in heaven because crazed idiots like you murdered them before they could experience the pleasure of sex. So you’re here to service them. Since they’re virgins, they’re quite sexually hungry; and frankly, you’ll be on a constant and very exhausting duty.”

The bomber responded, “Well, I guess I can live with that. How hard can it be to keep 72 women satisfied for all eternity?”

Allah replied, “Who said they were women?”

Totally tasteless Australian “humor”
A refuse collector in Cairns , Australia , is driving along a street picking up the wheelie bins and emptying them into his compactor. He goes to one house where the bin hasn’t been left out, and in the spirit of kindness, and after having a quick look about for the bin, he gets out of his truck goes to the front door and knocks.   There’s no answer. Being a kindly and conscientious bloke, he knocks again – a bit harder and then harder still.

Eventually a Chinese man comes to the door. “Harro!” says the Chinese man. “Gidday, mate! Where’s ya bin?” asks the collector. “I bin on toiret,” explains the Chinese bloke, a bit perplexed. Realising the fellow had misunderstood him, the bin man smiles and tries again. “No! No! Mate, Where’s your dust bin?” “I dust been to toiret, I toll you!” says the Chinese man, still perplexed. “Listen,” says the collector. “You’re misunderstanding me. Where’s your ‘wheelie’ bin?'”

“OK, OK.” replies the Chinese man with a sheepish grin and whispers in the collector’s ear. “I wheelie bin having sex wifma wife’s sista!”

Harry Newton who is not enjoying today’s snowstorm in New York City. Not good bicycling weather — even with snow tires.

Even without the snow, life was a lot simpler three months ago — when there was no recession talk, no talk of a China slowdown and no talk of the economic mess in Turkey and Argentina. January was not fun. All eyes this week will be on the Labor Department’s employment numbers out this Friday. I don’t know how I feel. I don’t feel overly sanguine — except for Internet stocks, some of which seem to be in blow-out mode. More about them tomorrow.