I bought some ORCL and some more WWAV. I figured if Larry Ellison can do such wonders so quickly for the tennis tournament out here, he must be doing great wonders for his own company as well. Stupid logic.
Carl Icahn says eBay shareholders would be better off if eBay spun off PayPal. Frankly, I think he’s right. But I’d wait for a bigger pullback on eBay before buying it.
I like stocks paying dividends. In recent days I’ve received dividends from TSCO, JNJ, HON, KKR, V, AF, COST, PG, AAPL, MA and big ones from APO. I see them as “surprises” since they’re not reflected in Fidelity’s valuations of my stocks.
Chiquita Brands has agreed to buy Irish competitor Fyffes, creating the biggest banana company in the world. Why do I find this amusing? I guess because I always wanted to be the biggest banana. Now, it’s not going to happen. Sad.
The iPhone’s pervasive charm for families.
Everyone in our family has an iPhone. There are two key charms: First, FaceTime, which allows us to have video conversations with distant family anywhere in the world. Think moving pictures for babies. Second, Shared Photo Streams, which allows us to send photos of babies to everyone in the family — with just one click. Both services are free.
FaceTime works only on WiFi, which everyone seems to be on most of the time, especially at night.
It’s hard to see why anyone with a family would buy any other phone.
The tennis player was 90. He was practicing his serve. I asked him his secret for old age. His simple, charming answer:
“Don’t take anything seriously.”
Things I’ve learned recently
+ Buy two of that which you like. You won’t be able it ever again. Companies are so afraid of getting stuck with excess inventory these days they never make enough.
+ You absolutely need a junk “throwaway” email account, which you can use temporarily. Once the spammers discover your email address (as they will), you can them junk it and open a new one. Use Google. Their email addresses are free and they actually do a good job filtering out spam.
+ The JPMorgan Chase online wiring of money is really good. Few banks, sadly, have such a system for their retail customers. JPMorgan Chase accepts incoming wires for free and sends my outgoing wires for free. Their software is really good. Great service.
+ When in doubt, pick up the phone. When in real doubt, meet at your local Starbucks. But never put bad stuff into emails. Think it will always appear in anlawsuit. Ditto for posting stupid stuff on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. That stuff never disappears. Never.
+ Only buy pajamas with pockets.
+ If you rent, insist that the place has WiFi from cable TV, not DSL, which is much, much slower.
+ Your friend is not in Spain and doesn’t need your $3,500 to bail out a sick or dying relative, or whatever.
The Indian Wells Tennis continues. Follow the matches live and replayed on The Tennis Channel and later this week on ESPN2 and ESPN. Follow the scores and the schedule on the excellent BNP Paribas app. You can now get The Tennis Channel streamed to your PC.
Are antiobotics making us (and our children) fat? The answer is yes. This piece from the weekend’s New York Times is a real eye-opener:
The Fat Drug. How humankind unwittingly joined an experiment on antibiotics and weight gain.
In the Blaser lab and elsewhere, scientists are racing to take a census of the bugs in the human gut and – even more difficult – to figure out what effects they have on us. What if we could identify which species minimize the risk of diabetes, or confer protection against obesity? And what if we could figure out how to protect these crucial bacteria from antibiotics, or replace them after they’re killed off?
The results could represent an entirely new pharmacopoeia, drugs beyond our wildest dreams: Think of them as “anti-antibiotics.” Instead of destroying bugs, these new medicines would implant creatures inside us, like more sophisticated probiotics.
Dr. Cho looks forward to this new era of medicine. “I could say, `All right, I know that you’re at risk for developing colon cancer, and I can decrease that risk by giving you this bacteria and altering your microbiome.’ That would be amazing. We could prevent certain diseases before they happened.”…
It has become common to chide doctors and patients for overusing antibiotics, but when the baby is wailing or you’re burning with fever, it’s hard to know what to do. While researchers work to unravel the connections between antibiotics and weight gain, they should also put their minds toward reducing the unnecessary use of antibiotics. One way to do that would be to provide patients with affordable tests that give immediate feedback about what kind of infection has taken hold in their body. Such tools, like a new kind of blood test, are now in development and could help to eliminate the “just in case” prescribing of antibiotics.
For the full piece, click here.
Favorite recent cartoons.
Harry Newton who got up early this morning but is struggling with a very slow Internet connection. Got to fix it today.Only got two tennis matches today.
Harry, you bought yesterday? And today the market is down. Par for the course, buddy. For those new to the site, Harry buying is sign of a market top.
Electronic banking: Harry, you might want to look at American Express Hi-Yield online accounts in addition to your Chase. I find the rates higher than savings elsewhere and the same ease of transferring to your linked main bank account. I use it like a money market sweep account and get higher rates.