In Search of the Perfect Investment

It’s so easy to time the market! Not.

I sold HPQ two days before Meg Whitman announced she was splitting the company and the stock bounced. Good move, Harry.

My friend has been pounding the table for SODA for months. Fortunately, I ignored him. This morning, SODA issued a revenue warning. Shares were halted in pre-market and they will drop heavily today. Can I chalk that up as a win?

If you’re earning more than 7% on your portfolio so far this year, you’re doing better than most funds.

My friends say the market is now “in a trading range.” God knows what that means. Overseas problems may be coming home? Russia’s currency has apparently dropped by half in recent months! Germany’s industrial production is down 4% from July to August. The Middle East is a mess, and getting worse.

Friends investing in startups report agonizingly slow payoffs — years and years longer than they ever imagined. Most are soured on their experiences.

Useful Stuff:

+ If you receive the Internet by coaxial cable, understand that the most vulnerable parts of your service are the joins and splitters in the cable — especially if those joins and splitters are outside and exposed to rain, sleet and snow. Those joins and splitters must be wrapped in tape to make them waterproof — otherwise your service and speed will progressively decline. The second most vulnerable parts of your service are the cables themselves — especially if they’re outside and blowing the in the wind. The movement will kill them eventually. Ask your cable company to check their office before they send a technician out to fix your line (and waste your day).

+ You can get your Internet service speeded up with a simple phone call to your provider. You should be getting at least 10 megabits per second down. Check you speed here.

+ If you use Microsoft Outlook for your email, you must empty deleted items and your junk email. Then you must run scanpst.exe which you’ll find on your laptop. Use the program called Search Everything to find Scanpst.exe. You can pick Search Everything up here. It’s free and flawless.

+ If you’re buying a new TV set, you must buy 4K UHD (Ultra High Dimension). It really is a significant improvement. Even normal HD looks better on a UHD screen.

+ Radio Shack batteries are awful. They’re cheap and deservedly so.

+ Checking into a hotel, ask the concierge for the free Wi-Fi log-on and password. Without it, the front desk will be add a handsome charge to your hotel bill.

+ A major problem with GPS built into cars is that you can’t get WAZE,  which is the best GPS navigation software, bar none. Even Tesla which sports a gigantic screen doesn’t support Waze. Many Tesla owners use Waze on their iPhone, not Tesla’s in-car navigation system.

Why did Bill Gross, the bond king,  leave PIMCO? Lousy performance or lousy attitude? I suspect it was a combination, but I suspect underneath it all was his unshakeable conviction that interest rates were going up — instantly, if not sooner. Of course, they haven’t. And all those bets on the TBT rising turned out to money-losers.

What it’s like to fly the $23,000 Singapore Airlines Suites Class. The world’s best airline experience from Singapore to New York.

Derek Low takes it for a spin, replete with endless semi-fascinating photos. Want to join the Mile-High Club? At $46,000 it’s no more than a handsome diamond. Personally I’d take the diamond. But the story of Derek’s trip is a hoot. Click here.

The Torah Scholar
The daughter brings her fiance to meet her parents. After an elaborate dinner, the mother tells her husband to find out about the young man. The father invites the fiancée to his library for a drink.

“So what are your plans?” The father asks the young man.

“I am a Torah scholar.” He says. “A Torah scholar,”

“Hmmm,” the father says. “Admirable, but what will you do to provide a nice house for my daughter to live in, as she is accustomed to?”

“I will study,” the young man said, and God will provide for us.”

“And how will you buy her a beautiful engagement ring, such as she deserves?” asks the father.

“I will concentrate on my studies,” the young man replies,

“God will provide for us.”

“And children?” asks the father. “How will you support children?”

“Don’t worry, sir, God will provide,” replies the fiance.

The conversation continues like this, and each time the father questions, the young idealist insist that God will provide.

Later, the mother asks, “How did it go, Honey?”

The father answers, “He has no job and no plans, but the good news is he thinks I’m God.”

Harry Newton who urges you again to watch Bill Moyers interview with Bill Black.

If you didn’t watch it yesterday, watch it today. Click here or (if that link doesn’t work) here.