In Search of the Perfect Investment

My bond guy really knows his stuff. This morning he emailed:

ECB QE is intended to lift inflation and depress the Euro, and by way of “the wealth effect” to stimulate spending and investment.

QE adds 1 trillion+ to global liquidity.  ECB policy, like Fed and BoJ policies, forces capital from short term to long term assets incl stocks, bonds, and RE.

QE doesn’t start until March.  Deflation is here now.  Bonds do not anticipate.

The transmission mechanism is slow – much slower than in the US.  This will take years.  ECB will increase and extend the program, just like the Fed and BoJ have done.

Capital flows from Europe, Japan, and EM to US stocks and bonds will continue and increase.  US yields and credit quality still >> Europe.

 Oil heading much lower.  Saudi has no incentive to cut production. Other OPEC members (Iran, et al) starting to increase production.  Russia, US also increasing production in the short term.

Other industrial commodities still weak reflecting weak Chinese, European, and EM demand.

 Unemployment claims have been rising for two months.  Layoffs in energy, mining, financials are accelerating. Home sales and retail sales sluggish.  Strong dollar is deflationary and recessionary. Import & Export prices are tanking.

US core inflation data falling.  Watch the PCE core deflator.

His strong recommendation:  Buy long term bonds (10-30-yr) and US stocks.

On his recent recommendation I bought 30-year treasuries. I bought them at $105.398. They’re now worth $111.346

Catching the falling knives of HAL and SLB is working. They’re both edging up. Check out their charts. They’ve fallen so far, it’s impossible to see them falling much lower.

Bill Ackman is now in the money on his Herbalife (HLF) shorts:

I remember listening to his 20-minute presentation at the Robin Hood conference last fall and being impressed with the amount of work he’d put into researching Herbalife and how much money he put into the short — over a $1 billion. I didn’t go short because I was  fearful. But the lesson I take away is — Research. Research. Research. Add it to Check. Check. Check.

To confirm the value of resasrch, the latest issue of Maxim has a cover story, “The Secret of Mark Cuban’s success.” And the answer?

In general though, Cuban’s protection against making bad bets is, always, to do more homework than anyone else.  ” You can’t get anything over on him,” says Brian Dameris. “His gift is consuming information. He takes it all in, reads a thousand emails a day, runs the Mavs and all these other businesses, and manages to process it all. If he asks you a question and you try to fake an answer, he knows. He’ll be like: “I read that yesterday in the Journal and the reality is this and this and this.” Whenever Cuban looks like he’s improvising — say when he signed the free agent forward Chandler Parsons in a nightclub this past summer — you can bet a good amount of preparation went into the moment.

 Personally I think the best short around remains IBM:

The car rental “clubs” suck you in. But Priceline does much better. My story:

We need to rent car for two weeks in and around Palm Springs, CA.  I’m an Emerald Club member with National. That entitled me to a standard SUV for $475.35. Then I went on Priceline and bid $25, $20, $15 and finally $10 day for the same standard SUV. I finally snagged one from Budget at $338.20. I saved $137.15, or 29%. That’s a lot of money for three minutes of fiddling on my laptop.

The only way to get off spam lists:

Get yourself a junk email address, e.g. HarryNewtonTemp@gmail.com.Use it to buy things online. Kill the email address once a year.

Reason: It’s impossible to unsubscribe from the worst offenders — the companies who send the most spam. Those guys see your “unsubscribe” request as confirmation of your email address. “Heh, we’ve got a hot one.”

Hansgrohe makes the best shower head — the Clubmaster.

They also have the best customer service. Item: I sent them our old (very old) semi-busted one. And bingo, this morning, UPS delivered me a brand-new, free, replacement Clubmaster. Thank you, Hansgrohe. Great service.

The Australian Tennis Open continues on The Tennis Channel. Great matches and great scenery. This morning I googled “Top Australian Models’ and found this one:

I have no idea if she plays tennis. But now you know one reason I married an Australian. There’s something in the water there that makes gorgeous (and intelligent) women, and one decent tennis player, Casey Dellacqua, 27th in the world.

Harry Newton who recommends the article on Mark Cuban. Sadly, it’s not online.You have to read the paper version.