In Search of the Perfect Investment

We’re in California, enjoying some respite from the snow back east.

I’ve learned  two things out here:

1. The place must be booming. It’s super hard to get people like electricians, plumbers, home electronics guys, etc. to come by. It’s also hard to find a car to buy. All the popular ones are sold out. And, of course, it’s impossible to get a restaurant reservation — the standard measure of “booms.”

2. Dealing with many large firms’ web sites can be a total nightmare. I instance first Hewlett-Packard, second Time Warner and then eBay/PayPal. HP makes finding drivers for its older printers impossible. Time Warner’s bills are high, charge you for stuff you don’t have and are incomprehensible, to boot — a “marketing” strategy?? In total contrast, Amazon’s web site is a total joy. Someone intelligent and caring is  in charge. It shows. Which reinforces my old rule: When the founder dies, retires or otherwise leaves, sell the stock.

There is a solution to all these woes — Don’t be suckered in by the Internet. Stop thinking you can actually get something done on bad web sites. Use the web only to find the phone number and call. You get better service and far better prices from real, live people than from the dead, uncaring algorithms on the Internet. HP can actually be helpful on the phone — after you’re gone through their stupid preliminaries.

Need to install something, to fix something? Check YouTube. Even HP (to the credit) has a very useful video on how to install cartridges in the old printer I inherited.

I don’t know What Goldman Sachs hoped to gain from publishing this chart. It’s super gloomy.

This is what Business Insider wrote:

Sales growth for America’s big companies is now expected to be zero

America’s biggest companies now expect that sales will be flat in 2015.

In a note to clients this weekend, David Kostin at Goldman Sachs wrote that consensus forecasts for sales growth in 2015 is now at 0% as declining estimates among energy companies have taken their toll on expectations.

Here’s Kostin: “Consensus now forecasts 0% S&P 500 sales growth in 2015 following a 5% cut in revenue forecasts since October. Low oil prices along with FX (foreign exchange) headwinds and pension charges have weighed on 4Q EPS results and expectations for 2015.”

Excluding energy, S&P 500 sales forecasts have been cut to 4% from 5%.

The negative revisions to sales forecasts have largely come from the energy and materials sectors, Kostin notes, with sales estimates in those sectors falling by 23% and 5%, respectively.

And so as the crash in oil prices takes it toll on America’s largest oil companies, the 500 biggest companies now face the collective specter of no sales growth this year.

In March it will be five years since the market turned up in 2009, from the 2007/2008 calamity. And it’s been solidly, steadfastly up since March 2009.

It would not be unreasonable to figure we won’t see much in the way of gains in 2015. Which means more searching for investment ideas… Which is not easy since everyone else is searching also.

To my brain, the answer lies increasingly in your own business. Or buying one and fixing it. There isn’t a business that couldn’t benefit from a better web site. Please compete with eBay/PayPal.

For my friends and family in Boston. I hear they’ve closed the city’s transportation completely for today — no buses, no trains.

The pickle factory

Mickey O’Flynn worked in an Irish pickle factory. For many years he had a powerful desire to put his penis in the pickle slicer. Unable to stand it any longer, he sought professional help from the factory psychologist.

After six months, the therapist gave up. He advised Mickey to go ahead and do it or he would probably never have any peace of mind.

The next day he came home from work early. His wife, Mary, became alarmed and wanted to know what had happened. Mickey tearfully confessed his tormenting desire to put his penis in the pickle slicer.

He went on to explain that today he finally did it, and he was immediately fired.

Mary gasped and ran over to her husband. She quickly yanked down his pants and shorts only to find a normal,  intact penis.

She looked up and said, “I don’t understand. What about the pickle slicer?”

Mickey replied, “I think she got fired, too.”

Harry Newton who is spending his life playing tennis, researching ideas and then rejecting them. You got to kiss a lot of frogs these days. My father was an investment banker. In those days — the 1950s and 1960s — there were zillions of ideas and no money. Now there’s zillions of money and few decent ideas. And an incredible number of scams and schemes designed to part you from your hard-earned money, sitting in cash. Of course, golf (which everyone here in the Coachella Valley plays) occupies your “brain” even longer. But provides no satisfaction. I can’t find a happy golfer in the entire valley. But they are obsessed. And obsession is good, if  time-consuming. And that could be its one charm.