In Search of the Perfect Investment

As the market plummeted, I made the stupid mistake of focusing on the wrong thing — how to protect what I owned — rather than the opportunities the plummet was bringing — in spades.

China slowed. Its voracious appetite ebbed. Had I been awake, I would have sold short everything from BHP to CAT, from XOM to OIH. Check out the juicy declines:

Then I looked at the underlying commodities and metals prices. Most have dropped at least 50% in recent months. For example, here’s a 5-year chart on iron ore from a web site called Index Mundi:

The question is: Am I too late? I don’t think so. I don’t see China suddenly resuming its previous export-driven boom. I suspect that even its ebbing numbers ,which it’s reporting, are exaggerated.

When the products you sell suddenly drop by 50%+, things don’t look good for your profits.

But am I too late? I suspect not.

This is a sea change in metals and commodities pricing. I hear bankruptcies are coming. Look at this ETF:

The boom has gone from the business of mining, making, servicing and selling metals and commodities. We’re in a new world.

How to play this? Individual stocks? ETFs.

Still mulling.

Your ideas?

Short Apple. Tomorrow at 5 PM EDT is Apple’s big annual new-product announcement meeting. Nothing in the trade press’s guesses inspires me to drop precious shekels and buy Apple’s new stuff. There’s a faster iPhone 6S with a better camera, a new Apple TV, a bigger iPad, and iOS 9 which will block ads. Ho hum.

For more, read Bloomberg on what’s coming: click here. The trade press is also full of Apple gossip. None of it especially interesting, or enough to drive the stock up.

Why bother picking stocks, when indexes work? I found this chart in FedEx’s recent annual report:

Subaru Outback 2015 sings. Susan and I just drove our sixth Subaru Outback 1,400 miles — from Portland, Oregon through Southern Oregon, Lassen National Park, Lake Tahoe and Yosemite — to Indian Wells, where we left it at our California house.

I love my Subaru Outbacks. I can categorically say this is the best Outback they’ve ever made.

Reasons for my love: Oodles of space, nice handling, neat, logical technology, good gas mileage (29.8). I paid just under $30,000 for the 2015 Outback 2.5i Limited with basically everything including leather seats, but not the moonroof. I still have an old Subaru Outback in New York from 2002. It’s totally reliably.

You can read more on the 2015 model in Car and Driver. They loved it. Click here.

Useful PowerPoint slide:

Today’s wonderful phone call:

Jonathon: Hello, I’m Jonathon with Home Security Systems. How are you?

Harry: Terrible. We had a break-in last night.

Click.

Harry Newton who is transfixed by some of the matches at the U.S. Open. First, the defeat of Rafael Nadal and then last night’s defeat of Andy Murray. Incredible tennis. The Open continues on ESPN and ESPN2 and The Tennis Channel recaps it at night.