In Search of the Perfect Investment

Today will bounce. And I’ll unload virtually all the shares I bought late Friday — between 3:30 PM and 4:00 PM. I did that because (a) I felt the market was “oversold” (whatever that means) and (b) it was beginning to strengthen. Here’s the chart:

Longer-term (like this year), it’s hard to be especially sanguine. Here’s a chart that suggests the growth in share prices from 2009 on to recently was the direct result of the Fed pumping money into the economy. (It’s no longer doing that.)

You can read entire ZeroHedge article here.

It’s not easy out there, though the odds are in favor of more share price falls — Think  slowing corporate profits, slowing China, and the Fed upping interest rates.

The New York Times refers to “the looking glass economy.” It did a front page headlined “U.S. Growth and Employment Data Tell Different Stories.” The story began:

 Think of it as the looking-glass economy.

The stock market has been sinking since the beginning of the year and oil prices have plummeted, yet auto sales are at record highs and Federal Reserve officials are expressing confidence that the economy is on the upswing.

Bidding wars are breaking out for sought-after hires in software and technology even as corporate behemoths like DuPont, BP and Morgan Stanley disclose plans to lay off tens of thousands.

Measured by traditional yardsticks for growth, like gross domestic product, the American economy definitely looks weak. View it through the prism of hiring and employment, however, and the economy seems surprisingly strong.

“It is a real mystery how you can have nearly 300,000 new jobs created in December with the economy growing by 1 percent or less,” said Torsten Slok, chief international economist for Deutsche Bank Securities in New York. “We can’t have this discrepancy for a long period of time.”

The story contained two charts:

For the full story, click here.

Many of my readers will say what I’m about to do today is not investing. It’s day trading — selling today what I bought on Friday.  I guess it is. It’s not my primary income source. But I saw the opportunity.

I’ve been talking to day traders. I’ll report more on what I learned in coming days. Meantime, once I sell today, I’ll be heavily in cash, again. I don’t like present markets.

An amazingly loose cannon.

Donald Trump said if elected, he’ll stop Apple from making iPhones in China. Trump has targeted other U.S. companies for manufacturing overseas. (CNBC)

On the same “logic,” I”m guessing he will try to stop Nike from making shoes overseas.

More here.

Old age. Always funny.

Moishe at college…

Moishe, a Yeshiva boy, graduates high school and is about to go to college. He was born and lived in Brooklyn his entire life but he gets a full scholarship to the University of Montana and it is such a generous deal that his parents, who would prefer to keep him in Brooklyn forever, let him go.

Six months go by and they have not heard from him. They’re frantic. They call the dorm and are told that he doesn’t live there anymore. They call the Registrar who says that he is no longer enrolled. They are about to fly to Montana when a letter comes from Moishe:

‘Dear Mother, Dear Father,

Sorry I have been so negligent but I met the most wonderful girl and we plan to marry. That is why I dropped out of school. Little Feather is a Native American, a princess In her tribe, and her father is the Chief.

He has made me a member of the tribe. I had to leave school because of the nonsense they teach about Native Americans – the lack of respect, the distortions of history.

But now I understand things better. I have decided to take a Native American name which the Chief helped me decide. From now on please call me Running Deer. I will NOT answer correspondence addressed to Moishe.’

A few days later he gets a reply:

‘Dear Running Deer,

Your dad and I are pleased that you have finally found a woman to love and that you are happy on the reservation. We regret that she is not Jewish. To celebrate your new love and upcoming marriage we also have decided to take Native American names.

I am now SITTING SHIVA and your father is GOING MISHUGA…

Harry Newton, who will play tennis and do some biking his afternoon. I played on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Good respite from reading the confusing stuff economists (and others) are writing on where things are going.