In Search of the Perfect Investment

I’m putting a little more money into syndications and making a few shekels playing ultra-short-term movements in liquid stocks that portend a sine wave most days — and are therefore predictable — during that day.

I sent my friend, an ultra-successful developer recent syndication materials. He replied:

These materials generally “look good” as they are intended to. Well and good, but I have a personal disinclination to give “anyone” my money where I give up control and/or where the time period is longer than one year.

That sums up the major risk.

I replied:

I have the same personal disinclination to give anyone my money. But my career expertise was not in real estate. It was in publishing — magazines, trade shows, seminars, books. When I sold my publishing business, Susan said she wanted to see more of me, not spend 24/7 pursuing another career. I do have three rental properties.. They’re a pain to rent, to maintain, to insure, to deal with and they’re not as profitable as these syndicated ones — though one of the three seems to have appreciated nicely.

The business press is full of stories of hedge funds closing because of lousy performance and unhappy investors. You can vividly see how difficult it’s become lately from this five-year chart. Look at the last little while:

I always liked Costco

But lately it hasn’t been working:

Our of desperation, Cramer suggested these stocks last night:

FLS, FMC, BEN, HP, NRG, ZBH, and SYK.

 He did his homework and seemed enthusiastic. Sometimes he gets it right.

You’d think when things are squirrely in the stockmarket, gold would do well. Not this time.

I’m feeling stupid that I don’t have more in the stockmarket. But I’ve felt squeamish about three things: 1. Rate increases, 2. Desultory earnings growth, and 3. Our general election. I wrote about those recently. Click here.

My friend Matt, who has a real job, puts money into the market using a system called “dollar cost averaging.” He simply adds money every month to his index funds — irrespective of whether the market went up or down.

Things I’ve learned:

+ There is no compelling reason to get Windows 10 — yet. Do not allow Microsoft to “upgrade” you. Do not be intimidated by Microsoft’s threats. They’ll get Windows 10 ready for prime-time eventually. But it’s not ready now. Stay with Windows 7.

+ My Fuijitsu ScanSnap scanner is my most useful tool. Saves faxing docs to busted fax machines. Emailing scanned docs is 1000% more reliable, and faster.

+ Putting those monthly bills you can’t control on “auto-pay” removes the aggravation. You have to live with the uncertainty.

+ Cord-cutting is a joy. . You turn off pricey cable or satellite TV (like TimeWarner or DirecTV) and watch “TV” over the Internet. Susan and I have been watching The Night Manager. Dan Good loves Bosch. I like the Night Queen. Susan doesn’t. There’s an amazing amount of video content available over the Internet — Netflix being the classic provider, but now there’s Amazon Prime, Hulu and a zillion others. Roku is an easy, cheap of way of streaming video over the Internet and pumping it to your big wall TV. You do that via the universal HDMI cable. But all laptops can now log onto Amazon or Netflix, etc. And these days all the new ones can pump out HDMI video, just as aRoku does. All you need are the cables. Amazon has them by the ton, and cheap, too — not like Best Buy.

Dan’s favorite streaming shows:

Bosch-Amazon Prime
The Night Manager
Wallander-PBS
NCIS
NCIS-LA
Criminal Minds
Elementary
Blindspot
Banshee
Blacklist
Longmire-Netflix
Narcos-Netflix
Black Sails
Strike Back
Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (Perth) Netflix
Person of Interest
Foyles War-Netflix
Borgias-Netflix

Here’s a link to some of Amazon’s videos — click here. Some of these are free. Some cost a few bucks — but all are cheaper than going out to the movies.

+ Bananas are good if you’ve been sick with food poisoning — as I was last week. Drink oodles of water.

+ You may be able to give up Prilosec and move to Tums. It’s working for me. Allegedly, years of Prilosec increase your chances for dementia. Google the study.

+ Put your wiring information on the bottom of every invoice you send out.

Favorite newspaper headlines

  

   

Wonderful Ireland

Kelly was standing in front of Cohan’s Tavern when he saw a driverless car rolling slowly down the street. He ran to the car, jumped in, and pulled on the emergency brake with a jerk.

Kelly got out and very proudly said to the man approaching him, “I stopped it!”

“I know, you idiot!” said the man. “I was pushing it!”

Another tasteless sex joke

The husband was a bit embarrassed and told the doctor he had trouble getting an erection with his wife and she was getting frustrated.

He checked his blood pressure and other things then said he was going to check with the wife.

He took her to another cubicle and asked her to disrobe. Then he told her to turn all the way around slowly. She did as instructed. He then told her to turn all the way around in the other direction. Then he said – “Ok, good – you can get dressed now, and I will talk to your husband”.

The doctor went back to the other cubicle and said to the husband, “Well, you can relax, there is nothing wrong with you. I couldn’t get an erection either”

Harry Newton who sees that Donald and Hillary are now equally unpopular. Friends are now approaching me about moving to Australia. The last time I got these requests was during the Vietnam War. That was a long, long time ago. I stayed and we survived. I’m playing tennis this afternoon.