And you thought you were good at predicting? (is anyone?) Today:
You would have been better off staying in your simple market index funds! Surprise. Surprise.
It’s the irony of being conservative.
Rule number one: Can you lose it all?
When in doubt, stay out.
While you mull, there are wonderful small pleasures from taking a walk, going for a bike ride, playing tennis, binge-watching a Netflix hit.
Don’t chase high yields in “iffy” poor countries
My father once chased a 13% yield in Mexico, which was doing fine until Mexico devalued ts Peso.
The Mexican Peso and the Turkish Lire have now dropped to historic lows. It’s sad for them. Not good for their investors.
But it reiterates the message for us as investors: Don’t Do Stupid.
Meantime, the Euro is dropping. Soon it will equal the U.S. dollar.
Good news, Australia, which is continuing its 25-year streak without a recession, is seeing its dollar climb.
And the Russian Ruble is rising! But don’t go there.
Put all this foreign stuff in your “too-hard basket.” And stay out.
Computing stuff:
+ Complete clone backups are the key to peace of mind. Complete clone laptops are even better. When my iTunes wouldn’t synch properly after the hacker, I simply went to a different machine and downloaded the latest version of iTunes. Within seconds, it synched perfectly between my new laptop and my iPhone 6. The good news is that second hand laptops are so cheap on eBay. Set them up as a perfect clone for the one you’re working on now. Don’t try and repair a busted/virus infected machine. Move to the new machine.
+ Your iPhone’s biggest plus it its Personal Hotspot. It allows you to WiFi connect your laptop to the Internet. I use it to avoid the risks of public WiFi places like Starbucks or JetBlue.
Technology revisited. This is called the Peloton. It costs $1995 for the bike plus $40 a month for classes on the WiFi screen..
I’d consider the bike a total extravagance — except that I caught my son-in-law taking a class on Sunday from an attractive pushy broad thousands of miles away. She was the perfect motivator. He was pedaling (and sweating) like crazy. She was screaming at him. Now I hear my son is buying one. There’s the bike, the screen (actually it’s a computer) and the WiFi connection to the Internet. None of this technology is new. But putting it all together in one package is brilliant integration. For the technical specs click here.
Nice plug for Amazon:
From Business Insider’s write up of the 10 Best Tech Gadgets I used in 2016:
No gadget I’ve used in the past year has impacted my life quite like the Amazon Echo.
I went from a skeptic to a believer in a matter for days; it’s the center of my smart home, my quick way to do conversions and calculations, and occasionally my go-to Bluetooth speaker. Its versatility is a testament to Amazon’s desire to make Echo an open platform.
Buying one opens your home up to an entire ecosystem of devices, an ecosystem that continues to grow in interesting, and sometimes unexpected, directions.
Amazon Echo ($179.99) contains a powerful speaker. I have the Amazon Dot ($49.99) which has everything the Echo has, except the speakers. I simply plugged my Dot into some large speakers I had lying around.
Seriously stupid
Bad, wonderful puns. They work for kids under 10.
+ If you are attacked by killer clowns, go for the juggler.
+ Acupuncture is a jab well done
+ Practice safe eating – always use condiments
+ A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy
+ A hangover is the wrath of grapes
+ Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
Harry Newton, who watched a little of yesterday’s Trump “Press Conference.” Did I learn anything? No. He’s not difficult to understand: He’s a narcissist. Everything revolves around him. If it’s good for Donald, it’s good. If it’s bad for Donald, it’s bad. I believe he’s driven by wanting to be the best president America ever had. To do that he has to move the Titanic — i.e. Washington. To move it, he pushes for change. Any change. Sometimes just doing things differently works. It worked for me in my publishing career. I’m optimistic. The market seems also optimistic (except for today) — with a couple of obvious provisos. I would not hold health insurance stocks nor would I hold most defense contractors. I suspect that BRKA is becoming “cheap.”
Dear Donald, please take care of granddaughter, Eleanor:
Hey Harry,
Just a note of appreciation. I’ve been reading you for years, and have always enjoyed your point of view without feeling the need to always agree with it. It seems the last few times I have looked at the comments people are giving you grief for no good reason, and I just wanted to let you know a lot of people out here find value in what you have to say.
Best regards.
Harry,
The Peloton is amusing, but not effective.
I urge your son-in-law to spend a few minutes at http://baye.com learning some of the news results for research in human strength and health. It applies to you and your health, too. I’ve followed his high-intensity interval training regimen since I was 60 years old (~ 5 years). I’m much stronger and lighter and never got hurt working out.
The latest photo of Eleanor is sweet. Try trimming it a head and shoulders shot. It’s even better.
Warmly,
Carl
What qualifies you to give financial advice?
An Economics degree. An MBA from the Harvard Business School. An accounting degree. And 20 years of investing my own money after I sold my company. But all that’s irrelevant. Why are you asking? I’m guessing you think I’m not qualified to write about investing. Then, let me ask you a simple question: Why are you reading this column?
Trading one narcissist for another…however, Trump miles ahead in management and business acumen…
a definite trade up…As for Soros…no sympathy for that Nazi collaborator…evil SOB
What did you expect from Harry? He gets fed his propaganda from NPR. He admitted that the other day. Yes, Harry is just jealous of Donald so he has to do what all good Liberals do, resort to name calling and character assassination.
I don’t “get my propaganda from NPR.” But I do read the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Barrons, BusinessWeek, BusinessInsider and the New York Times, amongst others. Why do you believe I am a Liberal?
Harry,
I’m surprised you are such a fan of Amazon Echo, especially for someone that was recently hacked. Don’t you ever think that in order for Echo to work, it is listening to everything that is being said withing its range. What if that Echo gets hacked? Suddenly someone now has a bug (microphone) in your house. Haven’t you seen that picture on the internet of where Mark Zuckerberg keeps the camera on his MacBook Pro covered, same principal.
I am also surprised about all your cloning, purchasing of backup devices, constantly shopping for anti-virus software and more computer equipment in order to give the appearance that you are fully redundant. I have an iPhone, MacBook Pro and a Dell laptop. I use Google Docs and O365 for my productivity apps. All my photos are on iCloud, email is Google Gmail and all my data (a few hundred gigs, is stored on Google Drive). I have folder shortcuts on my MacBook Pro and Dell desktop that live on Google Drive and sync up real-time with Google. I never store anything on my local PC or Mac. I pay $9.99/mo for 1TB of storage with Google + $9.99/mo for 1TB of iCoud storage. If either of my laptops were hacked, I would just format the drive and log into my Google and O365 account and be back up an running. If you are skeptical about the cloud, you really need to get over it. The Google Cloud Platform has a 99.95% SLA and redundant data centers around the world. No amount of cloning of drives can compete with that.
I work in the IT industry, specifically with email servers and hear your argument all the time. At some point we have to all assume that our devices and laptops will be hacked, lost or whatever. By putting everything in the hands of Google and Apple, I sleep like a baby at night and never worry about my data.
-Robert
Robert- all good points, but you neglect to mention a few very important ones (IMHO):
1. No internet = no access to data. Slow internet = slow access to data.
2. Sure Amazon/Google/Apple have redundancy, but you don’t really know what they are doing and just how redundant your actual data is. And nothing will protect your data from human error or hacking on their side. Ignorance is bliss I guess.
3. You’re ok with having your data mined? I’m not.
And most important:
4. All the cloud providers have to submit to government issued subpoenas. If it’s between them giving up your data vs. govt shutting them down, guess who gets screwed?