In Search of the Perfect Investment

I heard today the market is going to crash in the third quarter of next year. If you run a prediction service, you have to make predictions. The last one — that the market would crash 20% if Trump became president — didn’t pan out too good.

You know my feelings: Stay away from rumors and predictions. Stick with logic, analysis of your stocks and their business and your own stop losses.

Tech stocks have done well this year. But so have overseas stocks. Many brilliant gurus — my friends — think overseas is “two years” behind the U.S. in recovering and its stocks will do well over the next two years.

Overseas ETFs have done well this year:

I bet you didn’t know what Amazon’s logo means?

It means they have everything from a through z. Neat?

Go for your dreams

Here’s grandaugther Eleanor, 4, trying her hoop dreams.

That’s grandson Peter, just under 2, who’ll surely make the NBA before he’s out of diapers.

Useful

+ The new Tax Bill: Don’t believe everything you hear on TV. A lot is too early, except for the favorable tax treatment of investing in real estate. There does appear to be one big GOTCHA; investors selling shares would have to unload their oldest shares first. This will bring you a huge tax bill if you’ve been buying as your stock rose and you want to take a little off the table. You have until December 31 — 19 more days to take care of this one. More on the tax bill in yesterday’s blog.

+ Do not take Prevagen, the rubbish harvested from jellyfish that will make your brain the size of a jellyfish’s.  Stay away from other dietary supplements. None are passed on by the FDA. Few, if any, have any proven health features. Some are downright dangerous.

+ If you register a new domain name, be prepared for a million calls from India offering dodgy web design services. One way to solve this: Put a fake, dead phone number on your application. Then change it a few months later when the spam phone calls have stopped.

+ Your laptop will easily handle three external screens. Or one or two very large ones. I’m beginning to favor huge large external screens. Some software doesn’t stretch across more than one screen (.e.g. Active Trade Pro from Fidelity.). So it’s better to have huge screens.

Stop kwetching (complaining) about Donald to me

All my friends are depressed. They worry about his madness, his dementia, his 12 diet cokes a day, his complete lack of exercise, his love for ice cream and TV talk shows, .. etc.

My answer: It’s hard for you, but brilliant for him. I’ve seen this behavior a million times before. All over Asia, Africa, South America and Russia. Politicians, aka snake oil salesmen, seek wealth from high office. They create kleptocracies. Putin is the world’s richest person. Did he ever start even one business? A casino? A reality TV show?

America has been lucky to avoid it, until now. Our snake oil salesman in chief desires power and money. He’s inventing an American kleptocracy. He rewards his supporters in a zillion very clever ways – with de-regulation, with tax incentives, with lies about a magnificent fantastical future (the rebirth of coal, etc.) and with hatred and bigotry that match and inflame their own biases.

It’s no surprise that the tax reform will benefit the Trump family, and anyone else who happens to be in real estate. See yesterday blog. Tax “reform” is Congress’s way of supporting Trump and staying themselves in power. Remember most congresspeople do not enter Congress rich. They get that way by being in Congress. Nice point: insider trading isn’t completely illegal for Congresspeople.

I love Quora.

Q: What is the most pretentious thing you have ever seen someone do?

from Maureen Boehm, former Internal Medicine Physician

A: So, I was in the dressing room at Nordstrom’s and I heard an obviously wealthy woman berating the poor salesperson.

She entered the dressing room next to me. She started to talk, on her phone, to someone.

“You would just not believe what shabby, incompetent people they hire here. They are just the worst. A bunch of dolts. No class at all. So base. So common. Well, I guess there is only so much that minimum wage gets you.”

I felt horrible for the poor saleswoman. I know she could hear this snotty woman.

When I left the dressing room, I saw the woman standing with her back to me and the saleswoman.

Winking at the tearful saleswoman, I tapped the rude woman on the shoulder.

“Excuse me. Do you work here?”

I thrust the blouse, I was holding, at her.

“Here. I need this in a size 6.”

“I don’t work here.”

“Oh, sorry. You look like an employee.

She glared at me icily and stalked off.

Harry Newton. Think about taking a nap this afternoon. Good for the brain. Much better than Prevagen.