In Search of the Perfect Investment

It’s been a hairy week. Here’s the last five days of Nasdaq.

We’re still up for the year.

Am I worried? No. Here’s an ultra-long-term chart. It only goes to yesterday. I don’t know why.

It affirms the long-term. The big bust in this chart is the Tech Wreck of 2000/2001. Hard to see us having another one of those. Today’s economy is firing on all cylinders. Tech companies are driving the economy. And virtually all are profitable.

In short, go play tennis. Go for a walk. Stop calling me in panic because today the Dow dropped 420 points — a much higher percentage than the NASDAQ (1.27%) or the S&P 500 (1.33%).

Look folks. You’re in the stockmarket. It goes up and down, short-term. But long-term, it goes up.

If you can’t stand the heat, set yourself some sensible rules:

+ Don’t look at it every day.

+ Stop trying to figure how politics affects the stockmarket. It doesn’t. End of story.

+ Don’t borrow money to buy stocks.

+ When you feel in your gut that something has gone truly awry with your stock as a business, get out. Think GE. There are plenty of great companies that sit well. See my list in the right hand column of this blog. Click here.

+ Even if you feel awful, hanging on often works. It is remarkable how many of the duds eventually eke back, e.g. Macys.

+ Don’t listen to your friends or calling brokers. See below.

Tesla shines

He drove his Tesla 200 miles to Phoenix.  Correction, it drove him 200 miles to Phoenix. He rested his left hand on the wheel, while he used his right hand to send emails from the iPad on his right knee. He set the speed at 90 mph. The Tesla slowed itself down if the car in front slowed down or another car got in the way. My friend paid little attention to the road ahead of him.  That was the car’s job. He had important emails to get off.

Here’s Tesla over the past five years. I bet it will hit $1000 in the next five years. Tesla is not a car company. It’s much more. It’s a battery company. It’s a solar company. It’s an energy company. It’s like Amazon run by a genius with a strong vision, but diverse ambitions. Both Bezos and Musk are the ultimate opportunists.

The phone call was breathless

“Remember us? We gave you Netflix six months ago…You followed that?

“Well now we’re loading up the boat with Energous Corporation (ticket symbol WATT). The cmpany has just been given an FCC approval for through the air charging of devices like smartphones. It’s a revolutionary technology that everybody
in the world will soon be using to charge their smartphones. You have an iPhone, right?

“Let me buy you just 200 shares — for $2,100 — as a starter. I’ll make you 40% in a couple of months. You will be
happy. OK?”

I answered I’d check and we’d speak tomorrow.

I checked. It wasn’t difficult. Here’s what the FCC’s web site says when you search for Energous, the name of the company.

The company’s web site mentions industry awards for its technology. I followed the links. They went nowhere.

It was actually fun to discover how little substance was behind the broker or the company’s claims. Somebody has been pumping the stock:

It’s clean and safe.

From Conde Nast Traveler:

What every house needs:

+ Bottled water.

+ Cans of food.

+ Blankets.

+ An emergency generator, with fuel.

+ A loaded shotgun.

The Sunday gardener. Short and funny

The Hotel Front Desk

A hotel guest calls the front desk. The clerk answers, “May I help you?”

The man says, “Yes, I’m in room 858. You need to send someone to my room immediately. I’m having an argument with my wife and she says she’s going to jump out the window.”

The desk clerk says calmly, “I’m sorry, sir, but that’s a personal issue.”

The man replies, “Listen, I can’t get the window open. That’s a maintenance issue.”

Harry Newton who’s picking up his new ReSound Forte hearing aids this afternoon from Costco. I’m excited. It’s possible that I’ll stop with “What?” — my favorite word of recent years.