In Search of the Perfect Investment

Remember David Tepper from yesterday?

The New York article, which I quoted yesterday also has these words:

The thing he is best at is finding a deal, and the best deals are found in sick and ailing companies.

He did well with the financials, believing the government when it said it would bail them out. Quotes the New York mag:

In the seventeen years since he founded Appaloosa, its assets have grown from $57 million to $13 billion. His annualized compound return in that time period is 30 percent to investor, putting him in line with legendary money managers like Soros, Stanley Druckenmiller and Julian Robertson.

Meanwhile, I read:

With 10-year treasuries yielding a mere 2.39%, and with 5-year treasuries at an all time low yield of 1.1%, investors have plowed into the riskiest of junk bonds with reckless abandon. … Junk-rated borrowers globally sold a record $98.9 billion of bonds last quarter as investors sought higher relative yields, helping the weakest companies shore up their balance sheets. Defaults by high-yield issuers fell to 4 percent last month from 6.2 percent in June, Moody’s Investors Service said yesterday.

For the full article, click here.

Dreams of buying a 4-8 unit rental apartment building. My friend who knows more, wrote:

It does seem as though it should be possible, but I know lots of people who are looking. From my point of view, the interesting thing that is happening, which often does in a recession, is that apartment buildings are more valuable because more people are renting. The interest rates are low, so the cap rate is  crazily low.

It’s up to you, but I would wait until interest rates rise, and people can’t buy with cheap debt (unless you were thinking of leveraging and not worrying about cash flow). Because of the CRA rules, lots of banks want to lend 70-80% on these things, and will do it in a CRA district at somewhere in the 5’s. That brings the cap rate way down, and I believe it may be unsustainable when the interest rates go up. So you would be looking at a hold that could be long — until employment ( hence condo buying) really recovers and you do a conversion — which would also require interest rates to be reasonable.

And managing 4-8 unit properties are a nightmare. Really only suitable for really hands on investors, and judging from our conversation earlier this week, you aren’t looking do more plumbing and setting more mouse traps.

Things I’ve learned in the last few days:

+ Nobody listens. Correction. Only successful people listen.

+ The smallest blemish on your skin can be cancerous. You need two visits to a dermatologist to find, remove and fix.

+ Things I like are always manufacturer-discontinued. But if I buy two of them, I’ll discover I no longer like either.

Son’s back is messed up. At 28, the poor kid has Daddy’s lousy back. Sadly, he’ll have it for the rest of his life, just like his Daddy. Back problems never go away. Solutions:

+ No heavy lifting.
+ No insane bending.
+ No quick, jerky movements, especially with weighty things.
+ Get in and out of chairs and cars by using elbows to leverage yourself in.
+ Rest. Sleep during the day. You CAN take some time off during the day. Crawl under your desk, whatever. Take a pillow to work. Everyone deserves 45 minutes of sleep at lunchtime.
+ No sitting at a chair hunched over for large amounts of time. Get up and walk around.
+ Get a comfortable chair at work.
+ Exercise each day.
+ Handle stress better.

Social Network — the movie. Finally I understand why someone young  with a raging libido finds Facebook so interesting.

The movie is a fictionalized account of Facebook’s early days — when achieving one million members was a huge accomplishment. To me, the focus of the movie — the lawsuits — seem  a shakedown by jealous classmates who didn’t have Mark Zuckerberg’s awesome programming talent. The movie is livened up by Aaron Sorkin’s ultra-clever dialog. He wrote the TV series brilliantly successful West Wing. The Social Network is worth seeing.

Favorite this week’s New Yorker cartoons.

This next one is dedicated to my hard working son.

Harry Newton who wonders why our politicians have to market fear, not vision. Complaints about China playing unfair ring hollow with me. We devour their goods. Without China, Walmart would be puny.

From the China Economic Review, October 12, 2010:

More than half of the world’s wealthiest self-made women come from China, the Financial Times reported, citing the Hunan Report, a ranking of China’s wealthiest individuals. The world’s three richest women are Chinese. Some analysts point to the availability of cheap childcare as a factor in China’s over-representation in the ranking. Chinese women work an average of 71 hours per week, and often rely on grandparents to take care of children. Unlike in some other nations, researchers found no stigma attached to using such child-care opportunities in China. Others point to a recent study by the New York-based Center for Work-Life Policy, which found that Chinese women were far more ambitious than their American peers – 76% of Chinese women aspire to top corporate positions compared with 52% of their American counterparts.

Meanwhile, our stock picks — see top right — are doing OK. I’m still searching for interesting investment opportunities. There’s not a lot  around. Gotta keep kissing the frogs.