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Wake up to cash, Boeing and Ladder.

Cash is not king. But there are two things you can do with it:

+ Earn more on it. Until now, we’ve ignored cash because rates were low and we had so little of it. No more. My “default” cash sweep fund with Fidelity is now SPAXX, which will pay about three times what the old one paid. But there are oodles of choices. For same, see BankRate.com.

+ Use it to buy “bargains.” The stockmarket  is “volatile. That means from one day to the next it goes up and down — like a whore’s drawers. (Tasteless Australian expression.) I’ve put “buy” orders in at ultra-low prices. I hope I’ll snag some on a temporary drop. I have Amazon in at $1,500, CAT in at $124 and CRM at $130. We’ll see.

It’s a choppy market, but a chart like this affirms my “strategy” of putting in ultra-low buy order:

I bought some Boeing yesterday after my friend, Ed emailed me:

BA will announce a big dividend increase and a buyback next week.
Earnings 2018: $15 2019E: $18 so the P/E is about 18X.

I’m about 58% in cash in my main account. I don’t know if that is good or bad. But it is what it is.

I remember that expression when a friend was pitching me an investment in a desultory strip mall outside a third-rate city somewhere in the deep south. When I mumbled something about the “investment,” he smiled broadly and said, “It is what it is.” Thanks Francis for that one.

This morning’s jobs report shows fewer jobs than the economists predicted. Which means that the market will probably go up. Lately good news is bad. And bad news is good. MasterCard’s dividend was up a third. The stock fell three points. Go figure.

I’m proud of recommending Ladder Financial. While others ebb, it eases up. It’s still yielding 7.24%. Today is ex-dividend day for a dividend to be paid on January 29. You’ll find a financial PowerPoint here.

For today, put in some orders at ultra-low prices. Ignore the China Trade War. No one can figure out the Administration’s strategy — if they actually have one. Do something productive — like play tennis. I updated my portfolio recommendations. They’re in the right hand column on today’s web site. Click here.

Want more on China, read the excerpt from the latest Ross Rant. Click here. 

Don’t even think of selling your house or apartment now

It’s a disaster out there. No one is buying.

Think about your basement

All my friends’ houses are flooding, as pipes burst. Sometimes the pipes burst because it’s cold. Other times because they’re old. Other times we don’t know why. It seems the biggest culprits are the soft pipes that connect from the wall to the device — washing machine, toilet, etc. Sometimes it’s under the floor. By the time some one discovers the leak, the whole house is flooded. You need several of these $57 things around your house.

The white thing is called a Honeywell Lyric Wi-Fi Water Leak & Freeze Detector.

Don’t even hesitate. Buy a couple today. Click here.

Cell service prices are coming down

Buy your own CDMA phone. Bring it to Verizon. For $40 a month, they’ll sell you one line with unlimited talk and text and three gigabytes of data — which should cover your Waze use on your next trip. A friend turned me onto T-Mobile. I’m really impressed with their service. Its’ GSM. Hence good also in Europe and Asia. The best deal is to find a friend who signed up for T-Mobile’s four line deal and borrow or buy one of their SIM cards. The phone I’m oggling is Samsung’s Galaxy Note9. It’s huge, has a beautiful screen and a very handy stylus that’s a million times better than any third-party stylus I’ve ever seen. Fast for emails, texting and notes at meetings.

Stay away from antibiotic fed cows

Only two burger chains serve meat from non antibiotic cows — Shake Shake and BurgerFi.

The more antibiotics you eat, the less they’ll work when you need them.

Why? Click here.

Stupidest Apple Watch feature

It went off in the theater last night. It wouldn’t turn off. It made a huge amount of noise, upset everyone sitting near us and eventually called 911!

Here’s how to turn the irksome feature off. Search on your iPhone for “Emergency SOS.”

Read more on Apple’s support site — here. 

Wondering what it’s like to be a passenger in a self-driving car?

Check out this Fast Company story. 

Favorite cartoons




HarryNewton
Harry Newton, who is watching Cramer interview Kudlow on CNBC his morning. Kudlow is not the brightest pebble on the beach. So I muted him and am now forced to watch his new double and triple chin bob up and down. It’s engrossing — if you like that sort of thing.

The most powerful theater I’ve seen in years is:

It’s on Broadway at the Shubert Theater. Susan and I buy tickets — not online — but by going to theater and choosing our seats.