In Search of the Perfect Investment

Yesterday, I ran the latest Barron’s cover:

I got avalanched by readers, who said when the media went bullish in headlines was the  precise time for you and I to sell. Sample:

Harry, Harry, Harry. Are you really buying the Pollyanna propaganda? There is NO recovery. The Fed’s QE2 will work no better than QE1. It will be a disaster. It’s just more extend and pretend. The world is insolvent, and when a majority wakes up to that fact, there’s going to be serious trouble.

I’m not going short today, but your “signal” tells me the bear will resume very soon indeed.

One reader instanced this story:

Investor sentiment is one thing, insider sentiment is another. Behind The Money reports Insider Selling Volume at Highest Level Ever Tracked .

The overwhelming volume of sell transactions relative to buy transactions by company insiders over the last six months in key leading sectors of the market is the worst Alan Newman, editor of the Crosscurrents newsletter, has ever seen since he began tracking the data.

The strategist looked at insider trading activity amongst the top ten companies that make up the Nasdaq such as Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), and Amazon (AMZN).

Then he analyzed the biggest members of the Retail HOLDRs ETF like Gap (GPS), Target (TGT), Costco (COST), as well as the top insiders in the semiconductor industry at companies such as Altera (ALTR), Broadcom )BRCM), and Sandisk (SNDK).

The largest companies in three of the most important leading sectors of the market have seen their executives classified as insiders sell more than 120 million shares of stock over the last six months. Top executives at these very same companies bought just 38,000 shares over that same time period, making for an eye-popping sell to buy ratio of 3,177 to one.

The grand total for the three sectors are “as awful as we have ever seen since we began doing this exercise years ago,” said Newman, who was ahead on such trends as the dangers of high-frequency trading and ETFs before the ‘Flash Crash’. “Clearly, insiders are seeing great value only in cash. Their actions speak volumes for the veracity for the current rally.”

“At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we expect a significant correction,” said the newsletter editor.

The 25 Worst High-Tech Habits (and How to Fix Them). Excerpted from an article by Christopher Null of PC World:

1. Avoiding Security Software

2. Failing to Back Up Your Computer

All hard drives crash eventually. All of them. Yours will, too.

3. Neglecting Offsite Backup

A thief breaks into your apartment and steals your laptop. No problem: You just backed it up last night. Oh, wait, he stole your backup drive too, because it was sitting right next to the laptop. Store your data in multiple locations, with automatic backups scheduled for hard drives kept away from your PC–and make a backup plan to prepare for worst-case scenarios.

4. Replying to Spam

Why do spammers do their dirty work? Because enough people respond to it to make sending junk worth their while. Yes, clicking the “remove me” link counts as a response–though on rare occasions, if a message is clearly from a legitimate brand-name company, using that link is worth a try.

5. Traveling With an Operating Computer

Taking your computer from the kitchen to the living room while it’s running? No problem. Taking your running PC from the office, on the subway, for a mile-long walk, and up the stairs to your house? Terrible idea. Spinning hard drives can crash, and computers can easily overheat in cramped quarters. Shut the PC down.

6. Using a Laptop on a Bed

7. Printing Everything

You already have a digital record–why do you need to print it out? Even forms that require signatures often can accept a “digital” signature that you create in Microsoft Paint. Save completed files as PDFs for even easier transportation and archiving.

8. Taking a Camera to the Beach

One grain of sand in the shutter or zoom mechanism, and it’s toast. If you must shoot beachside, put the camera in a waterproof case or a plastic bag. Better yet, get a waterproof camera.

9. Leaving a Laptop in the Car

Thieves stake out hot parking spots and wait for fancy-pants business types to leave their laptop bags in the car, even just for a few minutes.

10. Keeping All of Your E-Mail

Every e-mail message you’ve ever received is sitting in your inbox in chronological order. Congratulations! You now have an unassailable historical record of your communications…and a guarantee that you will never find anything of any importance whatsoever. Use folders or tags to organize your inbox, and be liberal with the Delete key.

11. Failing to Learn Keyboard Shortcuts

12. Installing Too Much Junk

Why is Windows so slow? You installed three instant messaging clients and seven browser toolbars on your machine. Once some of this stuff is installed, the damage is already done, as many of these apps leave behind traces that are impossible to eliminate. You can try uninstalling as much as possible, but a clean Windows setup is often your best bet.

13. Discarding Receipts

Null’s Law dictates that consumer products will always break immediately after the expiration of their warranty–but once in a while they break sooner. You might be able to get the thing fixed…if you saved your receipt. Keep a folder next to your medical records. Once you collect some receipts, you can scan and organize them with the Neat Receipts system.

14. Waiting in Line for Tech Stuff

15. Hitting Your Computer

16. Saving Files Anywhere and Everywhere

When you get your electric bill, do you just throw it on the table, mixing it in with family photos, flyers, the Sunday paper, and your discs from Netflix, or do you take 20 seconds to file it away where it really ought to go? Wait, don’t answer that. As with your inbox, folders are your friend.

17. Checking in With Location-Based Services

No one cares.

18. Citing Wikipedia

When you need a fact to make a point, the perfect place to go is a gargantuan Website that anyone can edit anonymously, and where hoaxes and gag entries can have a life span of years. If you must use Wikipedia, click the links in the footnotes on the page to get the real story, and to see how credible the information digested there really is.

19. Posting Hilarious Pictures Online

“Hey, coworker! Looks like you had a great time at your pal’s bachelor party. Oh, is that you posing with a Heineken in your hand? How original! Yeah, you and that girl look pretty wasted in that one. At least, that’s what our boss said when he e-mailed it to me. Good luck with that evaluation!” .

20. Believing the Salesperson

Let’s put it this way: If that guy really knew a lot about computers, would he be wandering the aisles in a blue shirt and slacks asking if you need help? No. No, he would not. Do your research by googling for consumer reviews and comments before you get to the store, and learn which stores offer the best services and deals.

21. Ignoring the Specs

The big idea in tech today is to offer three classes of product: A bare-bones version, a power-user version, and an “extreme” version, each with an escalating price tag. The problem is, the extreme edition may not really do anything that the bare-bones version can’t do–or it has features you don’t actually need–but you buy the expensive one anyway, because you didn’t really read the specs. It can take a lot of Web research time to figure out the meaning of some of the arcana–and what’s really important–but this is time well invested.

22. Using One Password for Everything

All it takes is a single data leak at your cell phone company for a crook to get into your e-mail, bank, investing, online shopping, and Match.com accounts. It’s one-stop shopping for identity thieves! Having a unique password for every site is unrealistic, but use a series of several passwords and save your best for the most critical sites. Password managers can help.

23. Not Having a Disposable E-Mail Address

Don’t give out your regular e-mail address to newsletters, iffy Web services, and girls or boys you meet after midnight. A disposable e-mail address that you check once a fortnight is a better solution. This is why Gmail was invented.
24. Failing to Lock Your Smartphone

When an unsavory type finds a lost phone, his first order of business is to call as many international and 900-type numbers that he humanly can. Then he harvests all the data on it for identity theft and spam purposes. Or you could, you know, prevent all of that by putting a simple PIN on the thing. You can find tools built to manage security for Android and other mobile operating systems.

25. Commenting Online

I know: You have the perfect bon mot to counter one of the points on this list, and you’re going to enter it painstakingly into a Web form at the bottom of this article so you can be clever comment #86 on page four. Congratulations, sir or ma’am. Touché. Seriously, people, this is 2010. If you have something snarky or inflammatory to say, at least have the common courtesy to tweet it (politely).

Favorite protest signs from the weekend’s Stewart/Colbert Rally

Making it into politics
An Indian walkes into a cafe with a shotgun in one hand and the other hand pulling a male buffalo. He says to the waiter: “Want coffee.” The waiter says, “Sure, Chief. Coming right up.” He gets the Indian a tall mug of coffee… The Indian drinks the coffee down in one gulp, turns and blasts the buffalo with the shotgun, causing parts of the animal to splatter everywhere and then he just walks out.

The next morning the Indian returns. He has his shotgun in one hand, pulling another male buffalo with the other. He walks up to the counter and says to the waiter: “Want coffee.” The waiter says, “Whoa, Tonto! We’re still cleaning up your mess from yesterday. What was all that about anyway?” The Indian smiles and proudly says, “Training for position in United States Congress. Come in, drink coffee, shoot the bull, leave mess for others to clean up, disappear for rest of day.”

Shortest Jewish Joke of the Year:

“Two Jewish women were sitting quietly together, minding their own business.”

Runner-up:

“Three rabbis walk into a bar…”

Harry Newton who is late this morning because he slept in. Naughty Harry.