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I like Honeywell. I like cutting the cord with Locast.org. I like seeing what Saudis can’t see. (That regime is nuts.)

Stocks are still below last year’s highs. Many are worth buying. See my list on my site’s right hand column. Click here.

Negatives:

From today’s Wall Street Journal

Economic confidence among small firms, which edged downward for much of 2018, in January reached its lowest level since President Trump’s election, according to a monthly survey of 765 small firms for The Wall Street Journal by Vistage Worldwide Inc. (Vistage polls firms with between $1 million and $20 million of revenue.) Just 14% of firms expect the economy to improve this year, while 36% expect it to get worse.

For the first time since the 2016 election, small firms were more pessimistic about their own financial prospects than they were a year earlier, including plans for hiring and investment, according to the survey, which was completed shortly before the 35-day federal shutdown ended.

“We could be at a turning point,” said Richard Curtin, a University of Michigan economist who analyzed the data. “Recessions are not made of one firm collapsing, but of many firms cutting back in marginal ways.”

From Business Insider today:

Earnings season has turned into a ‘minefield.’ This earnings season has seen the fewest number of “beats” in seven years, according to Peter Boockvar, the chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group.

Positives:

from Joe Ross’s Ross Rant

As I have said for a while, make your own decisions about the economy and the stock market, and be careful which pundits and analysts you listen to. After all the talk of recession and the collapse of stock prices in December, and the shutdown, the market is up almost 8% since January 1, and 10% since Christmas. It was the best January in 30 years. If you own a well selected all equity portfolio it should be up around 10% in January. The January jobs report of over 300,000 new jobs in spite of the shutdown, should tell you there is no recession in the near term. While unemployment was up to 4%, that was partially due to the shutdown and will reverse and be under 3.7% as the year goes on. Participation was up to 63.2%, although that is still well below the 67.1% in 1999. The difference now is partly due to the drug epidemic and partly to people retiring at a rapid rate. Wages are rising at over 3.5% and inflation is running around 1.6%, as gas prices and heating oil prices decline. Tax refunds will start to flow in a few weeks, and ramp up as we get to May. A continuation of excellent cash flow increases for the average family.

My favorite industrial stock is Honeywell

Here’s news:

In 2018, Honeywell Ventures made 5 investments, including in Soft Robotics, a developer of automation solutions and soft robotic gripping systems that can grasp and manipulate items, the same dexterity of the human hand and in IoTium, a managed secured network infrastructure platform for an industrial Internet of Things that primarily serves building technologies and industrial customers. We also completed two bolt-on acquisitions totaling roughly $500 million. Ortloff Engineers is a privately held licensor and industry leading developer of specialized technologies to drive high returns in natural gas processing and sulphur recovery. This complements our existing UOP offering, which allows us to better meet customer needs for high recovery, non-gas liquid extraction plants growth.

Transnorm, now part of safety and productivity solutions is a global leader in high-performance conveyor solutions that are used in diverse end-markets, such as parcel delivery, e-commerce fulfillment and airports. The acquisition strengthens Honeywell’s warehouse automation portfolio and positions the company to support the growing European e-commerce market, while broadening Honeywell’s connected distribution center and aftermarket offerings.

I also like this Honeywell quote:

Here’s Honeywell over ten years:

Cutting the cord

Every cable company rips you off. Start with assumption… and think alternatives. The BIG one is to watch stuff over the Internet — like Netflix and Amazon video.

Now comes the best yet — free local TV, streaming over the Internet.

It’s a from a company called Locast.org. Here are the cities it’s serving at present: (Click on the image to see it in full.)

The quality is superb. Maybe it’s time to cut your cord also?

Read more about Locast.org and its great founder, David Goodfriend, here.

Watch what Saudi Arabia won’t allow

Saudi Arabia asked Netflix not to show a standup comedy episode by Hasan Minhaj inside Saudi.

The show is worth watching, if only to find out what pis*ed the Saudi regime off.

How corrupt is the world? 

Pretty corrupt is the simple answer. And another good reason to not invest in most countries. Click on the chart to see it in full.

Gerry Seinfeld has some serious (?) words on immigration.

You’ll die laughing. Sorry I can’t get the image up. The video plays beautifully, however.

Why do I like this?

32 Strange Things to get your mind off politics….

+ A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.

+ A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate. (Stop thinking. Keep reading.)

+ During the chariot scene in “Ben Hur,” a small red car can be seen in the distance (and Heston’s wearing a watch).

+ On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily! (That explains a few mysteries…)

+ Donald Duck comics were once banned from Finland because he doesn’t wear pants.

+ The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin in World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

+ If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death. (Who was the sadist who discovered this?)

+ The phrase “rule of thumb” is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn’t beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

+ Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.

+ Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a spacesuit damages them.

HarryNewton
Harry Newton, who spent much of the weekend reading, researching and rejecting. You gotta kiss a lot of frogs before you find that prince.