There’s huge money on the sidelines. It’s desperate to get invested. It used to favor fast-growing tech stocks (profits optional). Now it’s favoring more conventional stocks with growth and profits like Apple, Generac, Honeywell and Home Depot.
Diversification among varied industries and away from tech is now to be a good idea.
I tend to loosen up on high-fliers when the market explodes, as it did yesterday.
Today looks subdued. We’re waiting on today’s negotiations with the Chinese to produce miracles?
My favorite definition of hope is the desperate girl, who pregnant and rubbing vanishing cream on her stomach.
There’s an updated list of my stocks on the web site. Click here.
More useful tips:
+ If you run a company, please put three things on your product: its name, its product number and its web site. Pity the idiots (like me) who admire your product, want to buy it, but can’t figure out where.
+ Hearings aids now come rechargeable. Don’t buy one that needs batteries. Batteries are a gigantic pain and are always dying in the theater where it’s impossible to change them.
+ Amazon is selling a pack of twenty four 60 watt equivalent LED bulbs for less than $1 a bulb. They use only 8.4 watts, which means you save 86% of your electricity. Not long ago, these things cost megabucks and produced awful blinding white light. If you haven’t replaced every bulb in your house with LEDs, you’re missing great savings. We also replaced all our bulbs on our indoor tennis courts. The savings are phenomenal. But more impressive — not one of the many hundreds have burned out. Not one! Them’s is amazing technology.
+ The battery on your ageing laptop is ailing. Cheaper to replace the battery than the laptop. Also think about replacing the screen and the keyboard. Bingo, you’ll have a new laptop — without the agony of having to move all your stuff across to a new machine.
+ The iPhone’s new upgraded IOS can mess things up. including your Personal Hotspot. Reboot the phone several times. If it still doesn’t work, do a network reset. But that will lose all your passwords to all your WiFi. When replacing them don’t make a mistake typing them back in.
+ I walk Rosie at night. I count the cars going through red lights. I’m up to 15 for the week already. Be careful crossing the road. It’s more dangerous than falling down stairs.
News of note
+ Chris Collins of Buffalo was the first member of congress to endorse Mr. Trump for president in 2016. Mr. Collins held up their shared business backgrounds as the reason. But then last week, Mr. Collins resigned his seat and pleaded guilty to insider trading charges.
+ SoftBank chief Masayoshi Son said he was “embarrassed and impatient” with his record, as the poor performance of Uber, and terrible performance of WeWork, cast a shadow (not my word) over his investment strategy. Softbank’s damage from Uber and WeWork could exceed $5 billion. My friend, the real estate mogul, visited WeWork management some time back. He commented to me that they were “clueless” on the business of real estate — but great on hype.
+ Researchers find e-cigarettes cause lung cancer in mice in first study tying vaping to cancer.
+ A recent survey found that about 25% of adults over age 50 take a supplement to improve their brain health with the promise of enhanced memory and sharper attention. The problem? There’s no solid proof any of them work. The main issue with all over-the-counter supplements is lack of federal regulation. Do not take heavily-advertised Prevagen. It burns me every time I see their TV ad, featuring the jelly fish. By the way, jelly fish don’t have brains. People are actually buying Prevagen. I prefer snake oil.
+ Elon Musk says Tesla owners will soon be able to replace their horn with fart and goat noises and the clip-clopping sounds of coconuts being banged together. It’s still a great car to drive.
+ A handful of Assad’s relatives are making a fortune from Syria’s war, says the London Financial Times.
Syria’s richest man, Rami Makhlouf, happens to be the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s cousin and childhood playmate. Before war broke out in 2011, Makhlouf was thought to control more than half of Syria’s economy despite the fact that he has been under international sanctions since 2008.
Here are the Trump Towers in Istanbul, Turkey
If you think we sold out the Kurds to get more rewards from these buildings, you could be forgiven for such an ugly thought. Allegedly, the Trump Organization has already received over $10 million in cash from these buildings. From Wikipedia:
Trump Towers Istanbul are two conjoined towers in Sisli, Istanbul, Turkey. One of the towers is an office tower, and the other a residential tower, consisting of over 200 residences. The complex also holds a shopping mall with some 80 shops and a multiplex cinema. They are the first Trump Towers built in Europe…
The Turkish owner of Trump Towers Istanbul, who pays Trump for the use of his name, was reported in December 2015 to be exploring legal means to dissociate the property after the candidate’s call to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S. In June 2016, Turkish President Erdogan has been reported to call for the removal of the Trump name from the towers, saying “Trump has no tolerance for Muslims living in the US. And on top of that they used a brand in Istanbul with his name. The ones who put that brand on their building should immediately remove it.”
In December 2015, Trump stated in a radio interview that he had a “conflict of interest” in dealing with Turkey because of his property, saying “I have a little conflict of interest, because I have a major, major building in Istanbul … It’s called Trump Towers. Two towers, instead of one. Not the usual one, it’s two. And I’ve gotten to know Turkey very well.”
I once went to Turkey to find property investments there. Istanbul is gorgeous. But even then, you could feel the winds of autocracy blowing. Personal freedoms were being curtailed. Erdoğan (pronounced Erdowan) has been running the place since 2003. He’s getting crazier and crazier. I couldn’t write this blog in Turkey. He’d put me in jail.
But I’m in the U.S. and not in jail.
Sell Rosh Hashanah. Buy Yom Kippur. Yesterday was Yom Kippur.
See you tomorrow. — Harry Newton
Brain supplements may not work, however, I can attest to the fact that “KELP” absolutely does increase your energy level. During my annual physical last year I mentioned lack of energy to our doctor and he recommended taking Kelp. Within a week my energy was above and beyond normal. I have mentioned this to friends, even gave them an initial supply, and they have ALL praised Kelp within a week. You can order it here https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00024D1ZA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
One capsule per day does the trick.