Skip to content
 

Amazon blows the roof off. Guess who’s a happy camper? The Coronavirus gets serious. Which stocks should you own?

Amazon is my second largest holding after Apple. It’s been on my list of recommended stocks forever — see the right column on my web site.

I’m a happy camper with Apple and Amazon.

Governments are freaking over the coronavirus — for various reasons:

President Xi wants to save his career after he bungled swine fever and killed lots of China’s pigs.

And President Trump is up for re-election.

Health authorities all over the world are downplaying the threat — to protect their government jobs.

Some perspective:

+ In 2017-18 a bad flu season saw symptoms in 45 million Americans, and 61,000 deaths.

+ Worldwide, the coronavirus has killed maybe 500 and sickened 10,000. They don’t have a vaccine or a cure, yet.

If you’re 55 or older and have trouble breathing, you need to be extra careful. That’s who it kills.

As they shut down China (and soon America), we need to be careful:

Wash your hands. Don’t shake hands. Don’t touch your face, especially your eyes.

You need to lighten up on stocks with a big exposure to China. I sold Starbucks. (You don’t want most energy stocks, because world demand is flagging.)

My big exposure to China is Apple. I can’t bear to sell that stock. It has a raft of new products coming out this year, including 5G phones. Today is a good day to buy Apple. It’s down over $6.

Ed and I were talking. What to buy? I suggested:

AMZN, ADBE, DOCU, MSF, NOW and SWKS.

Ed broadened to:

FB, GOOG, INTU, COST, IAC, NOW, CRM, WKDY, TW,  PYPL, SQ, MA, GPN, CRWD, ZM, TW and TWLO.

Pick your poison.

My screen today bis a sea of red ink (except for Amazon, DOCU, CCI, and WM).

Stocks are on sale, again. Pick from the lists above or check out my portfolio in the right hand column. Click here.

Best advice today

Stop freaking out about the coronavirus and/or Bernie becoming president.

If you’d feel better having more cash, sell some Amazon. It’s probably going to pull back from these lofty heights (it did before).

Put your money in a safe place:

Clayton Christensen, HBS professor, died

Nice obituary in the New York Times, which began:

Clayton Christensen, Guru of `Disruptive Innovation,’ Dies at 67
He broke ground with his assertion that the factors that helped the best companies succeed were also the reasons some of those same companies failed.

He wrote a book “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” which The Economist called one of the six most important business books ever written.

On the last day of his management class every semester he asked his students to “turn those theoretical lenses on themselves” and answer three questions:

+ “First, how can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career?

+ Second, how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness?

+ Third, how can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail?”

Several former classmates of his, including Jeffrey Skilling, the former chief executive of Enron, had spent time in prison. “These were good guys – but something in their lives sent them off in the wrong direction.”

“The metric by which God will assess my life isn’t dollars but the individual people whose lives I’ve touched.”

“Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved…worry about the individuals you have helped become better people.

“Read his obit here:

Don’t you love marketing?

The container has 10 ounces, which is 20% more than the old container which had 8 ounces. You get a bonus for the bad math. Go figure:

This is Peter Newton, grandson, now aged 4

On his recent fourth birthday, he’s now too big to go for free on the New York City subway. You have to be under 44 inches.

The best philosophy for today — Shake It Off

Turn up the volume and play full screen.

Here are the lyrics. She doesn’t have much faith in men:

Enjoy the Australian tennis this weekend. It’s on ESPN and the Tennis Channel.

Wonderful obituary of Kobe Bryant in today’s Economist. The Headline is “Love Story.” Click here.

See you Monday –Harry Newton

4 Comments

  1. Mike Nash says:

    A tough day for you, Harry. After Apple plummeted you lost a ton of money. I hope you don’t have to move out of your home and get a job now.

  2. gerryb says:

    Clayton Christensen: “the metric by which God will assess my life isn’t dollars but the individual people whose lives I’ve touched.
    “Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved…worry about the individuals you have helped become better people.”

    • Elliot Z says:

      I posted that second quote on LinkedIn the other day. It’s so beautiful I’ll repeat it: “Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved…worry about the individuals you have helped become better people.”

    • Mike Nash says:

      What ridiculous garbage. This is a capitalistic society. Our gods are men who earned the most money – Bezos, Steve Jobs, Gates, Buffett, Cuban, Larry Ellison, Harry Newton, Donald TRump, Mike Bloomberg…several of those I mentioned are/were amoral people but we still hold them in high esteem. Nobody cares about nor knows about do gooders.