In Search of the Perfect Investment

A couple of weeks ago when a hugely successful hedge fund manager got on CNBC and argued that Tesla wasn’t a business, it was a car company, like Ford or GM.

Hence, dump your Tesla. Or better, short it.

The intelligent “trade” was to ignore the “learned” words on BubbleVision and buy Tesla around $400. Here’s TSLA year to date.

CNBC has 24-hours, seven days a week to fill. They need “stars.”  Their “stars” are not the usual movie stars, politicians or authors.

They’re hedge fund managers who appear for two reasons — their egos and their need to attract money to their hedge funds.

When a hedgie stays “Tesla is not a real business” that isn’t an invitation to short it or sell it. That is an invitation to ignore it the “advice.”

Ignoring advice is empowering.

You never know if he’s telling you to sell it because he wants to buy it cheaper or vice versa.

The airlines are getting their bailout monies.

Bailout monies are flowing. The airlines won’t be flying soon, but they will have enough to stay alive. Hence some of them could be a nice spec.

Here’s a three-month chart showing some of the majors. UAL has been the worst performer; LUV comparatively the best (at least in this chart).

I suspect owning a little DAL, AAL, JBLU and LUV might be rewarding in coming months.

Here’s a comparative chart of the last three months.

Who’ll discover the cure or the vaccine?

Unless you’re really good with the crystal ball, you’ll never guess which pharma or biotech will win the race.

My key is to look at their yields and go for a great company and a decent yield, e.g. JNJ (2.8&), GILD (3.5%), and LLY (1.96%).

Who am I missing?

Oil price decline this year is incredible

Get your head around this. This is WTI oil this year. It’s down a whopping 67.3%. Today it’s slightly under $20 a barrel. That should be great for all the factories — were they open. It’s great for consumers — if you could go somewhere. Gas is cheap.

Pollution is way down. There are even blue skies in places like New Delhi and Beijing.

You don’t see 67.3% declines in a few months often.

Finally Amazon understands me and my taste in music

Bogus stuff

Someone made all the stuff up about what this book contained:

And this puzzle (from yesterday) doesn’t work. The video is designed to drive us nuts.

Home alone

Being at home alone addles the brain, destroys critical, charitable thinking. There are people out there who want to open the economy because of their concern for all the people who will kill themselves because they can’t go back to work. They’ll commit suicide, pill pop and drink too much. Readers keep sending me stuff  about suicides — completely ignoring minor things like our little pandemic and all the people dying from that. “But they’re all old and going to die anyway.” I’m 77 and don’t want to die. Am I being selfish? Am I destroying the economy?

Etiquette today

  + Did you read all the email I sent you?

  + Are you sure you hit the “Send” button when you replied?

  + Did you send a “Thank You” email?

  + Did you spell check your email?

  + Did you CHECK, CHECK, CHECK? (Our old motto.)

  + Stop telling me that a New York liberal, pinko (.i.e. me) lives in a bubble and doesn’t understand. I look at each action within a framework of logic and most good. I l pray for competence in our leaders and when they show their faults, I may point them out I’m a follower or John Locke. For more on Locke, go here. 

Where marriage stands today

Susan kicked me out of  bed this morning because she wanted to make it.

Bed was comfortable, warm and great place to read my laptop, nicely propped up under a nice pillow.

It was not to be. I sacrificed for the good of humanity.

Life moves on, thank God

Yesterday a dear friend gave birth to a healthy bouncing baby girl, called Juliette Marie. The doctors are recommending Juliette self-isolate for at least — wait for this — nine months. No relatives. No friends. Nothing for nine months. Just this blog (??)

See you tomorrow. I”m going to play tennis. — Harry Newton