My euphoria.
This morning, Mr. Market celebrated Harry Newton’s second Moderna shot:
If you think I’m being cute, you’re right. My cabin fever is cured. Susan and I are about to hit the restaurants, the airlines, the cruise lines, the hotels and the casinos. So buy those stocks.
Oops. Too late. My LUV is up, just enough for cross-border trip — New York to New Jersey. The ETF JETS is doing better. I can make it across the country on discount air fares. And my NCLH is enough for a handsome cruise around New York City’s newly-Covid variant infected harbor. They found a new variant, which my shots won’t ward off. This is tempering my vaccine euphoria.
Smart investors beat me to today’s spike in GameStop.
Meantime, the market has fallen off a cliff this morning. Look at Nasdaq as I write this blog about midday Thursday:
I’m guessing this has something to do with the rise in the 10 year U.S. Treasury, though that “explanation” seems a stretch, given how low the rates are and how little threat they pose to equities.
Still, equity prices are dropping and stocks are clearly on sale. Here’s a messy chart of my eight largest holdings over the past year. They’re all done well, but are now all coming in. If I thought there was something fundamentally wrong with their businesses, I consider selling some of them. . If I had more money I would buy more of them.
This is one of the times when the market hiccups. It’s best to do nothing — except play tennis and watch Netflix.
Bitcoin is back over $50,000
But none of my bitcoin “plays” — Tesla, PayPal, MSTR, GBTC — reflect bitcoin’s higher price. They’re all down. Go figure.
Buffett’s partner, Charlie Munger gave an interview this week in which he said “Bitcoin reminds me of what Oscar Wilde said about fox hunting. He said it was the pursuit of the uneatable by the unspeakable.”
In short, it’s bad day in the market. I suspect it has something to do with “higher” interest rates and the forecast return of inflation. But those are two justifications to explain something I can’t explain — the latest weakness in our stocks.
Tech stocks still provide what Mr. Market treasures — explosive growth and a great story. My logic holds.
Ironically, I bought MO (Altria) for its 7+% yield. It’s rising, thus reducing its yield. Go figure!
Cramer’s SPAC choices
Cramer has good and bad words about SPACs. Last night Cramer highlighted the 10 SPACs he liked. Interesting collection:
I used to be in publishing
Everything was print. Sending someone a magazine every month was pricey. These days life is different. Having a digital subscriber costs nothing. Fine! So why does Bloomberg charge me $340 a year to what is essentially Business Week magazine, without the paper and the postage.
They do have an “introductory” offer of only $1.99 a month for three months.
The introductory offer is too low, and the annual $340 is too high. It’s stupid pricing.
Here’s my solution: I get a debit card:
I attach it to a Fidelity account which has no money in it. I put a gigantic $6 into the account. Then I subscribe for the 3-month trial.
At the end of 3-months, I don’t have to cancel my subscription on the phone with Bloomberg (which is a pain). It cancels itself. There’s no money in the account.
Bingo, I can start all over again…. Of course, if they charged a reasonable price, I’d sign up ling-term (as I do with the Economist and the New York).
Weird world.
Obvious tips
+ Check the cable.
+ Turn it off and turn it on. Rebooting always works.
+ Check your Outbox. Is your outgoing email still stuck there?
+ Pull down from the right hand corner on an iPhone. You’ll see useful choices.
Whoever wrote these telephone scripts:
Are they idiots or what?
+ “How are you doing today?”
+ “Please don’t hang up.”:
+ “You have been selected for a free..”
Excellent philosophy for a another horrid day in the market
I played tennis this morning at 6:15 AM. It was fun.
See you tomorrow. Harry Newton
