Hugely good news for our grandkids
Pfizer and Modern reported positive topline results for their vaccines in ages 5-11. That covers most of mine. And soon the fourth.
I’m pumped.
Weird stuff in stockmarkets
A confluence of unknowns we’re reading about: Shortages of workers, natural gas, coal, truckers, semi-conductor chips, and clarity.
All of these shortages are a direct result of covid and business decisions last year to cut back production of many things.
Consumers and banks are now awash with money. Forced vaccinations are working — viz United Airlines. The picture is clearing.
All the leading economists (and myself) are convinced we’ll have a very strong Q4 in the economy and in stockmarkets.
Getting this positive message out takes time at the cost of confusion in stockmarkets of late. Here’s the last month in Nasdaq stocks (mostly tech), with a particularly awful decline on Tuesday.
Today we’re seeing a bounce among our tech stocks.
There has been talk of moving out of tech and into “industrials.” But it was talk, not solutions. No industrial can deliver the growth tech can. When today bounced back, it was tech stocks. I checked all my non-tech stocks, like AAP, ABT, ALGN, BYND, CARR, COST, CVX, DPZ, JNJ, LOW, OTIS, OTTR, PG, RH and WM. But they’d done awfully as well.
IN short, take solace from Nasdaq for the year. It is up, despite bumps along the way. In this chart I overlaid the S&P 500. You’ll notice the S&P 500 has done better, with fewer heart-rendering gyrations. Typically Nasdaq (as reflected in our favorite VGT) does better.
Thinking of voting for Ron DeSantis?
This is the Fox News headline of earlier this week:
Read and see how DeSantis compares Australia (where I was born) to communist China. Click here.
It is true that Australia has been battling covid with draconian lockdowns (and most recently with extensive vaccinations). My friends and family have accepted the painful lockdowns as necessary to beat covid. They don’t regard the restrictions as an infringement of their liberty. They regard them as necessary to save lives.
Here are the results. DeSantis is governor of Florida.
Those are deaths from covid. That’s an amazing number of Floridians to die because Florida has a dumb, ignorant governor.
I cannot put this new book down
The biggest thing I’ve learned so far: The Chinese are not to be trusted. They violated agreements they had signed about delivering health information to the world. They deliberately hid covid information from us and (interestingly) from themselves also. By hiding covid information from us, it’s clear to me that they killed many Americans. Had they told us, we could have acted sooner. I can’t figure if the killing of Americans was deliberate — I think probably not — but the system of secrecy and weird policies increasingly being adopted under President Xi don’t make a lot of sense.
I’ve ranted for months about staying away from Chinese stocks and I’ve been right.
The book is another reason to stay away from China and Chinese stocks.
President Xi is now “president for life.” And that seriously depresses me. He’s getting crazier.
Dr. Gottlieb makes a strong case for the U.S. developing the tools and organizations to fight the next pandemic. I pray his message gets heard.
Michael, my son, bought a Tesla
Michael bought a Tesla Model Y after doing tons of research.
So far, he loves it. What does he love best?
+ Super acceleration. It’s quick and nimble, especially for a car its size. Regenerative braking is efficient and lets him drive using only one pedal. He rarely uses the brake.
+ No visits to overcrowded, expensive gas stations. He has a level 2 charger at home.
+ The car has a “full tank” every morning after having charged between 12:30am – 6am when the electricity is cheap.
+ Range is over 300 miles, which is plenty for 95%+ of his family’s needs. For longer stuff, they still have an old Subaru but Tesla’s supercharger network is a “killer feature” he claims. No other company can offer that.
+ Safety. 5 star ratings on everything. The computer systems keep you alert, away from everything and focused. The stories of people sleeping at the wheel of their Tesla and killing themselves get a lot of attention but dumb people can do dumb things in any car.
+ It has something called Sentry Mode, which records everything if someone comes near it when parked. It will honk at them. Flash its lights, plays music, etc.
Also has a built in dash camera, which is constantly recording what is going on around the car. You get into an accident, you have the “film.”
+ Dog mode! Dog mode keeps the car hot or cold. A message on the screen says “My owner will be back soon.” It lets passersby know your dog is safe and hot or cold air blows to coddle your trapped pet.
+ The design is simple, logical and compelling. Nothing you don’t need. No zillions of hard-to-figure, badly ladbeled buttons.
+ The tech is great. Car knows Michael is coming through his phone. It unlocks, adjusts the seats, mirrors, steering wheel, etc. without him having to think about it.
+ It is always getting better. He loves its updating: Tesla’s software connects to WiFi and can update many of its functions. When there was a braking problem a few years ago, an OTA (over the air) update fixed that.
+ No oil changes. Very little maintenance — tires, windshield wipers.
It is 100% emissions free because he has renewable energy at home and at his office.
You can get a booster shot
CVS and Walgreens will give it to you. I got mine. Many of my readers now have also. We’re all immuno-compromised in some way.
Things that go bang in the night
+ Ten-X sells real estate via on-line auctions. They’re not interesting properties.
+ I’m not getting suckered into losing money on Palantir. I don’t know what it does and I no longer care. Something with governments.
+ Reader View is the greatest invention on your iPhone. Open this blog on your iPhone with Safari and touch AA. Bingo it switches to just the center column. Everything is suddenly readable. Neat.
+ You should upgrade to iOS 15 on your iPhone. It’s got some neat new health features, including one that hints at whether you could fall soon.
+ Watch your auto-pay bills, like your phone and cable bills. Recently all have tried to zap me with huge rate increases — when I wasn’t — presumably — looking. It’s dishonest. But they’re all doing it.
This week’s favorite New Yorker cartoons
I’m generally not selling any stock. BUT, that said, if I’m losing over 10%, and it’s been on a downer all year, I’ll sell. Beyond Meat (BYND) fits that bill. Fortunately I had only a starter position. I’m now out.
I am hugely optimistic for the rest of the year. By Christmas covid and Delta will be conquered. I believe China will solve the Evergrande problem by bailing out the buyers who put money down to buy to-be-built apartments. It will take time. Real estate is a huge element of China’s GDP — perhaps as high as 20% — and hence hugely important. This will slow China down. I wish they had a better leader.
Sunset in Columbia County, NY this week.
I’m off to play tennis with Mark Johnson, photographer. This is the view from his tennis court.
See you soon. Harry Newton
