I’m horribly optimistic. Here’s why:
+ There’s oodles of money around.
+ Earnings are coming in strong, especially tech earnings.
+ Residential rents are soaring. A complete surprise to landlords who predicted gloom and doom only a year ago in the depths of the pandemic.
+ Office rents are not in arrears. They’re being paid on time.
Not all our stocks are doing well. Facebook and Amazon have clouds over them — different clouds. But others — like Tesla, Upstart, Moderna and PayPal, are more than compensating. Yeah.
If happiness is a rising stockmarket, I got it in spades today. My stock portfolio is heavily concentrated in tech stocks, which is what I understand. As a hedge I also have investments in residential and office.
The pandemic didn’t affect residential. People got to live somewhere and there’s an acute shortage of housing in the booming areas of the United States. I was worried about companies needing less space as many of their workers opted for home work.
I’ve never felt home work was great. Personally I miss popping into my neighbor’s office and asking for help, for feedback, for compliments. My new Dutch real estate maven friend, John Schepens, says “The soul of the office is created within the company.” Hence, be at work.
And, lo, the New York Times just published, “
To Get Ahead at Work, Lawyers Find It Helps to Actually Be at Work
The generational divide on returning to the office is not neatly drawn. For some young professionals, even in a pandemic, showing up is more than half the battle.
You can read the NYTimes piece here.
If you’re worried about stuff stuck in ports and on ships, you should be.
First remember my investment mantra: Move bits, not boxes.
Second, read this NYTimes piece:
How the Supply Chain Broke, and Why It Won’t Be Fixed Anytime Soon
Confession: We didn’t even have a logistics beat before the pandemic. Now we do. Here’s what we’ve learned about the global supply chain disruption.
You can read the NYTimes piece here.
Third, look at this chart from JPMorgan Chase. It tells you most of the delays are coming from rising demand. I like to see demand. That means “boom” and rising earnings.
Creative destruction at JFK
This is the Delta baggage claim at JFK . You can rent one of these carts for $5 — if you’re stupid enough to have luggage without wheels.
They have carts in Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. They’re free. They also have free carts in most European and Middle Eastern airports.
Now think of this as an investment:
You negotiate an exclusive from JFK Airport to put these things everywhere. It’s a license to print money. $5 for ten minutes.
Until they invented the wheel.
It’s my favorite “technology” story.
I didn’t invest in this “can’t fail” business.
Tips
+ Going to Amsterdam? Delta has much better business class pods than KLM.
+ A five minute trip to MyVerizon.com saved me oodles by getting a newer plan, with unlimited data.
+ Apple Genius transferred my iPhone 12 to iPhone 13. But not the apps and not the Bluetooth for my car. Now I have the new phone, I’m happy. But getting it fully working was a chore. My new Apple Watch is coming this week. The watch is more useful than the phone. If you have a iPhone, you really should have a watch. Best feature: The watch helps you find your phone by ringing it. Hint: It’s under the pillows.
Tesla gets charged
There are zillions of EVs (electric vehicles) in Amsterdam. There are charging stations on the street. More are going in. The city fathers want the city to be all EV soon.
You carry a little key fob. Hold it next to the pump and lo, your car and account get charged. It’s brilliant.
We took a Tesla taxi from the airport to downtown Amsterdam. It was glorious. I got a good peek at the two screens. I loved the view of all the cars around ours and their movement. It made me feel very safe. My next car will be a Tesla. It will be black. Teslas look stunning in black.
Morgan Stanley raised Tesla target to $1,200. Nice of them. Just as I was, once again, about to tell you I’m seeing Teslas everywhere, including in our Columbia County upstate paradise, where people are buying the extended range Tesla. They’re often in black, too, my favorite color. My son has one in grey.
I wish I owned more Tesla stock. I’m not complaining. My profits now exceed the price of most Teslas.
They outlawed potholes in Holland
the lack of potholes got me thinking. Government has only four functions: health, education, safety (aka. law and order), and infrastructure.
Before you scream, I know the Netherlands has fewer than seventeen million people. So, does it work? You betcha.
+ There’s government health. Everyone gets it. You pay a small insurance. They all look healthy, tall and thin.
+ If you’re talented, you can go to college. It’s only 3,000 euros a year. If you don’t have the money, the government will lend it to you. You start paying the money back when you get a real job.
+ I don’t know anything about safety, since I didn’t see a single policeman in my entire stay. But there is a special squad in Amsterdam that fishes cars and bicycles that fall into the canals. Since parking space is tight, drivers park their cars on the canal’s edges, forget to put on the parking brake. Bingo the car rolls into the canal. Drunk tourists are the main idiots.
+ There are no potholes. The roads are wonderful. The buses, street cars and trains are modern, clean, fast and reliable. If you commute, you ride your bike to the local station, catch the train, and pick up your second bike at the distance station, and ride it to work. See below.
You pay just under half your income in taxes. But, for what you get, it looks to me like a bargain.
Abortion was legalized on November 1, 1984.
There are actually few abortions in the Netherlands because their healthcare for women is so good.
Biking in Amsterdam
They outlawed hills in Amsterdam. Hence it’s flat and everyone rides bicycles.
Bicycles are the way everyone goes everywhere. They’re really good. They ride mostly crappy bicycles and chain them up. There’s a theft problem, despite Dutch honesty.
This is the parking area for bikes at the main Amsterdam train station. Look carefully, there’s thousands of bikes on three levels. And they’re building more parking space for bikes — under the water. (I don’t make this up.)
If you visit, rent a bike. There is a bike rental place on most corners.
This is a cargo bike. Cargo is a loose term. I saw two children being biked to school. Many of the bikes have electric motors. One mother told me it was too hard to bicycle her two kids to school without a motor.
There’s a new spac in town.
It’s called DWAC. Digital World Acquisition Corp. It’s going to incorporate Donald Trump’s new social media service, called Truth Social.
Here’s DWAC. It’s done incredibly well the last three days.
It’s done incredibly well, especially when you realize that Truth Social hasn’t started and won’t until Spring next year. So, why the boom in the stock? I copied some clips from Reddit. Read a few. They’re brilliant.
Notice the heavy financial analysis.
Buttock Tattoo Terror Lands Rotherham Pair In Hospital
I publish this from the Yorkshire Herald in England.
A furious row has broken out between a local tattoo artist and his client after what started out as a routine inking session left both of them requiring emergency hospital treatment.
Furious film fan and part-time plus-size XXXL model Tracey Munter (23), had visited the ‘Ink It Good’ Tattoo Emporium in Wellgate, Yorkshire last week, to have the finishing touches applied to a double buttock representation of the chariot race scene from the iconic 1959 film, Ben Hur.
Tattooist Jason Burns takes up the story.
“It was a big job in more ways than one”, he told us “I’d just lit a roll-up and was finishing off a centurions helmet. It’s delicate, close up work. Next thing is, I sense a slight ripple in the buttock cleavage area just around Charlton Heston’s whip, and a hissing sound – more of a whoosh than a rasp – and before I know what’s happening, there’s a flame shooting from her arse to my fag and my beards gone up like an Aussie bush fire.”
Jason says he rushed to the studio sink to quell the flames, only to turn round and see Tracey frantically fanning her buttock area with a damp towel. The flames had traveled down the gas cloud and set fire to her thong which was smoking like a cheap firework.
“To be honest”, said Jason, “I didn’t even realize she was wearing one. You’d need a sodding mining licence and a torch to find out for sure. She could have had a complete wardrobe in there and I’d have been none the wiser.”
Jason and Tracey were taken to Rotherham District Hospital accident and emergency department where they were treated for minor burns and shock. Both are adamant that the other is to blame.
“I’m furious” said Jason, “I’ve got a face like a mange-ridden dog and my left eyebrow’s not there any more. I don’t know about Ben Hur – Gone With The Wind would be more appropriate. You don’t just let rip in someone’s face like that. It’s dangerous.”
But Tracey remains both angry and unrepentant.
“I’m still in agony,” she said, “and Charlton Heston looks more like Sidney bloody Poitier now. Jason shouldn’t have had a fag on the go when he’s doing close up work, there’s no way I’d guff on purpose. He’d had me on all fours for nearly an hour. I can only put up with that for so long before nature takes its course. My Kev knows that I give him my five-second warning, and I’d have done the same for Jason, but I didn’t get chance – it just quietly crept out.”
Ted Walters from the South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue service wasn’t surprised when we asked him to comment on what had happened.
“People just don’t appreciate the dangers,” he told us. “We get more call outs to flatulence ignition incidents than kitchen fires these days now that people have moved over to oven chips. We have a slogan ‘Flame ‘n fart – keep ’em apart’. Anyone engaging in an arse-inking scenario would do well to bear that in mind in future. On behalf of the entire Fire and Rescue service, we wish them both a swift recovery.”
I was telling my Dutch stories at our local coffee shop. My friend, the banker, David McNeill, stopped me and asked if I had slept?
See you soon. — Harry Newton
