Don’t look. Go for a walk.
Today is magnificent, especially for our stocks. My portfolio — in the right hand column of the blog — is up over two percent.
There are some obvious lessons:
+ Dollar cost averaging works. Choose an amount out of your salary every month and invest it it in the market. If you’re uncomfortable with choosing individual stocks, buy VGT and VTI. The first is Vanguard’s technology ETF. The second is Vanguard’s index fund of the entire market. Curiously, for the past two years, they’ve appreciated pretty well equally.
+ Don’t ever try and time the market — like selling when it goes down. The best thing to when it goes down is to buy more of your favorite stocks.
Remember this book I’m reading:
Here’s a quote:
Marks also eschews the idea of timing the market, given the impossibility of repeatedly predicting the right moments to jump in and out. He noted in one of his earliest memos that the average annual return for stocks from 1926 to 1987 was 9.44 percent, but “if you had gone to cash and missed the best 50 of those 744 months, you have would have missed all of the return. This tells me that attempts at market timing are a source of risk, not protection.”
This morning I sold AMD, when I meant to buy it. That’s the first mistake I’ve made with Fidelity’s software called Active TraderPro. Idiot me. I bought it back. Good idea to follow our motto: CHECK. CHECK. CHECK.
Fascinating Stuff
+ Digital end-of-life services are booming. The death-tech industry — filled with apps that make posthumous videos of loved ones, chatbots that let you “talk” with dead relatives, and companies that clean up online presences after death — is surging. But not everybody says that’s a good thing, and experts are questioning the ethics of deathcare companies.
+ Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the 58-year-old Saudi Arabian financial, media, and real-estate mogul, no longer invites journalists to visit his $130 million, 460,000-square-foot Riyadh complex with 371 rooms, an 80-foot-high entrance hall, 500 televisions, and a staff of 100. Apparently he’s offended at press reports of dwarf-throwing at his house.
+ Netflix is rolling out mobile games for Android devices. The gaming business is huge.
+ From The Motley Fool: Chipmaker GlobalFoundries made its grand debut on the Nasdaq last week. The company specializes in making exactly the types of chips that are in high demand right now, which is probably good news for investors. CEO Tom Caulfield expects to be dealing with supply issues for the next five to 10 years, noting that the company is currently operating at 100% capacity and has all of its supply sold out through 2023. Seems the global chip shortage isn’t going away anytime soon.
That didn’t stop it rising above what I paid two days ago. Chip foundries are in short supply. GFS is the symbol.
+ Your new Apple watch and new iPhone still have ultra-sensitive screens. They’ll break, crack and chip if you drop them. I haven’t hurt my two new goodies, but I saw a new Apple watch with a cracked screen. Not a nice look. She dropped it in the bathroom.
+ My favorite jeans are Adriano Goldschmied. They make jeans in very light fabric. they’re designed in California and some are made there. They’re great with all the latest fads from fading to slim. This video shows how they’re made — amazingly high tech. Half-way through the video you’ll see how their jeans are “hand distressed to achieve the perfect amount of destruction.” (I did not make that up.)
+ Cramer has identified his favorite “Year-End Megatrends.”
They’re a bit too broad for my taste. But he has been right on Ford and Tesla, and on Cloudfare, Google, Nvidia and Salesforce (CRM). You have to be very picky accepting his recommendations. But, to his credit, he does get behind some long-term winners, Like Tesla and Nvidia.
Back in New York City. Went shopping.
+ Every store takes Apple Pay on my iPhone. I never will fish for a credit card again. Fast and secure. No one will ever find out the number of my Apple Card.
+ Retail stores need to be re-thought. No retail store can carry the inventory that’s on the Internet. No retail store clerk can sell clothing or shoes like a web site can. I walked out of Alteryx’s new upper west side store because they had only two sizes — 32 and 38 — in a pair of jeans I wanted. Nothing in between. Did they offer to buy it on the web for me? No. they told me to come soon — when I will have left town.
+ Many retail stores are still closed, including many near me on the upper west side.
+ The best bargains are found in Uniqlo. Perfect place for parkas and other wintery stuff for you and the kids. Click here.
Fun stuff
We undoubtedly owe our good luck today to Jerome Powell, head of the Fed Reserve. I listened to his press conference yesterday. I was going to quote bits and pieces of it. But none of my quotes would tell you how brilliant this man is.
Do yourself a favor. Search on the Internet for excerpts and watch him. Start here:
I’m going for a bike ride around the midtown Manhattan.
Rosie has diarrhea. This morning I dropped her poop off at the vet for analysis – $67.
I hesitate to say the obvious” Shit happens. It happened four times last night. It’s my job to take her to Central Park last night. Central Park closes at 1 AM. I was secretly hoping to get arrested and then see the New York Post headlines. If you have a good suggestion, send it.
One of the unforeseen consequences was that in the dark I walked into Rosie’s production and brought it home. The second time this week.
See you tomorrow. — Harry Newton.