NLY bounces back: Annaly announced a billion dollar secondary at $17.30. Its shares dropped. A secondary is good for this company. It adds to earnings. Hence the shares are rebounding. Fortunately I recommended buying Annaly on the drop. I did. I hope you did too.
Annaly is presently yielding 14.55%.
Here are REMX’s top holdings.I’m still mulling on rare earth. Bubble or big, serious opportunity? I’m not a big fan of small mining companies.
Here’s REMX over the past two years.
My friend, Philip Z. loves NE.
He’s usually pretty good with his picks. Here’s his logic:
Noble Corp (fka as Noble Drilling) operates the world’s premier fleet of offshore drilling rigs. Noble’s fleet is considered the most advanced for drilling in deep and ultra deep water.
Shares of Noble (NE) are cheap. They currently trade at less than 18 times earnings 2011 earnings per share estimates of $2.30 per share. This is due in large part to the exodus out of energy stocks after BP’s disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last summer. Due to stellar revenue and earnings growth and the price of a barrel of oil approaching $100 again, Wall Street has been moving back into this volatile sector. Thus NE is a PE expansion story. Before the BP rig disaster Noble traded at a PE over 25. Figure 25 times $2.30 (2011 eps) is $58. Figure 25 times 2012 estimates of $3.60 is $90. This stock has a way to run.
Drillers have high visibility with earnings due to world’s insatiable thirst for oil. Big companies like Exxon and Chevron have limited access to reserves in the Middle East so they have to find oil offshore. More and more this is in deepwater. Noble’s Rigs currently operate off the coast of Brazil and Africa. Day Rates can exceed $200,000.
Noble has a stellar reputation for know how and safety.
Warren’s holdings: Many were bought years ago. Most don’t appeal today. I suspect this list is not comprehensive. It leaves out Goldman Sachs and BYDDF (BYD Company), amongst others.
Hearing aids suck.I returned my free trial Oticon Agil hearing aids last night.
They were great amplifiers, but they were lousy discriminators. They amplified everything including all the ambient noise. They made being in a painful noisy restaurant even more painful. I’m told that some hearing aids can cut sideways noise and focus on the front conversation. I can’t see how any hearing aid can do that when its two (typically two) microphones are front-facing and no more than one inch apart.
Learning the art of lip-reading may be more productive — until I get to 90 and really need the silly, overpriced things.
Meantime, I remain awestruck by the genius marketing behind selling $25 of electronics for $6,000. that’s what mine would have cost, had I been stupid enough to buy them.
Wives are so generous.
A man and his wife were awakened at 3:00 am by a loud pounding on the door.
The man gets up and goes to the door where a drunken stranger, standing in the pouring rain, is asking for a push.
“Not a chance,” says the husband, “It’s three in the morning!”
He slams the door and returns to bed.
“Who was that?” asked his wife..
“Just some drunk guy asking for a push,” he answers.
“Did you help him?” she asks.
“No, I did not, it’s 3am in the morning and it’s pouring rain out there!”
“Well, you have a short memory,” says his wife. “Can’t you remember about three months ago when we broke down, and those two guys helped us? I think you should help him, and you should be ashamed of yourself! God loves drunk people too you know.”
The man does as he is told, gets dressed, and goes out into the pounding rain.
He calls out into the dark, “Hello, are you still there?”
“Yes,” comes the answer.
“Do you still need a push?” calls out the husband.
“Yes, please!” comes the reply from the dark.
“Where are you?” asks the husband.
“Over here on the swing,” replied the drunk.
Harry Newton who prays that the biggest beneficiary of the turmoil in the mid-east will be us. Yes, the United States of America. If only we could learn to stop meddling, we wouldn’t be fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We wouldn’t be bribing Egypt with $1.3 billion of military aid each year. We wouldn’t station troops in over 50 countries. We wouldn’t have a major naval base in Bahrain. And so on.
Our own American revolution came because we didn’t like someone else (the British) meddling in our affairs. Why would the Iraqis, Afghans, Egyptians, Bahrainis feel different?
Our meddling has a gigantic cost. Thousands of precious American troops dead in Iraq and Afghanistan. Billions of wasted resources.
I eye the problems at home that the money and the people could have solved. The big Ichabod Crane School in Vallatie, New York has stopped its computer classes and closed its computer lab because it doesn’t have any money. Yet we give Egypt $1.3 billion a year in military aid when they don’t have any enemies. As of December 2009, there were 35,688 U.S. military personnel stationed in Japan, and another 5,500 American civilians employed there by the United States Department of Defense. That’s a total of 41,188 people. Doing what?
I went to a charity event for the Fortune Society last night. It helps just released prisoners. I heard the heart-breaking stories of people being put in jail for 20 years for posssessing three ounces of cocaine. To people living in American city slums, drugs look like the way out, not education. Here are the numbers:
America has 5% of the world’s population, yet we have 25% of the people behind bars — many locked up for years, often for minor, victimless “crimes.” We have 2.3 million people behind bars. Two of every three we release from prison go straight back to prison. Our recidivism rate is high, because virtually all the training classes in our nation’s prisons have been cut. Blame the budgets. Our prisons are into punishment and incarceration, not rehabilitation.
We haven’t built a new bridge or tunnel in New York City for 50+years. Highways to our city’s airports — La Guardia and Kennedy — have never been expanded. Us new Yorkers expect traffic jams every time we go to Kennedy. I’m sure you can think of projects in your community that could do with some of the money we wasted in Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Germany, Japan (yes we have troops there, too) and now Bahrain.
Maybe it’s time for a peace march in Washington? I can see some of the placards, “No More Meddling.” “Let’s fix America, not the world.” “Bring Our Boys and Girls Home.” “Stop Financing Dictators.” “Stop Funding Our Enemies.” (A reference to what Saudi Arabia does with some of our oil money.)
I am not a liberal nut case. My obsessions are allocation of precious resources — my own resources (as in finding the “perfect investment”) — and my beloved country’s resources. We are so rich. Yet we misallocate our resources so badly. We are falling behind. Look at our science and math scores.
Please read this piece from the New York Times this week. It’ll make you cry.
Blood Runs Through the Streets of Bahrain by Nicholas Kristoff
MANAMA (the capital), Bahrain. As a reporter, you sometimes become numbed to sadness. But it is heartbreaking to be in modern, moderate Bahrain right now and watch as a critical American ally uses tanks, troops, guns and clubs to crush a peaceful democracy movement and then lie about it.
This kind of brutal repression is normally confined to remote and backward nations, but this is Bahrain. An international banking center. The home of an important American naval base, the Fifth Fleet. A wealthy and well-educated nation with a large middle class and cosmopolitan values.
To be here and see corpses of protesters with gunshot wounds, to hear an eyewitness account of an execution of a handcuffed protester, to interview paramedics who say they were beaten for trying to treat the injured — yes, all that just breaks my heart.
So here’s what happened.
The pro-democracy movement has bubbled for decades in Bahrain, but it found new strength after the overthrow of the dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt. Then the Bahrain government attacked the protesters early this week with stunning brutality, firing tear gas, rubber bullets and shotgun pellets at small groups of peaceful, unarmed demonstrators. Two demonstrators were killed (one while walking in a funeral procession), and widespread public outrage gave a huge boost to the democracy movement.
King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa initially pulled the police back, but early on Thursday morning he sent in the riot police, who went in with guns blazing. Bahrain television has claimed that the protesters were armed with swords and threatening security. That’s preposterous. I was on the roundabout earlier that night and saw many thousands of people, including large numbers of women and children, even babies. Many were asleep.
I was not there at the time of the attack, but afterward, at the main hospital (one of at least three to receive casualties), I saw the effects. More than 600 people were treated with injuries, overwhelmingly men but including small numbers of women and children.
One nurse told me that she was on the roundabout, known as Pearl Square, and saw a young man of about 24, handcuffed and then beaten by a group of police. She said she then watched as they executed him at point-blank range with a gun. The nurse told me her name, but I will not use full names of some people in this column to avoid putting them at greater risk.
I met one doctor, Sadiq al-Ekri, who was lying in a hospital bed with a broken nose and injuries to his eyes and almost his entire body. He couldn’t speak to me because he was still unconscious and on oxygen, after what colleagues and his family described as a savage beating by riot police outraged that he was treating people at the roundabout.
Dr. Ekri, a distinguished plastic surgeon, had just returned from a trip to Houston. He identified himself as a physician to the riot police, according to other doctors and family members, based partly on what Dr. Ekri, 44, told them before he lost consciousness. But then, they said, the riot police handcuffed him and began beating him with sticks and kicking him while shouting insults against Shiites. Finally, they said, the police pulled down his pants and threatened to rape him, although that idea was abandoned and an ambulance eventually was allowed to rescue him.
“He went to help people,” said his father, who was at the bedside. “It’s his duty to help people. And then this happened.”
Three ambulance drivers or paramedics told me that they had been pulled out of their ambulances and beaten by the police. One, Jameel, whose head was bandaged and his arm was in a cast, told me that police had clubbed him and that a senior officer had then told him: “If I see you again, I’ll kill you.”
A fourth ambulance driver, Osama, was unhurt but said that a military officer — who he said he believed to be a Saudi, based on his accent in Arabic — held a gun to his head and warned him to drive away or be shot. (By many accounts, Saudi tanks and other military forces participated in the attack, but I can’t verify that).
The hospital staff told me that ambulance service has now been frozen, with no ambulances going out on calls except with approval of the Interior Ministry.
Some of the victims, though not all, said that the riot police shouted anti-Shiite curses when they attacked the protesters, who were overwhelmingly Shiite. Sectarianism is particularly delicate in Bahrain because the Sunni royal family, the Khalifas, presides over a country that is predominately Shiite, and Shiites often complain of discrimination by the government.
Hospital corridors were also full of frantic mothers searching desperately for children who had gone missing in the attack.
In the hospital mortuary, I found three corpses with gunshot wounds. One man had much of his head blown off with what mortuary staff said was a gunshot wound. Ahmed Abutaki, a 29-year-old laborer, stood by the body of his 22-year-old brother, Mahmood, who died of a shotgun blast.
Ahmed said he blamed King Hamad, and many other protesters at the hospital were also demanding the ouster of the king. I think he has a point. When a king opens fire on his people, he no longer deserves to be ruler. That might be the only way to purge this land of ineffable heartbreak.
Here's Harrys NYC upper west side liberals in all their glory…………
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/l…
That authoritative, unbiased and highly-respected news journal, the New York Post, clearly presents that the audience was booing Anthony Maschek personally. Was it that – or were they voicing their displeasure regarding the general and contentious issue of the ROTC on campus? After all, the Murdoch-owned Post would never bend the truth … would it?
One thing is perfectly clear: Anthony Maschek is a hero who deserves everyone's respect. It would have been better had the assemblage reserved its opprobrium for another forum, or had voiced its disapproval in such a way as to make clear that they were not critical of Maschek the hero, but of the broader issues to which he chose to lend support.
But just how would they have done that? Perhaps we can also offer the mitigating factor that these are young people who, with a bit of maturity and greater wisdom, will behave in a more circumspect fashion. One thing that we do know: conservatives love our military, especially those who have faced wounds or death on the battlefield. They would never disrespect or ridicule anyone who fought for his or her country – especially those who bore the scars of battle as a result of their service.
Unless they're Democrats, that is. From Ann Coulter/February 2004: “Max Cleland (then-Senate candidate, who lost two legs and part of an arm while serving his country) should stop allowing Democrats to portray him as a war hero who lost his limbs taking enemy fire on the battlefields of Vietnam,” she demanded. Coulter went on to mock the grenade explosion that wounded Cleland so grievously as “an accident during a routine non-combat mission where he was about to drink beer with friends.”
What had happened was that another soldier had dropped the grenade – which Cleland then had the terrible misfortune to retrieve. There was nothing “stupid” (Coulter's term) about what he did; soldiers don't leave explosives lying around for their comrades to step on. While in a literal sense Cleland didn't suffer his terrible wounds while in battle, here's the US Army's own description of how, four days before he lost his limbs, Cleland comported himself: Captain Max Cleland “distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous action on 4 April 1968 … during an enemy attack near Khe Sanh, Republic of Vietnam”:
“When the battalion command post came under a heavy enemy rocket and mortar attack, Capt. Cleland, disregarding his own safety, exposed himself to the rocket barrage as he left his covered position to administer first aid to his wounded comrades. He then assisted in moving the injured personnel to covered positions. Continuing to expose himself, Capt. Cleland organized his men into a work party to repair the battalion communications equipment, which had been damaged by enemy fire.”
This was not some stupid, misguided college kid heaping disgrace on herself by mocking an American hero – it was Anne Coulter, adult, “best-selling author”, and sweetheart of the Right.
Then there was the concerted and largely successful effort in 2004 to destroy the reputation and military record of then-Presidential candidate John Kerry. There's now a new term in our lexicon to express it: “swiftboating”. (It is important to realize that this campaign – as scurrilous and contemptible as it was successful – must have cost the Kerry ticket many thousands of votes, which in turn led to the presidency of George W. Bush and all the trumped-up justifications for war, the wounds and deaths to thousands, and the waste in the trillions that marked his sorry White House tenure.) Surely we must remember how the delegates to the Republican National Convention found great humor in mocking Kerry by sporting purple adhesive bandages with small purple hearts to be worn on their chins, cheeks, hands, etc. And the carefully-coiffed women delegates – oozing scorn, wealth and privilege in equal amounts – who reveled in mocking Kerry and his Vietnam war record.
No excuses for the excesses of youth here – just a carefully calculated and cleverly executed character assassination, performed by mature adults and against the reputation of a man who served his country, faced the enemy on the battlefield, and had the effrontery to offer political views of which they disapproved.
That's American Conservatives, then and now, in all their glory.
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Harry,
I agree with your comments regarding our meddling in foreign affairs and the waste of our tax dollars. However, I recall that you were a staunch support of Obama. Elections have consequences and perhaps you should have delved a bit more into his background before championing him!
I was a staunch supporter of Obama for two reasons: He promised a number of things I liked. The opposition — McCain /Palin — was so awful. Obama has failed to deliver on some of his most important promises — like closing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He isn't the first politician to lie. It's disappointing to me personally.
GMW 13145 You are right on target!!!!!!!!!!!! Bingo ——Sorry Harry you are good at heart — but your vote and your lack of background check of a man you trusted with our nation makes me very sad!
I voted for Obama and I agree that he sucks. I still think that McCain/Palin would have been worse. Obama has 80% sold out(Maybe I'm ignorant, but I didn't see it coming(at least to that extent)). McCain/Palin we knew 100% sold out before the election. As long as we are looking for the lesser of evils, I'll still vote D.
I guess this comment means that had we elected McCain/Palin instead, today we wouldn't find ourselves “meddling in foreign affairs and [wasting] our tax dollars.” So let's see if I've got this right … if we had elected McCain/Palin, today we'd be out of Iraq/Afghanistan, we wouldn't have our military footprint in 100 countries around the globe, we wouldn't be beholden to the military/industrial complex, and we wouldn't be spending, annually, half a trillion or so on “defense”. Hmmm …
Or is the point instead that we Democrats go “liberal” enough? That is, we should have nominated Hillary (rather than Barack) for President because it is she who would have put an end to the “meddling in foreign affairs and the waste of our tax dollars”?
It is unclear here as to which absurd fantasy we, the readers, should be championing.
Harry you say “Look at our science and math scores.” Are you talking about our kids or their teachers?…….Gee, maybe the teachers union should get some blame?
I kinda remember George Bush saying that a democratic Iraq would help to spread freedom throughout the Middle East. Unfortunately we have Obama in office so this round of freedom fighting will go by the boards. I wonder if a president McCain would have let the 2009 Iranian uprising fizzle out? I say that the US men and women who gave their lives in our most recent 2 wars will now unfortunately not be vindicated thanks you people like you………
The kids. Why are the unions to blame?
George Bush invaded Iraq to bring democracy to it. There is a form of it there, but at a huge cost.
President McCain would have had not choice but to let the 2009 Iranian uprising take its own course. What could he have done? Invade Iran, as well?
Fact: The US military defeated the Iraq twice in HOURS. Liberal propaganda: The big bad Iranian military would certainly defeat any US military attempts to free it's people. Think of it this way Harry, the US could have done what Bill Clinton did such as NOT go to the UN for any resolution and just carpet bomb the areas with out having a single boot on the ground. Think Bosnia and Kosovo and throw in Operation Desert Fox, remember that little carpet bombing of Iraq by Bill Clinton. Screw the UN Clinton style. The Bush's are fools, hell they followed the UN rules.
More like we defeated Iraq the people. We caused more death and destruction than Saddam ever could have. Egypt came too late for Iraq and Afghanistan. That's how dictators get overthrown-by their own people!
Guest….Clearly the middle east would be far bettor off today if Saddam were still in power in Iraq. “More like we defeated Iraq the people”……Yea those were citizens of Iraq in those soldier uniforms serrendering to those reporters. “We caused more death and destruction than Saddam ever could have.”……How many mass grave sites did we uncover? “Egypt can too late for Iraq and Afghanistan.”…..Same thing Reagan said about eastern Europe after WWll. Just how long should it have taken for Egypt to have had an uprising? Please give some type of reference regarding world history of such a quick turn around. “That's how dictators get overthrown-by their own people!” Tell that to the Chinese.
You make good points about how Saddam is not a good person and not good to his people(major understatement). However from the Iraqi peoples perspective which would you rather have Saddam, local dictator/criminal, or the most powerful military in the world bombing your country/people/lives in to submission then occupying it? Devil you know or devil you don't? I'd take devil you know.
Maybe it's not even fair of me to try to think like an Iraqi. Hmmm.. maybe Bush should have thought that.
Better to be overthrown by their own people than manipulated by our government for our corporate enrichment.
point taken about being too idealistic.