Russia is buying drones from Turkey, North Korea and China and using them in Ukraine. Russia is also making drones in bakeries.
For more on the bakery drones, click here.
What the world needs is a drone destroyer that can be deployed by, and operated by an 18-year old in the battlefield.
We’ll also need them in the U.S. Some nutcase is going to launch am explosives-packed drone over a packed football stadium. It won’t be pleasant.
What you should understand about war
When we send military stuff to Ukraine and Israel, it comes out of our inventory in the U.S.
That inventory has to be replaced. It is best replaced with more modern (and more expensive) military stuff. War is also good for companies that feed and fix troops.
Here are the Leading Department of Defense (DoD) contractors in the United States in the fiscal year 2022, by contract value (in billion U.S. dollars) from statista. Click here.
Of these, I own LMT and LLY. Raytheon’s new name is RTX Corp. I’m looking at it and others.
Going forward into 2024,…
+ I own The Magnificent Seven — .AAPL, AMZN, GOOGL, META, MSFT, NVDA and TSLA.
+ For income, I own JEPI ad JEPQ and also short-dated treasuries. I think I own too much fixed income. See charts below
+ Other stocks I own are listed on my web site. Click here.
+ I also own syndicated real estate covering commercial, industrial and residential.
If I guess from what did well in 2023 to what might do well in 2024, I’m basically stumped.
There are six rules I’m following:
+ Don’t listen to predictions from economists or learned talking heads . They all predicted a hefty recession in the second half of 2023. And they were all wrong.
+ Diversification works — unless you have your own business which you can control. Bet on yourself.
+ I just put some money into a startup that’s got a neat product and a receptive market. the journey will be fun.
+ My friends are looking around for distress real estate which they figure must emerge in 2024.
+ Bet on hot trends. the hottest are now AI, fat stocks (NVO and LLY), and defense. There will be others. See the charts below.
+ AI is going from excitement to deployment.
That’s from YouTube. Click on this:
I personally think the biggest application for AI is in customer service — in making chatbots semi-intelligent. More about that tomorrow.
Favorite conspiracy nonsense
from Epoch Times:
“People who received any version of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine except for the newest one were no better off than the unvaccinated, according to a new paper.”
Hearing Aid Update
+ Putting on hearing aids could save your life, says the Washington Post. Click here.
+ All hearing aids amplify.
+ All hearing aids don’t work well in noisy places — like restaurants.
+ Hearing aids vary from $200 to $7,000+.
+ There’s very little difference in quality. The big difference is marketing.
+ People love their expensive hearing aids more than people (like me) love their cheap hearing aids. That’s called Marketing 101.
First solution: Don’t go to noisy restaurants.
Second solution: If you choose to believe the B.S. about pricey hearing aids with background noise cancellation, make sure you can return them in 60 days.
I am not a registered (or unregistered) audiologist. My hearing aids cost $199. they come from Amazon:
I like them. Click here.
More Europe Travel Tips
This is the best travel thingee for Europe. You can plug in two laptops , two Apple watches and two iPhones. Enough for you and the missus.
Costs the grand sum of $11.99 at Amazon. Click here.
+ Global Entry is the ONLY way to come into the U.S. from a trip overseas. Get it. Global Entry gets me into the US. in under two minutes. It’s the best thing since sliced bread.
+ AirTag by Apple are the best. Put one in your bags and your cars.
These holders are the best.
$9.45 for two. Click here.
+ WhatsApp is the best way to phone your mates — here or there. It’s amazing — free to speak, to text and to video.
What with two wars….Who knew
My friend Steve Schoen sent me these from VisualCapitalist. com. Neat charts.
Who knew? Good that we got some of it right.
As they say, predicting is easy. Except about the future.
See you tomorrow or the next day. Promise. — Harry Newton
