Corporate earnings should be OK. But there is lots of talk of “problems” on the horizon, especially high unemployment and high oil prices.
Stock prices aren’t cheap. They’ve come back a lot.
Which means now is not the time to buy an index fund. Now is the time to be ultra-careful buying stocks. For example, I continue to like Bidu (one of the stocks on the right)
I’m dubious about Apple. Too much bad press. Too many questions. Cramer is right; Stay away from big techs like Dell, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, etc.
Keep your stops tight.
Make sure you have a little gold in your portfolio:
Have a look at GORO. It’s an interesting spec. At least one of my friends reckons it will be worth $100 within three years. It’s now $28.
“Balancing the budget.” They squabbled over $38 billion. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, high-speed rail and law enforcement will get hit. But thee wars — Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya — with over $2 trillion in expenses so far, won’t. Go figure.
How do you deal with this? Chart from the Economist:
The Economist recently reviewed two new books on Pakistan:
+ Pakistan: A Hard Country. By Anatol Lieven. PublicAffairs; 558 pages; $35. Allen Lane; £30. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk
+ Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of the Global Jihad. By Bruce Riedel. Brookings Institution Press; 180 pages; $24.95 and £16.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk
The article’s conclusion:
Although the books disagree somewhat about Pakistan’s prospects, they are not far apart on at least one important aspect of its past. America’s interventions, argues Mr Riedel, have made it “harder for Pakistanis to develop a healthy democracy that can effectively fight terror”, by encouraging military interference in civilian affairs. “It has above all been the US-led campaign in Afghanistan,” says Mr Lieven, “which has been responsible for increasing Islamist insurgency and terrorism in Pakistan since 2001.” These two books, in different ways, sharply illustrate an uncomfortable truth about American foreign policy: that the war in Afghanistan has helped foster in Pakistan exactly the sorts of tendencies that America went into Afghanistan to wipe out.
Why am I obsessed with our wars? Simple: the history on empires shows all empires collapse because of the debt they take on to fight wars. The debt is ultimately unserviceable. And the empire collapses. I don’t want us going the way of previous empires, from the Romans on down. Pakistan is key to our “success” in Afghanistan. Yet we’re losing Pakistan as well by the unintended consequences of our actions. This morning the New York Times reports:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan has demanded that the United States steeply reduce the number of Central Intelligence Agency operatives and Special Operations forces working in Pakistan, and that it halt C.I.A. drone strikes aimed at militants in northwest Pakistan. The request was a sign of the near collapse of cooperation between the two testy allies.
You can read the New York Times and The Economist here and here.
Pakistan would be a great tourist attraction if you didn’t feel so horribly unsafe there:
Donald Trump for President? Some are comparing him to Ronald Reagan, a “B”-grade actor who become an A-grade president. Stranger things have happened.Trump is a “birther.” He thinks Obama hasn’t produced his birth certificate. Here is Obama’s Certificate of Live Birth
You can see a bigger version on Snopes. Click here.
Downsizing Boomers Looking to Sell Their Stuff. This Wall Street Journal piece will prompt you to never buy anything ever again. Click here.
Monte Carlo Tennis is on. Check the Tennis Channel. Eat your heart out for their weather and location — right on the Mediterranean.
Favorite silly cartoon.
Baylor and Tupelo enjoy a wading pool.
For the full, delightful video, click here.
Harry Newton who is thrilled at the number of new startups he’s seeing. The good news is that their asking valuations are reasonable. The bad news is they’re all shortchanging themselves on the money they’ll need to be successful — i.e. cash flow positive.
Fascinating video crash at Kennedy. It’s on CBNC, or was this morning.
“The good news is that their asking valuations are reasonable.”
It is not only good news, it is also good grammar.
grammar: “that their asking “