Nice idea. If you own AGNC, sells puts. When the company pays a dividend, it falls. Later it rises.
Selling puts is a no brainer. What am I missing?
I added MTB to our tiny list on the right.
Customer service is not rocket science. For years I’ve used Luxilon strings in my tennis rackets. Something has gone wrong. They’ve recently been breaking too quickly.
I contacted the factory. They won’t talk to me. They say I should deal with their distributor.
This is dumb.More than dumb.
I’m now looking for new strings. Screw Luxilon.
Thermador is a maker of pricey appliances. We bought a pricey outdoor barbecue from them. Weather destroyed the cover. I contacted them. They said they no longer made the product. I could pound sand.
Good customer service makes me want to deal with you. Train your people Customer King. Customer pays eveyrone’s salaries. Get back to customers quickly and often. Don’t buy Luxilon strings.
I really like the improving customer service that now see on many web sites. To wit, some sites now remember what you placed in your shoppoing cart. You can return when you feel rich. I like being able to online “chat” with an operator. I like what I bought being kept in “Recent Purchases.” Helps me with re-ordering. Staples does that. Yesterday, I received this note, “One year ago, you ordered the following product from Zappos.com…” Nice touch.
Remember passwords. I write all my passwords in a simple .txt file which I can open with Word or my preferred editor, The Semware Editor.
A reader likes Last Pass.
Another reader writes:
Harry,
I have found an algorithm is the best way to keep track of your passwords, even while having a different password per site.
Pick a password, say ‘maple’. Change it to alphanumeric ‘map13’
Add the first and last two letters of the website, e.g. ‘teor’ for TechnologyInvestor.
Finally, add a number, e.g. the last four digits of your phone number, or your birthday.
The password then becomes ‘map13’ + ‘teor’ + ‘4598’ or ‘map13teor4598’
It is unique per website, but easy to remember. If someone cracks one website, they will not have your password for every website.
Not perfect, but better than a single password for every website.
Our costly wars. Our mayors voted to end our overseas wars. They claimed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are presently costing us at least $126 billion a year. If you include Yemen and Libya and our use of contractors, it’s probably a lot higher. No one knows. Washington deliberately hides the real number. Think of how many American jobs you could create with that much money.
Today’s New York Times lead story starts:
WASHINGTON — President Obama will talk about troop numbers in Afghanistan when he makes a prime-time speech from the White House on Wednesday night. But behind his words will be an acute awareness of what $1.3 trillion in spending on two wars in the past decade has meant at home: a ballooning budget deficit and a soaring national debt at a time when the economy is still struggling to get back on its feet.
all great empires have been brought down by the huge cost of their overseas military adventures and the borrowing that inevitably is needed.
Bill Clinton is on this week’s Newsweek cover with a piece on 14 Ways to Save America’s Jobs. Worth reading. Click here.
Rewmember the wonderful Don McClean song, American Pie? Here’s a new version taking a funny swing at Chinese manufacturers. Click here American_Pie and wait a few seconds while your media player loads.
Wonderful new musical. Susan and I saw it last night. Loved it. Slightly weird story. But great singing. Great, talented cast.
Death takes a Holiday is a Roundabout production. We’re members. They do the best job of all the NYC theater groups. For more, click here.
Will Rogers on politicians.
+ Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.
+ Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
+ A fool and his money are soon elected.
+ There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.
Which machine should I use to impress her?
An old codger is working out. He spies a gorgeous young lady across the room.
He asks his trainer, “Which machine should I use to impress her?”
The trainer replies, “In the lobby, there’s an ATM machine. Try it.”
Harry Newton who has solved his Nike shoe problem: Buy bigger. Buy a lot bigger. Size 12.5 fits great. But I’m really an 11. And I actually wear shoes that are 10.5. Tennis and age lengthens your feet, as your arch collapses.
Why sell puts and give someone else control?
Options price in dividend payments. Put option pricing reflects the divedend that will be paid out , therby reducing the stock price. That is not to say that there are not inefficiencies in the pricing but rest assured the buyer of the put knows the stock will adjust by at least the amount of the dividend paid.
It's not going to be easy to switch strings even though it's just strings, Luxilon makes a great product. I agree that the strings break to fast and for me they always break on the return of serve which is strange. They have such a great feel though.
Speaking of customer service, Amazon Kindle has the best customer service I've ever dealt with on the phone…as great as Amazon is, as soon as you have to pay sales tax they will take a hit.