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Better than kvetching. Here’s what we should do with our investments. Also called Investing in Turmoil

We’re a democracy. We voted for him. He played it brilliantly. He won the presidency. He got control of the Congress, the Senate and the courts. Now he has his super intelligent slave who’s getting a big kick from feeding everyone and his uncle to the wood chipper.

Face it. kvetching isn’t working.

This Monday will mark four weeks since his ascendancy. We have another 47 months of mayhem.

Prepare for it. That means thinking about your financial/investment strategy:

+ Don’t own stocks of companies which make things — especially those that will be hurt by tariffs.

+ The best stocks to own are those involved in value-added technology. Nvidia makes things, true. But it’s really a  technology platform. It helps its customers deliver services which help their customers save money, deliver new services and get more productive. Think of it as the cloud on steroids. Look at the list of stocks I own. It’s in the third column on the website. Click here.

+ Don’t try to hedge — like sell covered calls, or buy put options or go to cash. You can sell your stocks from one day to the next. But you can’t predict his latest idea, or harder, what its impact will be on your holdings.

+ Go with the flow. It’s nice to jump on a trend — e.g. META and Palantir. Don’t be ashamed of going with momentum. GRAL has done well.

+ You do need to be diligent (i.e. quick) about selling stocks whose earnings or outlook has disappointed, e.g. Micron. Or where the momentum has ebbed. You’ll be wrong, like with Dell. But generally pulling the trigger in today’s market is better than sitting with an expanding loss. My pain threshold is a 12% to 15% loss.

+ You can always get back in. I sold Nvidia a year or so ago on one of its many parabolic moves. I was stupid. I got back in. Since then I’m up 97%.

Here’s NASDAQ over the last month. It’s choppy. But it’s still up 6%. But many of our stocks — like META, Palantir and Netflix are up much more than that. And now Nvidia has managed a positive four weeks. I should have owned fewer Nvidia and more Palantir (the top line). But Palantir is in nosebleed territory. It’s P/E is “only” 623.47.

Useful tips

+ When a technician visits you, give him/her  a tip and then ask for cell phone number. You’ll need it. Promise.

+ If  an electrician visits, get him/her to label all your circuit breakers.

+ If you like podcasts, download them on Wi-Fi to your iPhone and then listen. Don’t expect to listen in your car over LTE or 5G.

+ Ice is nice, but liquor is quicker. Not true. Ice is much quicker. If you fall on ice and break something, you’re in for a major hospital stay.

+ Instagram is a 1000% better than TikTok. I love Instagram. My Instagram channels are African animals, tennis, table tennis, dancing and comedy.

Irritating Dumb stuff

+ Verizon Wireless is a total ripoff. They just keep raising and raising their prices — without telling you. Especially if you’re on auto-pay. They actually do have cheaper plans — but they don’t tell you about them. Mint Mobile is a 1000% better, cheaper service.

+ All auto-pay is a license for them to steal more and more from you — without telling you, e.g. YouTubeTV, which I still like, but less than I used to.

+ The points you earn on your credit card don’t used until you do something. Like “Convert your points to cash back.” If you don’t do something, your points will pile up and up — just like those unused airline miles that you once had.

+ If you have money in a bank checking or savings account, you’re a total idiot. The “interest” they pay you is an insult. You can earn 4.38% today on a three month treasury. But there are a million business lending places that will pay you 6% — on demand. Stocks/ETFs like GBDC, HYIN, EVF, and BIZD will pay you over 10% dividend yields.

+ Zelle, PayPal, American Express and Venmo demand payment for things you never ordered. Watch out. Scams are proliferating. The Economist put out a Scams issue.

+ Buying insurance on some trips can be total ripoff. Amtrak will charge you a change fee that much less than the cost to insure your ride against a change. You also upgrade to “change” ticket for less than the change insurance.

+ Norton LifeLock Antivirus, Norton 360, and Just plain Norton keep sending me bills I’ve never signed up. But the fake bills keep on coming.

Most wonderful email (just in)

Dear Harry Newton,

You haven’t used $HarryNewton in more than two years. and don’t have any money in it. After two years of inactivity, if an account doesn’t have any money in your account. We eventually will close it to help protect your account. If you want to keep your account open, log in by March 15.

Have you ever heard of Cash App?

Me neither.

Elon and his father Errol are weird

Speaking of his father, Elon told People magazine:

“You have no idea about how bad. Almost every crime you can possibly think of, he has done,” Elon said. “Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done . It’s so terrible, you can’t believe it.”

For his part, Errol told the Daily Mail

that Elon “needs to grow up” and “get over himself,” adding, “I’m not going to hit back. I’m going to wait until he comes to his senses. He’s having a tantrum, like a spoilt child. He can’t have what he wants and now I am apparently an evil monster.”

My son Michael moved his family to Amsterdam

There are four things you should know about the city:

+ Its has oodles of canals.

+ Everyone rides a bicycle.

+ Children are tested on their ability to swim fully clothed.

+ The City runs a service to fish bicycles out of the canals.

How so many intelligent people can ride their bicycles into canals is beyond my pay scale.

This video is priceless. It’s called Fishing For Bicycles.

Tennis is wonderful

It’s the best way of stimulating your brain and exercising your body.

I played today and I’ll play tomorrow.

If I don’t play for two days, on the third day I feel awful.

I’m addicted.

See you soon. — Harry Newton