I put a little more money in VWALX. It’s doing OK for now. It will tumble when interest rates rise. But, for now, it’s paying just under 4% federal tax-free. Last year total return was 11.07%. Good place to park money.<\/p>\n
I’m still mulling a return to gold. See below.<\/p>\n Are the forecasters ever right?<\/strong><\/span> Rarely is the answer. Here’s a chart comparing Wall Street strategists’ predictions for the S&P 500 versus the actual closing values. They’re Bloomberg numbers. To my mind, the negatives should be positive and vice versa. Read the numbers. You’ll get the message quickly. Often the predictions are wrong by a huge margin, like by 81% in 2008.<\/p>\n Best Ideas 2012 from Baird Equity Research.<\/strong><\/span> 81 pages of growth and value stocks. Interesting report. Click here.<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Good time to refinance your mortgage.<\/strong><\/span> Continuing yesterday’s column, in which I pointed out that rates were at a 60-year low (click here<\/strong><\/a>), read Gene Muchnick emails:<\/p>\n Hi Harry,<\/p>\n Just locked in a 4.0 rate with Wells Fargo to refi my house.\u00a0 This is the 2nd time in 2 years.\u00a0 Purchased 5 years ago with a 6% mortgage they refied it 2 years ago for 4.625%.\u00a0 Cost to me then $1000.\u00a0 This time no cost.\u00a0 Totally free. Original and both refi’s with Wells. Although they keep resetting the term to 30 years, it matters little to me at 66 years of age and planning to be here at the outside for 10 years.\u00a0 Love your blog, read it faithfully.<\/p>\n Sad day for me.<\/span><\/strong> Eastman Kodak is about to go bankrupt with Chapter 11. When I was young I made a handsome living taking photos, using superb Kodak products Tri-X and Kodachrome.\u00a0 haven’t bought anything Kodak in many, many years.\u00a0 Why didn’t I short EK years ago? Gotta get my head around failing companies. Kodak was the picture postcard for failing companies:<\/p>\n To me Best Buy is another disaster waiting to happen. The only reason to buy anything at Best Buy is insane urgency. The only reason to visit Best Buy is to check stuff and then buy it cheaper online.<\/p>\n Here’s another one that we should have sold short a long time ago.<\/p>\n Printer toner cartridges.<\/strong><\/span> Buy only the OEM — original manufacturer toner. Though typically five times more expensive than the clones, the real stuff is worth the money, in my opinion. Shop around. Amazon was 25% cheaper than Staples for the same HP toner I needed yesterday. Anyone found a quality maker of toner cartridges?<\/p>\n Send stuff overseas cheap.<\/strong><\/span> My sister and her kids and their kids live in Australia. The grandkids grow out of\u00a0 clothes and\u00a0 shoes daily. The\u00a0 stuff is pricey in Australia — small market, limited competition. <\/span><\/p>\n Better idea. Buy online from the US (e.g. Gap) and have it all shipped to a firm called<\/span> myUS.com.<\/a> <\/strong>They’ll consolidate all your packages and ship your stuff overseas. My family loves myUS.com. Shopping in the U.S. saves them a bundle, especially with the strength of the Aussie dollar — now around $.103.<\/span> Predictions on gold, continued.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n This chart is from The Gartman Letter. Accompanying words are:<\/p>\n Gold and the precious metals have everyone’s interest this morning and last week we thought we noted clearly that we were turning bullish again of gold. Indeed, our comments mid-week last week caught the attention of the wire services and we were “blamed” for gold’s bounce from the lows. We were flattered by that “blame,” but we had nothing whatsoever to do with gold’s strength, for gold is strong simply because gold had been so tremendously weak in the days and weeks previous. Note the chart of Gold in EUR terms at the immediate left and note that since early November gold fell from ?1320\/oz at its very best to ?1180 at its very worst.a fall of 10.6%, or note that from the August highs in US dollar terms when gold traded very briefly to $1910\/oz to last week’s lows at $1525\/oz it had fallen 20.1%. No prisoners were taken during this assault, unless you count those who’d invested rather large sums of money with Mr. Paulson.<\/p>\n Which countries will do well and which won’t, in 2012?<\/strong><\/span> A war (e.g. Sudan and Libya) drops your GDP. But when the war stops. your economy surges. From the Economist:<\/p>\n Anyone for Uzbekistan?<\/p>\n Old jews telling jokes. <\/strong>These three are the best:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Click <\/span>here.<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Click<\/span> here.<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/VWALXONeYear.jpg\" "\\"VWALXONeYear\\"")
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