{"id":12958,"date":"2012-05-04T09:08:27","date_gmt":"2012-05-04T13:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=12958"},"modified":"2012-05-04T13:30:06","modified_gmt":"2012-05-04T17:30:06","slug":"mortgage-reits-hold-in-nice-yields-commodities-are-a-gamble-but-modern-art-thats-a-whole-other-ballgame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=12958","title":{"rendered":"Mortgage REITs hold in. Nice yields. Commodities are a gamble. But modern art…That’s a whole other ballgame."},"content":{"rendered":"

Mortgage REITs pay high dividends. They have been slowly reducing their dividends of late, but the yields are still high. And the stocks have been holding up — a function of the high dividends and rising NAVs (net asset value) of the stocks. AGNC and NLY have been\u00a0 big winners for me. I spent time reading their management reports, which are not easy to understand. NLY’s is obtuse. AGNC’s is much better. Last night I watched and listened to:<\/p>\n

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You should too. But you’d better listen soon, because they’re going to take the recorded presentation down on May 17.\u00a0 Download the PDF containing the slides, then listen to the presentation. For how, click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

How goes commodities? <\/strong>Sometimes great. Sometimes not great. Depends on the timing. The moral of this chart is that the commodities game is for fools and gamblers.<\/span>
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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For the larger. more readable version of his chart, click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Gold over the past five years:<\/p>\n

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The S&P over the same five years:<\/p>\n

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Gold did well until recently? It’s losing ground and is presently squirrely. Time to sell? No. Not yet. Gold is a hedge, at lest for now?<\/p>\n

How goes solar? <\/strong><\/span>Solar is not a real business, yet. You cannot make money by building a solar plant and selling its electricity unless<\/strong> you sell it an artificially high price — e.g. to a government-owned utility. Solar cannot compete with plants that burn coal (the most common) or natural gas or diesel. The moral is: Don’t ever buy into a business that relies on the government paying you a ridiculous (i.e.non-economic) price or setting ridiculous rules.<\/p>\n

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Prepare for your own lack of Medicare.<\/strong> For most of us old foggies, Medicare works well. But the reality is that soon it will run out of money and start rationing its care. At that point us old foggies need to be prepared to pay our own medical bills. Each of us needs to put some money into our special Medical Fund. Monies we’ll need to say alive when we’re old and Medicare is broke.<\/span>
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Watch for missing manhole covers. <\/strong><\/span>You can get $30 for a manhold cover you steal. Thieves have stolen more than 30 in New York since March.\u00a0 Pedestrians walking and texting have fallen into manholes. Apparently it’s not pleasant to suddenly drop 15 feet. Pedestrians with ear buds and smartphones\u00a0 are now the biggest hazard for us bicyclists.<\/p>\n

Apple is once again down 10% from its high.<\/strong><\/span> I bought a handful back after it bounced last time. And I’m under water a little now. I’m watching. The stock has lost much of its buzz.<\/p>\n

Thoughts on Facebook. <\/strong><\/span>Not good that the founder is selling a billion dollars worth of his stock. Tells you something. Everyone and his uncle is gunning for Facebook. But for now, the IPO will be hot. Grab a few shares if you can. Then sell them quickly. This is NOT a long-term play.<\/p>\n

The economics of Washington.<\/strong><\/span> The Secret Service scandal was discovered when a disagreement on how much a prostitute wanted for her services came to light. She wanted $800. The Secret Service Agent offered $30. How ironic is it that the only person in Washington willing to cut spending gets fired?<\/p>\n

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Harry Newton who marvels at the prices paid for art.\u00a0 Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” just fetched a cool\u00a0 $120 million at auction.<\/p>\n

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That makes it the most expensive painting sold at auction, but not the most expensive. Allegedly someone paid $250 million for Paul Cesanne’s “The Card Players” in 2011.<\/p>\n

Chosen correctly, art has much higher investment turns than virtually all other\u00a0 investments — with the sole major exception of your own business.<\/p>\n

What a joke!\u00a0 The decline in the jobless rate reported this morning isn’t a positive sign because it primarily came from people dropping out of the labor force.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mortgage REITs pay high dividends. They have been slowly reducing their dividends of late, but the yields are still high. And the stocks have been holding up — a function of the high dividends and rising NAVs (net asset value) of the stocks. AGNC and NLY have been\u00a0 big winners for me. I spent time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}