![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/SPWasCheap.jpg\" "\\"S&PWasCheap\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nFor now the play is to hold a few mortgage REITs (for their yield — see piece on AGNC<\/strong><\/a>) and play ailing companies to the downside. Expanded list of shorts:<\/p>\n Best Buy (BBY) Best time to start a new business. <\/strong><\/span>Look in your own backyard for ideas. item: My local Sovereign Bank branch just got robbed — for the second time — by the same guy. The bank has\u00a0 photos of the guy. They gave them to the police. But the individual cops don’t. They don’t carry iPhones or other smartphones on which they could see the local bank robber and nab him. Time for a new app.<\/p>\n Gold is collapsing. I don’t know why.<\/strong><\/span> It’s meant to be the “go to” trade when things go awry, like now.<\/p>\n But it’s fallen, and fallen hard. With India and China slowing, maybe they’re short of money for weddings and jewelry. Central banks in Europe are short of money. They’re probably selling\u00a0 gold to raise a few shekels.<\/p>\n Whatever the story, my inviolate stop loss rule pulled me out of gold a while back. And I won’t get back in until there’s a firm uptrend.<\/p>\n Now is a good time to borrow:<\/strong><\/span> My friend\u00a0 is buying a one-bedroom apartment in New York for $622,000. He is borrowing 7 year interest only mortgage at 2 5\/8 % a year at a\u00a0 70% loan to value.\u00a0 He worked his numbers:<\/p>\n + To rent the apartment would cost him $4,000 a month. He expects to sell the apartment within seven years, since it’s for his daughter attending law school.\u00a0 There is no pre-payment penalty.<\/p>\n His mortgage rate is ridiculously low.\u00a0 If he hadn’t bought the apartment, he could borrow the money and buy Vanguard’s high-yield tax-exempt bond fund called VWALX. He’d earn 2n immediate 2.89% dividend yield, possibly a small price appareciation in the value of the fund. My yield YTD on the fund is 5.18%.<\/p>\n Lucky does Hawaii.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Hi Harry,<\/p>\n Had an interesting experience renting a car for our trip to Hawaii next week. First I booked Hertz through Delta when I made my reservation.Chevy Impala.28 days.$1125.00.I started checking around last week for a better rate and booked Advantage.same Impala 28 days $706.00.very proud of myself. Tonight I decided to give Hotwire.com a try again and I just booked and pre-paid an Enterprise Impala, 28 days for $554.00.unbelievable. I called Advantage in Honolulu before I booked the Hotwire deal and ask if they would beat the Hotwire deal or price match it.The agent said take the Hotwire deal.he could not compete. When I went online and checked Enterprise today they quoted $606.00 which is about 400.00 less than when I checked with them a month ago. Oh yes, when I tried to book through AutoSlash online they said there were no cars available.I called them and the fellow in India said he could not help me with a car rental. I asked to be transferred back to the US and, like before, I was transferred to a hotel booking office that did not handle car rentals.<\/p>\n Wedding photography tips. <\/strong><\/span>The BIG key is to use flash all the time. It fills in shadows. It makes brides and their mothers look better. The resulting photos are easier to print.<\/p>\n For equipment, choose a powerful strobe, a DSLR (digital single lens reflex) and a large external power pack for your strobe, like the Quantum Turbo Battery. Click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n For more strobe tips, click here.<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n I photographed a friend’s wedding this past weekend. Hence this note. I delivered a selection of the photos on Picassa (now called Google+) and the rest on a 4 gig $8 SD card.<\/p>\n Goldman Sachs gives transparency a whole new meaning. <\/span><\/strong>I have an investment in a private equity fund called GS Capital Partners VI Parallel, L.P. <\/span><\/p>\n Instead of doing the honorable thing, admitting defeat, winding the miserable fund up, and returning the money to its suffering limited partners (like me), Goldman Sachs is expanding the fund. by buying more dubious assets, including:<\/span><\/p>\n + A start-up offshore oil field services provider, Read that last sentence again.\u00a0 That’s their exact words. Goldman Sachs is investing my hard-earned money in a secret project somewhere in China doing something with finance. Trading derivatives? Taking bets on flies crawling up a wall? Doing deals with JPMorgan’s trader? It makes me sick that I once thought it a good idea to gave Goldman Sachs my money to invest. <\/span><\/p>\n Think about the motivation here: Mine is to make a few shekels. Theirs is to pay themselves fees. The more of my money they have, the more they buy, the more fees they earn. They actually made a capital call on me recently — not to buy new companies or expand existing ones — but simply to pay themselves their management fees. What a totally screwed-up\u00a0 system!<\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n To think, I was once so stupid.<\/span> Clever presentation using iPads and magic. <\/strong><\/span>Click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
\nBHP
\nCaterpillar (CAT)
\nDeckers (DECK)
\nDell (DELL)
\nEaton Vance (EV)
\nExxon Mobil (XOM)
\nFacebook (FB)
\nFirst Solar (FSLR)
\nGold (SGOL or GLD)
\nGreen Mountain (GMCR)
\nFossil (FOSL)
\nGame Stop (GME)
\nGoldman Sachs (GS)
\nIBM
\nJC Penney (JCP)
\nJoy Global (JOY)
\nJPMorgan (JPM)
\nMorgan Stanley (MS)
\nPatriot Coal (PCX)
\nRadioShack (RSH)
\nResearch In Motion (RIMM)
\nSanDisk (SNDK)
\nSupervalu (SVU)
\nTerex\u00a0 (TEX)<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n+ To buy it will cost him $2,600 a month.<\/p>\n
\n+ A chain of physical therapy clinics,
\n+ A wind power farm in India, and my all-time favorite,
\n+ A financial services company in China, which Goldman says “Given the confidential nature of this investment, we are unable to provide more information.<\/em><\/strong>”
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