{"id":28135,"date":"2014-10-08T09:43:26","date_gmt":"2014-10-08T13:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=28135"},"modified":"2014-10-08T09:43:26","modified_gmt":"2014-10-08T13:43:26","slug":"a-big-down-day-stay-the-course-with-small-modifiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=28135","title":{"rendered":"A big down day. Stay the course, with small modifiers"},"content":{"rendered":"

After yesterday’s 1.6% drop on the Dow and 1.5% drop on the S&P 500, we’re down 4% from this year’s highs. According to today’s New York Times:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0The stock market fell sharply on Tuesday on signs of weakening global growth.<\/p>\n

While the American economy appears to be strengthening, the outlook elsewhere is far less encouraging. The International Monetary Fund trimmed its forecast for global economic growth, and a surprisingly weak report on industrial production in Germany, Europe\u2019s biggest economy, added to investors\u2019 concerns.<\/p>\n

Industrial companies, whose fortunes are closely tied those of the global economy, led the stock market\u2019s sell-off.<\/p>\n

This is what yesterday looked like:<\/p>\n

\"SPXOneDay2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It looks less horrible over a month:<\/p>\n

\"S&POneMonth\"<\/p>\n

And even less horrible over a year, which shows some intense drops in March, April and August.<\/p>\n

\"S&POneYear2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What’s this mean for us an investors? First, I personally like to check my portfolio’s performance versus the Dow and the S&P. Yesterday I fell 1.27% — better than the Dow’s 1.6% and the S&P 500’s 1.5%. That sounds more like a statement I’d hear from a money manager than from me. My personally goal is an absolute gain — not a relative one. But you can’t measure it from one day to the next. So it’s reassuring I’m not doing as badly as the market did.<\/p>\n

It means also we re-assess what we own. We check ones that are falling: Have their fundamentals worsened? There are a thousand possible reasons — exposure to Europe and\/or Russia, more scrutiny by the regulators (banks are a concern); terrible sales (e.g. SODA). My major worries focus on MA (MasterCard) and Visa. I don’t like their trading. Compare them to the S&P chart above.<\/p>\n

\"MAOver1Year\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"VOverONeYear\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Stay with stocks that are working. In my list,three actually rose yesterday —\u00a0 NLY, MBLY and SGOL.<\/p>\n

Annaly rose because of its high dividend and because it’s attracted considerable favorable press on the website Seeking Alpha.<\/em> Mobileye is hot because it’s super Israeli technology. And SGOL is gold, which it is meant to rise when stocks go awry.<\/p>\n

In short, I’m hanging in (except for maybe MA and V.)\u00a0 In today’s volatile world, I’ve upped my Inviolate Stop Loss Rule<\/strong> to 10%.<\/p>\n

What’s fascinating in all this are interest rates. They are falling<\/strong> — not rising. Yesterday the yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell 2.34%.<\/p>\n

Time to re-negotiate the rate on my mortgage — which still hasn’t gone through. It’s agonizing.<\/p>\n

America’s economy. Not spluttering any more.<\/strong> <\/span>Latest short Economist<\/em> article. Click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

What makes Islam so successful? <\/strong>When I visited the Middle East in the 1966, it was a wonderful place. Lebanon was Paris on the Mediterranean. Iran was modern and vibrant. Afghanistan was beautiful and fascinating. Egypt was tourist-friendly and engrossing. But then things changed. The extremists somehow took over. And the results are in our daily news. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In recent years I’ve read acres on trying to figure for my brain what happened and what it means for my children and grandchildren. Sadly, it’s not good.<\/p>\n

I haven’t suffered you to my readings on Islam. Today is different. I’ve found something special. I want you to read this essay on An Inquiry into Islam.<\/strong> A non-racist, unbigoted inquiry into the core teachings of Islam and what it all means (if anything) for non-Muslims.<\/em><\/p>\n

The site begins:<\/p>\n

IF YOU WANTED to deliberately design a collection of ideas with the purpose of making one that might eventually out-compete every other religion or political system on earth, you would be hard-pressed to do better than Islam.<\/p>\n

Let’s look at some of the individual ideas within the collection, keeping in mind that many of the ideas enhance each other. In other words, adding one idea to the others can make the whole collection more effective because some ideas work synergistically.<\/p>\n

Here are some of the key components of the package of ideas (or bundle of beliefs) known as Islam:<\/p>\n

1. A standardized version of the idea-collection is written down. This is something basic to several religions and isn’t an Islamic invention, but it is an important factor in the success of Islam.<\/p>\n

Something only transmitted orally can change over time, but something written will be identical a thousand years from now, and with modern printing presses, can be reproduced in the millions, giving it an enormous advantage in spreading identical copies of the idea-collection.<\/p>\n

2. The Quran includes instructions for its own spread. It tells believers they must spread Islam. It is their holy duty to bring Mohammad’s warnings and Islamic law to every corner of the world. Read more about that.<\/p>\n

3. The idea-collection includes instructions for its own preservation, protection, and duplication. The Quran, the most important of the Islamic holy books, directly tells its followers that they can never change or modify or “modernize” any of the teachings within the idea-collection. It is perfect as it is. It is a capital sin to try to change it. This idea ensures the preservation of the whole collection.<\/p>\n

These first three ideas are pretty standard for several successful religions. But now it gets interesting…<\/p>\n

4. Islam commands its followers to create a government that supports it. This may be one of the most ingenious ideas in the whole collection. Islam is the only religion that uses it. Other groups of religious people have had political aspirations, but no other major religious group orders its followers – as a religious duty – to create a government that follows its own system of law.<\/p>\n

Islam has a system of law, called Sharia, and all Muslims are obligated to continually strive to make their government – wherever they are – follow it. Because of some of the other ideas added to Islam, you will see that this political addition to the idea-collection has significant consequences.<\/p>\n

Many people are under the impression that the goal of Islam is to convert everyone to Islam. This is not so. The prime directive of Islam is to bring all people on earth under the rule of Islamic law. Read more about the political nature of the core doctrines of Islam.<\/p>\n

5. Permission to spread the religion by war. This is another successful innovation (source). Although some other religions have spread themselves using force, they had very little justification from their own religious doctrines to do so.<\/p>\n

Not so with Islam. Expanding by conquest is very much accepted and encouraged by the idea-collection. Islamic teachings present it this way: The non-Muslims need to be saved from the sin of following laws other than Allah’s. If they won’t voluntarily change their laws to Sharia, then it is a Muslim’s duty to insist. The world cannot be at peace until every government on earth follows the laws of Allah. …<\/p>\n

The piece has 28 points. The first five are above. Read the other 23 points piece here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"HarryNewton\"<\/a>
\nHarry Newton who remains optimistic. Time to look for some bargains with blood now flowing in Europe and Russia? Nestle? Novartis?<\/p>\n