{"id":29281,"date":"2014-12-29T10:10:27","date_gmt":"2014-12-29T15:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=29281"},"modified":"2014-12-29T10:10:27","modified_gmt":"2014-12-29T15:10:27","slug":"to-buy-and-not-to-buy-this-week-is-tax-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=29281","title":{"rendered":"To buy and not to buy. This week is tax week."},"content":{"rendered":"

Family is exhausting, but wonderful. Susan’s brother and his ultra-talented wife flew in from Melbourne, Australia — which is about as Down Under as down under gets.<\/p>\n

I won’t bore you with the photos. I took millions. Sorting them will take all day. Maybe I’ll find a some really good ones?<\/p>\n

Time to do tax stuff. Go through all the stock we own. Sell the ones we don’t want to keep. Harvest some profits on stocks we’re up big on.Move more money into simple index funds, like VFIAX.<\/p>\n

One thing we learned in 2014: Things move very very quickly these days, e.g. Google which looks like it will close 2014 below<\/strong> what it opened. Oil dropped 40% in a matter of months. Other commodities, like iron, ore, also cratered. The Australian dollar, which once cost more than the U.S. dollar,\u00a0 plunged to 81 cents (which makes visiting Australia a semi-bargain). Gilead lost its monopoly on Hepatitis C cures and will have to drop its prices.<\/p>\n

Put a little money in a kid’s 529 education fund. You get a limited state income tax, but not a federal income tax, deduction. The big benefit is that it helps the kid’s future education tax-free. The downside is you’re limited in what you can invest. The states seem to award cozy little exclusives to certain money managers. The available mutual funds may not be ones you would ordinarily invest in. Here’s some FAQs on Oregon’s 529 program. Click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

You have three days this week for tax stuff. New Year’s Day is Thursday.<\/p>\n

I keep thinking I should buy when blood is flowing in the streets — like European equities now. But… International investment in US exchange-traded funds was the strongest in six years in 2014, according to the Financial Times ( the pink English financial newspaper). In comparison, flows into European funds were far weaker than in 2012 and 2013<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ten Things not buy in 2014,<\/strong><\/span> according to MarketWatch. (My comments added.)<\/p>\n

1. Cable TV. Cable alternatives are much cheaper. Netflix subscribers are up 25%. Time to get back into Netflix?<\/p>\n

2. Name brand razors. Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club sell blades at less than half what Gillette does.<\/p>\n

3. Bottled water. Cheaper to buy filters from Brita and Pur.<\/p>\n

4. Credit monitoring services and identity theft insurance. Waste of money.<\/p>\n

5. DVDs and CDs. What you do need is faster Internet service. Call your provider today and badger them. They can double your speed for a little badgering or a few extra bucks a month.<\/p>\n

6. Memory sticks and thumb drives. MarketWatch says there’s oodles of free and cheap storage in the cloud. I’ll buy that. But I still like a little backup in my very own pocket.<\/p>\n

7. Mini-tablets are being taken over by bigger cell phones like the iPhone 6 PLUS. Friends who have the PLUS have given their iPad up. You can put an PLUS in your pocket. Don’t sit on it.<\/p>\n

8. Paid online dating services. Not my problem. However, I do like some of the “niche” options, e.g. VeggieDate.com, FarmersOnly.com, GlutenFreeSingles.com, Meet-an-Inmate.com and ClownDating.com.<\/p>\n

9. Boutique moonshine. Not my taste.<\/p>\n

10. 4K TV sets. Wait until the prices come down.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For the full list, click here.<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Miracle cure.<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

Trees fell on our power lines. We didn’t lose power, but it looked like we were about to to. I called our provider. Two weeks went buy. No action. Then I filed a complaint with the New York State Public Commission. Our power company had two service trucks to us by 10:00 AM the next morning! All fixed by 10:30 AM. They had a cherry picker with a fellow armed with a chain saw on a ten foot extension. Fun to watch. Thank you NYSEG.<\/p>\n

It’s getting worse (and crazier)
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

From an Economist piece on the spread of atheism:<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia had enacted a new law equating atheism with terrorism. In Malaysia, Prime Minister Najib Razak had branded “humanism and secularism as well as liberalism” as deviant. And in Egypt, the youth ministry had launched an organized campaign against non-belief among the young, designed to spread awareness of the “dangers of atheism” and the “threat to society” that it posed.<\/p>\n

I get silly pictures<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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

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

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

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

New Year’s Resolution. <\/strong><\/span>Re-read my Investment Lessons from 2014, namely:<\/p>\n

+ Events can develop very fast. Oil drops. (Oil pricing is done at the margin. See below.) Russia has problems. Your favorite CEO can make a bad decision. Diversification is your only weapon.<\/p>\n

+ You can predict. But you\u2019ll be mostly wrong. When you can\u2019t control the outcome (i.e. you\u2019re not the CEO), diversification is your only<\/strong> weapon.<\/p>\n

+ If you can\u2019t predict the next down cycle, make sure you don\u2019t get crushed when it happens \u2014 which means, in its simplest, NO leverage. There\u2019s nothing wrong with buying real estate for all cash<\/p>\n

+\u00a0 There\u2019s no reason you shouldn\u2019t own VFIAX and BRKA . They\u2019re boring but they work. And they work through thick and thin.<\/p>\n

+ A percentage of your portfolio should designated \u201cHigh Risk.\u201d Manage it for short-term gains. Don\u2019t feel guilty if you bounce in and out of volatile stocks \u2014 GPRO, CYBR, BABA, GILD, etc.<\/p>\n

+ There are \u201cthemes\u201d \u2014 like organic food (WFM), cyber security (CYBR) and cameras for cops (TASR). But they go in and out of fashion fast. Now WFM is coming back strong. HAIN has done well. They\u2019re our list \u2014 see right hand column.<\/p>\n

+ Buy (not sell) when there\u2019s blood in the street.<\/p>\n

+ Your friend\u2019s stock recommendations are usually wrong for you\u00a0 \u2014 but not for them.<\/p>\n

+ Sometimes it\u2019s better to go on vacation and let the market gyrate its madness out of its system. I remember that two week safari vacation in Africa. The market went down. It went up. But when we returned, it was exactly where it was when we left. Exactly.<\/p>\n

+ It\u2019s OK to short stocks. There are screaming shorts out there. Remember PBR? We did well on that one. I\u2019ll find more. You should too.<\/p>\n

+ You\u2019ll miss big moves. Try not kicking yourself for being stupid. We\u2019re all \u201cstupid.\u201d<\/p>\n

+ There\u2019s nothing with watching BubbleVision. It often gives you a good feeling for \u201cmomentum.\u201d Some of Cramer\u2019s stocks have done well. Some have done awfully. Like all recommendations (including mine), you have think them through.<\/p>\n

+ Fashion is key on Wall Street. Call it herd mentality. Fashion has a major impact. You can \u201cmeasure\u201d fashion by reading articles in the financial press and watching BubbleVision. Especially useful: Cramer\u2019s interviews with CEOs. You could feel from how gold was being reported\u00a0 that it was going out of fashion, and would start falling. Which it did.<\/p>\n

+ Don\u2019t hold onto stocks because you love them. When my stop loss rule kicked me out of Google, I kept 100 because I had faith, or love, or whatever for Google. I was wrong. Fortunately it\u2019s bouncing. I have oodles of Apple (AAPL). They\u2019re in fashion now. But could easily drop out in coming months if no one (except me) want an iPhone 6. (I want the PLUS.)<\/p>\n

+ My \u201cinviolate\u201d stop loss rule of 8% or 10% of even 15% (choose your own level) works most of them. It worked for GOOGL:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"HarryNewton\"<\/a>
\nHarry Newton who now has a lovely, quiet, empty house, but it’s empty and quiet. And I really miss the family, already. Send something to your favorite charity –but not all the ones that are asking. Never ever give your real email address to any charity or political party.<\/p>\n