![\"OIH\"](\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/OIH.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAs the market plummeted, I made the stupid mistake of focusing on the wrong thing — how to protect what I owned — rather than the opportunities the plummet was bringing — in spades.<\/p>\n
China slowed. Its voracious appetite ebbed. Had I been awake, I would have sold short everything from BHP to CAT, from XOM to OIH. Check out the juicy declines:<\/p>\n
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![\"XOM\"](\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/XOM.jpg\")
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Then I looked at the underlying commodities and metals prices. Most have dropped at least 50% in recent months. For example, here’s a 5-year chart on iron ore from a web site called Index Mundi:<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n The question is: Am I too late? I don’t think so. I don’t see China suddenly resuming its previous export-driven boom. I suspect that even its ebbing numbers ,which it’s reporting, are exaggerated.<\/p>\n When the products you sell suddenly drop by 50%+, things don’t look good for your profits.<\/p>\n But am I too late? I suspect not.<\/p>\n This is a sea change in metals and commodities pricing. I hear bankruptcies are coming. Look at this ETF:<\/p>\n The boom has gone from the business of mining, making, servicing and selling metals and commodities. We’re in a new world.<\/p>\n How to play this? Individual stocks? ETFs.<\/p>\n Still mulling.<\/p>\n Your ideas?<\/p>\n Short Apple.<\/strong> <\/span>Tomorrow at 5 PM EDT is Apple’s big annual new-product announcement meeting. Nothing in the trade press’s guesses inspires me to drop precious shekels and buy Apple’s new stuff. There’s a faster iPhone 6S with a better camera, a new Apple TV, a bigger iPad, and iOS 9 which will block ads. Ho hum.<\/p>\n For more, read Bloomberg on what’s coming: click here.<\/strong><\/a> The trade press is also full of Apple gossip. None of it especially interesting, or enough to drive the stock up.<\/span><\/p>\n Why bother picking stocks, when indexes work? <\/strong>I found this chart in FedEx’s recent annual report:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Subaru Outback 2015 sings. <\/strong>Susan and I just drove our sixth Subaru Outback 1,400 miles — from Portland, Oregon through Southern Oregon, Lassen National Park, Lake Tahoe and Yosemite — to Indian Wells, where we left it at our California house. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I love my Subaru Outbacks. I can categorically say this is the best Outback they’ve ever made.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Reasons for my love: Oodles of space, nice handling, neat, logical technology, good gas mileage (29.8). I paid just under $30,000 for the 2015 Outback 2.5i Limited with basically everything including leather seats, but not the moonroof. I still have an old Subaru Outback in New York from 2002. It’s totally reliably. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n You can read more on the 2015 model in Car and Driver<\/em>. They loved it. Click <\/span>here.<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Useful PowerPoint slide:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n![\"cat\"](\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/cat.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"BHP\"](\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/BHP.jpg\")
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