{"id":37172,"date":"2017-01-05T10:32:58","date_gmt":"2017-01-05T15:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=37172"},"modified":"2017-01-05T10:32:58","modified_gmt":"2017-01-05T15:32:58","slug":"the-biggest-skill-to-learn-in-investing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=37172","title":{"rendered":"The biggest skill to learn in investing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Adrenalin flows. <\/span><\/p>\n

The excitement is palpable. <\/span><\/p>\n

The speaker is charismatic. <\/span><\/p>\n

His presentation awesome. <\/span><\/p>\n

His business model sterling. <\/span><\/p>\n

Logical, Simple. Delivering of great benefits. <\/span><\/p>\n

Scaleable. (Big word for able to grow.)<\/span><\/p>\n

You want to write a check. And be ready to bank the instant rewards.<\/p>\n

But then you mull. The competition? The risks?<\/p>\n

And you set up some small “tests” for the company: Send me some references, some happy customers, some timelines, etc.<\/p>\n

They drop the ball.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, you realize they want dummy investors, like doctors and dentists. They don’t want as*holes who pretend (like me) to do due diligence.<\/p>\n

So we move on.<\/p>\n

It’s bidding for a property we love. But someone outbids us.<\/p>\n

This biggest byproduct of searching for investments are the emotions. Up and down, faster than a whore’s drawers. (Australian expression.)<\/p>\n

Go here and watch Taylor Swift sing Shake it Off. <\/strong><\/em>Click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Upcoming takeovers<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Netflix (NFLX) and Square (SQ) will get bought out soon.<\/p>\n

Retail news today.<\/strong> <\/span>From Business Insider<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Macy’s is closing 68 stores. The closings represent about 15% of Macy’s store base and will affect nearly 4,000 employees. Macy’s also said it expected to earn an adjusted $2.95 to $3.10 a share for fiscal-year 2016, down from its previous estimate of $3.15 to $3.40.<\/p>\n

Years ago I read that we have twelve times as much square retailing space as the Europeans, which are themselves not short of where to buy stuff they don’t need.<\/p>\n

Hence I kept away from retailers. But there are retailers and retailers! One class is retailers that sell other people’s stuff. Like Macys. They have zero distinguishing feature. Zero distinguishing appeal to potential customers, like me. I once went into Macys. It lacked anything I wanted and anyone who could could help me find what I wanted.<\/p>\n

In contrast, there are retailers who sell their own stuff. Like Lulu Lemon, Gap and Apple. And there are retail stores that target special stuff that’s hard to get on Amazon — like Home Depot. In general I’m wary of retailers.<\/p>\n

Will Macys go broke? I have no idea. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be a stockholder in the past year:<\/p>\n

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

The department store is dead. It worked 100 years ago — before Amazon.<\/p>\n

Apple has a consumer revolt on its hands<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

They’re mad Apple hasn’t seriously updated its Mac laptops in eons.<\/p>\n

It’s not entirely Apple’s fault. It’s Intel’s. They’re not making faster processors, like they used to — with each new generation.<\/p>\n

I’m having the same trouble with Lenovo ThinkPads. My X260 is new. My X230 is four years old. The new X260 is a miserable 5.29% faster. (I checked.)<\/p>\n

Maybe this is why AMD is doing so well?<\/p>\n

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

My Gmail account had millions of old, dead, spam messages,<\/strong> <\/span>until I found this on Quora:<\/p>\n

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

Sadly, it only deletes 50 messages at a time. Do it several times and it gets rid of all messages in your gmail inbox — irrespective of whether you’ve read them or not. I don’t profess to understand gmail. Or to like gmail, except it’s free, fast and reliable.<\/p>\n

Titles to impress. <\/strong>I actually see these in presentations.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Serial Entrepreneur
\nChief Optimist
\nInventing Founder
\nInnovating Founder
\nRecognized Expert<\/p>\n

I remember the old days of managing my own company. Nobody had titles. But if you needed one to sell someone something, then give yourself a necessary title. A manager can’t talk to a VP. So , you need to be a VP. Do it.<\/p>\n

She probably did one of those spreadsheets I see in startup decks<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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

Putting on a happy face.<\/strong> <\/span>(Think today’s politics)<\/p>\n

Two grey-haired ladies are sitting \u00a0in a old age home. A handsome many invites one of them to dance.<\/p>\n

She asks him: “You are so pale! Why don’t you spend more time in the sun?”<\/p>\n

“I was in jail.”<\/p>\n

“Why?”<\/p>\n

“I killed my wife.”<\/p>\n

The girl goes back to her friend ecstatic: I’m so lucky! He’s not married!<\/p>\n

\"HarryNewton\"<\/a>
\nHarry Newton, whose dentist just emailed to confirm an upcoming appointment, with the reminder “Bring your checkbook.” Last time I was sitting in Dr. Mac’s classy pricey chair, he had three specialists eyeing my mouth. I asked “My mouth is a disaster?” After several thoughtful minutes, Dr. Mac replied, “No, Harry, it’s an annuity!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Adrenalin flows. The excitement is palpable. The speaker is charismatic. His presentation awesome. His business model sterling. Logical, Simple. Delivering of great benefits. Scaleable. (Big word for able to grow.) You want to write a check. And be ready to bank the instant rewards. But then you mull. The competition? The risks? And you […]<\/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-37172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37172","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=37172"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37184,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37172\/revisions\/37184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}