But you can do much better if you pick the right stock. Here’s one of my recommendations — SQ — on the same chart over the last year.<\/p>\n Picking individual stocks has its problems, viz \u00a0recommended, SNAP<\/span><\/strong>:<\/p>\n SNAP disappointed with its first quarterly report after going public. The theory now is “Itt’s Facebook in its early days,” and will recover and go through the roof.<\/p>\n You can’t predict SNAP because its business success depends on its ability to innovate for kids between 15 and 30. Personally I now have limited faith in the company — chiefly because of its increasing losses and its CEO’s arrogance. The awarding of $800 million as a “bonus” to the CEO for going public irks.<\/p>\n The LA Times has a piece “Can Snap’s stock make a comeback like Facebook’s?<\/em>” It contains:<\/p>\n Financial analysts hold mixed views on whether Snap, now valued at about $21 billion, can experience a Facebook-like rise to the upper tier of the technology world.<\/p>\n When Facebook shares cratered five years ago, the company had nearly 1 billion users and solid ad business outside of its mobile app.<\/p>\n By comparison, Snap has 166 million users on its messaging app, and new ones are coming in the door slower than any point in the last two years. Its ad business is nascent.<\/p>\n The risk for Snap is that it could end up more like Twitter Inc. after its 2013 stock debut. The microblogging service suffered a similar sell-off following its first earnings report; its shares currently trade at half their value when Twitter went public.<\/p>\n “It’s a tale of two cities,” said Goodwater Capital managing partner Eric Kim. “It’s really about how the company will respond going forward – Facebook came out of it and increased its market cap fourfold; Twitter has not. So what does Snap learn from this initial debut? What lessons does it take with it?”<\/p>\n The amount of time Snap has to straighten its course may depend on whether it can satisfy one of Wall Street’s favorite measurements for success: user growth.<\/p>\n Snap, for its part, has said its success should be measured in revenue per user – ad income divided by the number of users – instead of user growth. Ahead of reporting its earnings, the company cautioned that it wasn’t likely to pick up new users at the exceptional pace of the past and that growth would be “lumpy,” with quarterly variances depending on when new features are launched.<\/p>\n Such messaging didn’t appear to ease doubts.<\/p>\n Another reason for concern is Snap’s ad revenue performance. Ad sales often fall off early in the year across the media landscape, but many investors predicted Snap as a young company would be immune from the trend. They found out in the company’s first quarterly earnings report Wednesday that Snap not only succumbed to the usual dip, but also that its $150 million in revenue represented a harder blow than those suffered by more established ad sellers…<\/p>\n I wasn’t too sanguine about Facebook in its early days. But the good news is that you can always buy in later on — as I did with Facebook.<\/p>\n Mark Cuban was optimistic about SNAP on CNBC this morning.<\/p>\n Your decision.<\/p>\n One reader wanted me to apologize about SNAP. I apologize. But should I also apologize about SQ, or AMZN, or CENT, or HON or NFLX — which have done well.<\/p>\n You get the message.<\/p>\n Everything’s a gamble. Even your own business. The issue comes down to commitment (or allocation) size. And there’s the rub. It hurts when you lose more. Making more is not as much as much pleasure.<\/p>\n You can read the LATimes’ excellent article on SNAP here.<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The retailers?\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Unless they have their own stuff and it’s popular, they’re going to die. Macy’s is a prime example. There’s no way I’d go into a Macy’s to buy anything and it shows in their stock price.<\/p>\n I’ve known Macy’s awfulness for a while. Why didn’t I sell it short? Maybe I still should?<\/p>\n A reader asks “What’s your favorite online brokerage” and why?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Mine is Fidelity, for several reasons:<\/p>\n + Dribble money to them and they’ll give you free trades, which is not that key since they’ve recently reduced their trade fee to $4.95.<\/p>\n + Active Trader Pro\u00a0from Fidelity is software you run on your PC. \u00a0It’s faster. It’s customizable. It has great charts. All of those on my blog all come from Fidelity. It also works on slow Internet links.<\/p>\n + Fidelity has great customer support. They have people who know everything — from registering unregistered securities to the nuances of their software.<\/p>\n I also use Vanguard. They’re good for research into their own index funds and “buy and hold.” But their website and their reporting is just plain awful. It hasn’t improved in eons. In contrast, Fidelity constantly improves theirs.<\/p>\n My reader likes TD Ameritrade. You like what you get used to.<\/p>\n If you use a “normal” broker, be aware their website will be horrible, often not real time and never showing your portfolio’s value over time.<\/p>\n The hearing aid business is a scam.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Start with the logic. Why should an iPhone cost under $1,000 and hearing aids, which can do far less (and have less than a tenth of the technology), cost $6,000?<\/p>\n How come no one — including this researcher (i.e. me) — can find out enough technical information to be able to compare hearing aids from among the manufacturers, or even among the various models they make?<\/p>\n The best factoid is their huge price range. From $6,000 at your favorite audiologist (aka hearing aid salesperson), hearing aids range all the way down to under a dollar (on eBay). The highest on eBay is $5,261.50 — a set of Phonak devices, which you probably can’t buy in the U.S. without an audiologist. The eBay ones are from India.<\/p>\n My favorites are Amazon best sellers:<\/p>\n I bought one for $57.50 — out of pure curiosity. It hasn’t arrived. Customer reviews of it range from ecstatic to “it doesn’t work.” One review of the $57.50 hearing aid commented “they work every bit as good as the audiologist\u2019s in-office demonstration of what I should expect from his $4,000 product.”<\/p>\n My 88-year old lawyer friend just bought a paid $5,000 for hearing aids. He admitted his audiologist scammed him, but she offered lifetime adjustments and lifetime batteries. Drop by and load up on batteries. She also told him he wouldn’t notice any difference between a $3,000 and $5,000 pair. She was also cute.<\/p>\n Personally, I’d pay $5,000 for a pair of hearing aids that I could adjust the frequency response with software on an iPhone in real-time. I want this feature to accommodate changes in my hearing over time and different environments — from conference rooms to theaters, etc. No such luck, yet.<\/p>\n An American maker (the only one) called Starkey has a unit called Halo2 MFI, which allegedly will work with an iPhone. But Starkey won’t sell me a pair, or even send me to one of their audiologists. They have stonewalled me. Like all the makers they’re afraid of anyone (even me) shining a little light on their over-priced hearing aids.<\/p>\n I suspect that this may be the last remaining technology industry that prefers to trade on consumer ignorance, huge markups, heavy marketing and low volume.<\/p>\n When I visit an audiologist, I feel they’re eyeing me on what they think I can afford — based on my shoes, my belt and my watch. (I’m told those crtieria are \u00a0standard sizing-up tools in European brothels.)<\/p>\n When Congress drops all its silly restrictions on hearing aids, things will change. Send your congressperson a note saying hearing\u00a0aids should be sold over the counter.<\/p>\n People, like me, with moderate hearing loss and trouble hearing in groups — like boardrooms and restaurants — probably need hearing aids occasionally — for these situations. I suspect the cheap one will work just fine for me. Stay tuned. (Bad pun.)<\/p>\n Good political news. Bad economic news.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Good:<\/strong> The stockmarket isn’t paying attention to White House shenanigans. Like who got fired and why.<\/p>\n Bad:<\/strong> Trumponomics doesn’t seem to make much sense. From this weekend’s Economist:<\/p>\n You can read the Economist here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n More airline humor<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The hard question<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n A newly married man asked his wife, ‘Would you have married me if my father hadn’t left me a fortune?’<\/p>\n ‘Honey,’ the woman replied sweetly, ‘I’d have married you, NO MATTER WHO LEFT YOU A FORTUNE!’<\/p>\n![\"SPYvsVTI\"](\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/SPYvsVTI.jpg\")
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\nHarry Newton, who loves this picture of grandson, Peter:<\/p>\n