{"id":4094,"date":"2010-10-01T09:10:20","date_gmt":"2010-10-01T13:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=4094"},"modified":"2010-10-01T11:31:49","modified_gmt":"2010-10-01T15:31:49","slug":"parsing-the-good-news-behind-the-bad-news-whatever-that-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=4094","title":{"rendered":"Parsing the good news behind the bad news — whatever that means."},"content":{"rendered":"

“<\/span><\/em>Things are good enough to prevent a major decline in stocks, but negative enough to prevent a major advance.<\/em>“<\/span> – Jim Awad, Zephyr Management. <\/span><\/p>\n

A money manager this morning sent me that quote, saying it sums it all up.<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s nonsense. For one, Awad is an OK, but not brilliant money manager, nor a great sage. But who is? Not me.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

September was great. October has had its bad moments. Remember 1987? <\/span><\/p>\n

I remain in bonds, with a small toe in equities, mostly in decent dividend payers. <\/span><\/p>\n

My stops remain tight — presently about 8%. I’m out at the first sign of angst. Cash remains king. <\/span><\/p>\n

The dollar is coming back — both the U.S. and the Australian dollar.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

What’s with hot penny stocks?<\/strong><\/span> There’s a whole industry devoted to manipulating penny stocks. The modus operandi:<\/p>\n

1. Find one with a good story. Calypso Wireless had one. They apparently have a patent on carrying voice on the Internet. Every cell company — from T-Mobile to Verizon — needs to pay them oodles of money.<\/p>\n

2. Buy oodles of the stock.<\/p>\n

3. Then, put out oodles of stories about the company. Suggest it’s going to 20 cents. There are zillions of penny stock newsletters and penny stock chat rooms, and even more zillions of gullible, desperate “investors.”<\/p>\n

4. Bingo, the stock rises. You get out as fast as possible.<\/p>\n

This chart tells the story.<\/p>\n

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

Latest on Harry’s Virus<\/span>: <\/strong>Wasting time acquires a whole new meaning<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

+ I didn’t have a cloned hard drive, pre-virus. That was real<\/strong> stupid. But I did save all my working\u00a0 files. I didn’t lose anything. I copied them to my older machine, which is working fine.<\/span><\/p>\n

+ Macs do get viruses. They just get fewer of them. The bad guys target viruses at Windows machines simply because there are more of them.<\/p>\n

+ No anti-virus software works 100%. You are always<\/strong> vulnerable, no matter what you do. Getting hit like I did is not\u00a0 “If<\/strong>,” it’s When. <\/strong>Regular backing up is your only protection.<\/p>\n

+ Sometimes your virus masks itself as anti-virus software. It asks you to pay money to clean up the infection which it created. Don’t.<\/p>\n

+ Richard Grigonis,\u00a0 reader, recommended software called Malwarebyes’ Anti-Malware.<\/strong> I paid $25, downloaded\u00a0 it. It did a far better job cleaning my infected drive than Symantec did. Richard runs Anti-Malware\u00a0 once a week in addition to his anti-virus software which runs all the time. Get it here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

+ When you do get infected, it’s a total waste of your time trying to repair your drive. Copy your working files over to your good cloned disk, format the infected disk (i.e. erase everything), then clone it and keep it as a backup. Keep multiple backups. Hard drives are cheap these days.<\/p>\n

Paired off Parrots.<\/strong><\/span>
\nA lady approaches her rabbi and tells him, “Rabbi, I have a problem. I have two female talking parrots, but they only know how to say one thing. ‘Hi, we’re prostitutes. Want to have some fun?'”<\/p>\n

“That’s terrible!” the rabbi exclaimed, “but I have a solution to your problem. Bring your two female parrots over to my house and I will put them with my two male talking parrots whom I taught to pray and read Hebrew.”<\/p>\n

The next day the woman brings her female parrots to the rabbi’s house. His two male parrots are wearing tiny yamulkes and praying in their cage. The lady puts her two female parrots in. The female parrots say, “Hi, we’re prostitutes, want to have some fun?”<\/p>\n

One male parrot looks over at the other male parrot and exclaims, “Put away the siddurs (prayer books)! Our prayers have been answered!”<\/p>\n

Visiting the hospital.
\n<\/span> <\/strong>The President of the congregation went to visit the Rabbi in the hospital.<\/p>\n

“Rabbi, the board just voted 12 to 8 to wish you a speedy recovery!”<\/p>\n

Jewish Taxis and reverse Logic.<\/strong><\/span>
\nAn American tourist was in a taxi in Israel.<\/p>\n

As the taxi approached a red light, the tourist was shocked to see the driver drive straight through without even slowing down. Surprised as he was, he didn’t say anything, feeling himself a ‘guest’ and not wanting to make waves.<\/p>\n

The trip continued without event until the next intersection.<\/p>\n

This time the light was green and, to the American’s dismay, the cab driver brought the vehicle to a grinding halt.<\/p>\n

Unable to contain his astonishment, he turns to the driver. “Listen”, he says, “When you went through the red light, I didn’t say anything. But why on earth are you stopping at a green light?”<\/p>\n

The Israeli driver looks at the American as if he was deranged. “Are you crazy?!” he shouts. “The other guy has a red light! Do you want to get us killed?!”<\/p>\n

Susan and reverse logic.<\/span><\/strong>
\nHarry: “Susan, will you please close the window. It’s cold outside.”<\/p>\n

Susan: “If I close the window, will it get warm outside?”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/div>\n

Harry Newton who wonders why he gets so much pleasure each evening from The Daily Show<\/em> and The Colbert Report. <\/em>The shows\u00a0 begin at 11 PM EST four nights a week on Comedy Central. <\/em><\/p>\n

Is Harry sick? Or is the “real” news simply too depressing?<\/p>\n

Bill Maher is on tonight on HBO at 10 PM EST.\u00a0 He’s often a bit serious. But I’m batting 100% with him. I watch his opening piece, then I fall asleep, only to wake up in time for his New Rules,<\/em> which end his\u00a0 show. It’s my new talent.<\/p>\n

Tennis’s charm is twofold:\u00a0 Great physical exercise without the treadmill. Great mental exercise figuring how to beat the guy at the other end. I have two opponents I can’t beat. But I’m getting closer. I have a new strategy. Ha.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Things are good enough to prevent a major decline in stocks, but negative enough to prevent a major advance.“ – Jim Awad, Zephyr Management. A money manager this morning sent me that quote, saying it sums it all up. It’s nonsense. For one, Awad is an OK, but not brilliant money manager, nor a great […]<\/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-4094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4094","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=4094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4094\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}