![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/DowDown2.jpg\" "\\"DowDown2\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nI’ve sold stuff in the last week. Stuff that “wasn’t working.”\u00a0 Criteria I used (I’m still finehoning this).<\/p>\n
1. Inviolate trailing stop loss. Now down to 4%.<\/p>\n
2. Gut feel. The news media has been negative lately. Much discussion about European disasters. China, etc. You can “feel” things getting ugly.<\/p>\n
3. Things changed. Suddenly muni bonds got hit with bad publicity — most of which they didn’t deserve. But they got hit and my muni bonds funds (stupid me) got really hit.<\/p>\n
4. Market technicals. Notice my 200-day moving average line on the chart above. If you favorite stock drops below it, sell.<\/p>\n
5. Too fast a runup. Gold rose quickly. I should have taken some of my profits off the table. But it’s hard when things go nicely to anticipate when they’ll go badly. You don’t think they’ll turn on a dime. They did.<\/p>\n
Being in cash is a strategy. It allows you to jump in the next time an “August” appears.<\/p>\n
My faith in “Wall Street” — coming back?<\/strong><\/span> Remember how I bitched yesterday about my private equity fund, oriiginally from Citigroup and now being managed by StepStone? It turns out there are many StepStones. Dan Good, intelligent reader, sent me their address. I called and actually got to speak to two live, polite, helpful StepStone people. As to my fund:<\/p>\n 1. My statement shows it’s down 26%. But their next statement will show an improvement.<\/p>\n 2. StepStone has more people managing my fund than Citigroup did.<\/p>\n 3. StepStone people believe I will ultimately get my money back and then some.<\/p>\n But it will be a long-haul. My fund did its investing in 2006-2008. Those were the days when leverage was king. And high P\/Es, like housing prices, were never going down.<\/p>\n The human brain is by nature optimistic. As the stockmarket zoomed from August through October this year, we thought our troubles were over. We thought we’d put the disasters of 2005-2007 behind us. No way. It’ll take years and years to overcome the problems caused by the excessive debt — in everything from sub-prime mortgages to leveraged buyouts in private equity funds, from commercial real estate to countries like Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece with too much sovereign debt.<\/p>\n That’s why The New Normal<\/em><\/strong> is all about de-leveraging. I figure it it will take ten years. Along the way, there’ll be a lot of pain.<\/p>\n Meantime, The New Investing<\/em><\/strong> will be be super-hard. The best investment going forward is to buy Distress and turn it around yourself. See the interview below.<\/p>\n Yet another reason to buy Apple (AAPL).<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The iPad stands alone, lacking real competition<\/strong> Where is the iPad’s competition?<\/p>\n By this time, I’d expected to see some real comers gunning for Apple’s iPad tablet. Hasn’t happened.<\/p>\n You want to talk about HP’s just-released Slate 500? It has a starting list price of $799. An iPad can cost that much, but the price starts at $499, and people have demonstrated that they’re willing to pay that much and more. Are people going to feel the same way about the Slate 500? Highly doubtful.<\/p>\n The Slate has an 8.9-in. screen, compared to iPad’s 9.7 in., and it runs Windows 7. Now, tell me, how many Windows 7 apps are there for a pure touch-screen tablet? … And get this: For your 800 bucks, you get a Wi-Fi-only device. Makes you wonder whether HP’s goal is to see whether it can ship a product that can die even faster than Microsoft’s Kin did.<\/p>\n Some people would tell you that since Windows is under the hood, the Slate is going to get snapped up by business users who wouldn’t touch an Apple product. Really? Thousands of people are already buying iPads for business use.<\/p>\n It’s not just HP, though. HP just stands out for having the dumbest iPad-rival launch to date. Anyone paying attention knows that iPads are selling faster than hotcakes on a cold Vermont morning. So, where are the iPad’s rivals?<\/p>\n The first problem was that everyone underestimated just how popular the iPad would be. There was a sense it was going to be big, but who knew that almost 7.5 million iPads would be sold in the device’s first two quarters of existence? Suddenly, tablets went from being a niche market for companies like Fujitsu to being big, big business.<\/p>\n The result? Almost no one had their manufacturing ducks in a row. Even now you can see OEMs struggling with basic design issues. Will tablets with 7-in. displays sell? Maybe. Maybe not.<\/p>\n When it first became apparent that the iPad was going to turn the tablet PC from a niche product into a best-seller, I predicted that Linux-based tablets would quickly give the iPad a run for its money. I was wrong. I still think it will happen, just not as soon as I thought.<\/p>\n Linux-powered tablets like the Dell Streak, which is due to get upgraded to Android 2.2, are finally making their way into the marketplace, but there won’t be a flood of them out by the holidays.<\/p>\n It turns out that while Android 2.0 and 2.2 make killer smartphone operating systems, they’re not quite ready for tablets. The problem that many would-be Android tablet builders, such as Archos, Toshiba and ViewSonic, have encountered is that the current generations of Android don’t do such a great job with a tablet’s larger interface.<\/p>\n The other Linux contenders, such as MeeGo — the embedded Linux with the best chance to rival Android — won’t be rolling out until 2011. The Google Chrome operating system, due out real soon now, is well, still due out real soon now. Windows 7? Oh, I guess it could be a competitor, but historically Microsoft has always flopped with mobile phones and other embedded devices. The folks in Redmond have also done a lousy job of competing head-to-head with Apple in this arena. I can make my point with one word: Zune.<\/p>\n So, for the time being, or at least through the 2010 holiday season, the iPad rules. Sometime in 2011, we’ll start seeing real competition, but not this year. I still think that the Android Linux models will be the first to give the iPad a real race. Unlike the other possible contenders, the Android Linux community already has a large group of application programmers ready and able to develop tablet apps, just as Apple does. But for now, it’s still an iPad world.<\/p>\n A really neat interview with an obviously talented, intelligent man.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Secrets Of The Self-Made 2010<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Ten Questions For Gerald J. Ford, 66.<\/strong> Net worth:<\/strong> $1.4 billion<\/p>\n Farm-boy-turned-thrift-trader Ford bought his first bank for $1.2 million in 1975 and later sold it for $80 million. He turned around California’s struggling Golden State Bancorp and, with fellow billionaire Ron Perelman<\/a>, sold it to Citigroup in 2002 for $6 billion in stock. Here he shares his entrepreneurial secrets.<\/p>\n 1) What personality trait was the key to your success?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>Persistence.<\/p>\n 2) What financial advice do you have for someone who is newly rich?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>Things change.<\/p>\n 3) How do you choose a money manager or investment advisor?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>Don\u2019t use one.<\/p>\n 4) Talk about the most offbeat advice you followed.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>I went to Bolivia for two months when I was 27, on the advice of a friend.<\/p>\n 5) What do you think are the biggest obstacles to job creation in America?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>Politics.<\/p>\n 6) Who is your hero, and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>My mother and father.<\/p>\n 7) What are the unforeseen downsides to success?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>Responsibility for others.<\/p>\n 8) What books should every entrepreneur read?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>The Great Gatsby<\/em> by F. Scott Fitzgerald 9) You have $100,000–where do you put it?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>In a bank account.<\/p>\n 10) Name one experience every entrepreneur-to-be must have.<\/strong><\/p>\n Failure.<\/p>\n Isn’t this wonderful?<\/strong><\/span> The big thing I learned in business was that you are your own worst enemy. No competition could wreck your business as fast as you yourself can wreck it.<\/p>\n DisplayLink makes super software that helps your PC or Mac run multiple external monitors (like you see all those traders on Wall Street with). If you ask DisplayLink’s Support a question, this is the insane response you get:<\/p>\n
\nI predicted that Linux-based tablets would quickly give the iPad a run for its money. I was wrong.
\nby Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols<\/p>\n
\nI predicted that Linux-based tablets would quickly give the iPad a run for its money. I was wrong.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nThe Financier <\/em>by Theodore Dreiser
\nThe Bonfire of the Vanities <\/em>by Tom Wolfe
\nToo Big to Fail <\/em>by Andrew Ross Sorkin
\nThe Big Short <\/em>by Michael Lewis<\/p>\n