{"id":56218,"date":"2021-11-10T10:57:32","date_gmt":"2021-11-10T15:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=56218"},"modified":"2021-11-10T10:57:32","modified_gmt":"2021-11-10T15:57:32","slug":"mist-and-leaves-in-the-air-paypal-is-a-huge-bargain-why-apple-is-such-a-great-camera-company-stress-how-to-solve-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=56218","title":{"rendered":"Mist and leaves in the air. PayPal is a huge bargain. Why Apple is such a great camera company. Stress, how to solve it (?)"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s\u00a0 mist in the air. A slight breeze. The autumn leaves are floating down. It’s Fall. A precious time of the year. I drive slowly. I let the leaves brush my windscreen. I stop in a forest on a back road and savor it. It’s a magic moment.<\/p>\n

WMHT is playing Beethoven. The announcer is waxing lyrically on how classical music allowed her to survive the Pandemic. She’s right. I listen to them every day. They play Mozart and Bach.<\/p>\n

Tennis this morning was wonderfully exhausting. I hit some nice down-the-line backhands and lost gracefully (I think I lost gracefully).<\/p>\n

This stuff alleviates stress. Many of my friends have high stress. It shows up in weird ailments that seem only to get worse as my friends age. I wish I could help. I think it’s part of their essence.<\/p>\n

My favorite stress story:<\/p>\n

In the middle of 1996 my partner in our technology publishing industry, Gerry Friesen, said he wanted to sell the business because it was causing him stress.<\/p>\n

A year or so later in September 1997, we sold the business. He retired to California to play golf and do whatever else they do out in California.<\/p>\n

A year or two later, I asked him how the stress was going? He looked at me with a twinkle and said he still had stress.<\/p>\n

I asked what could be causing his stress since we no longer had the business to worry about.<\/p>\n

He answered “Golf.”<\/p>\n

I nodded. I know how stressful golf can be.<\/p>\n

I don’t have any solutions. I know what seems to work for me — daily tennis, lunchtime naps, learning to not get crazed if my stocks drop (like today) and being careful and conservative what I invest in. I don’t pay much attention to things I can’t control (or at least affect). I have a piece on that coming.<\/p>\n

Today, it’s hard to look at my portfolio and say, “Wow, look at that, I’m losing the value of a nice house.”<\/p>\n

Then I console myself, I didn’t want another house, anyway.<\/p>\n

Yesterday I played tennis twice. And this morning once. It’s almost time for my noon nappy pooh.<\/p>\n

There’s an ironic end to Gerry’s stress and the sale of our business. Within two years, the Internet came along and ate the paper publishing and in-person convention business\u00a0 we had sold for a handsome amount. Had Gerry not had stress, we probably wouldn’t have any money, either. But he would still have stress.<\/p>\n

It’s a funny world.<\/p>\n

PayPal looks like the greatest bargain.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

To my tiny brain, at its now much-lower price, PayPal looks like the greatest bargain. Tell me how many other fast-growing technology companies can report this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

How many other fintech companies would not give their eye-teeth for this deal:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

So what happened? Here’s the way CNBC reported it when they first saw PayPal’s third quarter results:<\/p>\n

+ PayPal<\/a>\u00a0(PYPL) \u2014 PayPal shares fell more than 4% premarket after the digital payments company reported\u00a0quarterly results<\/a>. The company\u2019s revenue of $6.18 billion fell short of the Refinitiv consensus estimate of $6.23 billion. PayPal also issued a fourth-quarter forecast that fell short of analysts\u2019 expectations and provided disappointing guidance for next year.<\/p>\n

I don’t know who Refinitiv is. I frankly don’t care.<\/p>\n

PayPal’s third quarter results didn’t disappoint me. I listened to PayPal’s conference call and I read the accompanying deck. Furthermore, anything and everything I buy online I buy through PayPal. I couldn’t be happier.<\/p>\n

Most happiness: After enjoying their cheap trial, I used PayPal to cancel me the now-expensive subscription to a service I now found valueless. Yipee, it worked.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I haven’t sold a single PayPal share. If it gets any cheaper, I’ll buy some more. Today, however, it’s up a little. Maybe this is the bottom?<\/p>\n

So how good is Apple at photography?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The answer will blow you away.<\/p>\n

Here’s a picture that I just took with my beautiful Canon G5X:<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nHere’s a picture I just took with my new, beautiful iPhone 13 Pro Max.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

By applying my best Photoshop skills to the Canon photo, I got it to.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It’s still crap compared to what Apple produced — no Photoshop —\u00a0 just straight out of the iPhone.<\/p>\n

Now you know why Apple is my largest holding. Also Warren Buffett’s.<\/p>\n

I did this test because I’m going to a wedding this weekend. I used to be a wedding photographer. I’m good at it. In those days, I shot in Kodak Tri-X, which is a black and white film you can do wonders with in a darkroom. I started to write “you can’t do that with an iPhone.” Then I thought, “maybe I can? So I did this in Photoshop. I still think Tri-X is better and it’s still available! I’m tempted to buy some real film for this weekend.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

My small holdings<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

My Ford is up 51%. My GE is up 4%. My EL is up 3%.<\/p>\n

I bought some KIND because I liked the nonsense the CEO\u00a0 spouted to Cramer and his resulting enthusiasm. He is so easy to pump. I originally thought KIND would be a great competitor to Facebook. But I was wrong. They’re not a Facebook. They’re a “find me a local plumber” app. Not one that likes or doesn’t like Trump. Just a simple fellow who can fix my\u00a0 leak.<\/p>\n

Something about ownership<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

A pretty girl is standing next to a fence, watching a bull mate with a cow in the field.<\/p>\n

The farmer comes up and leers at her, “Look at what that bull is doing to that cow, that is what I would like to be doing right now!”<\/p>\n

And she replies, “Well why don’t you, it’s your cow.”<\/p>\n

Today<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Sincerest congratulations To Francis Greenburger whose wonderful Art Pavilions at Chatham project was unanimously approved by the Chatham Planning Board last night.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

On a whim, I googled Stress Beds for Dogs. Here’s a tiny bit of what came up:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I then google Stress Bed for Humans and found one for $3,100.\u00a0 It’s called a Pod Pro Mattress and looked like a normal bed to me.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

My nap is calling. See you tomorrow, or so. — Harry Newton<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s\u00a0 mist in the air. A slight breeze. The autumn leaves are floating down. It’s Fall. A precious time of the year. I drive slowly. I let the leaves brush my windscreen. I stop in a forest on a back road and savor it. It’s a magic moment. WMHT is playing Beethoven. The announcer is […]<\/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-56218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56218","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=56218"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56242,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56218\/revisions\/56242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}