First Blog

You may think billionaires have a natural advantage in the investment business. They do. They are offered deals never available to you and me.   But that’s not all. Case-in-point. Consider Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world.   He is known for taking over companies by buying a controlling share of their stock.   He did it again this year.   He privately bought about 20 million shares of Krogers for about $25+/share.   This expense cost him about $450,000,000.   So what happened?   The shares, in the past three months have risen about 16% to $33/share, implying his investment has already accrued at least $70,000,000.   In addition, he gains $40,000,000 in dividends.    That is a considerable increase (more than 20%) on his original investment - in just a few months.   But why did the stock go up so much?   Because he announced that he bought the stock. That meant thousands of others piled on hoping to cash in on whatever Buffett was thinking, driving the share pri

I do love the Stock Markets, all of them.   Why?   Because of the abundance of theories.    Every day, no matter how the market moves there are dozens of pundits offering forth their theory as to why it went down – or up, where it’s going tomorrow or next week, and why it must crash soon or maybe elevate another couple thousand more points.   Ok, this is fine.   But the next day these same folks may expound theories postulating the opposite.   This proves market pundits have no essential understanding of economics as related to the market.   This proves pundits prefer expedience to understanding.   I am constantly besieged by brokerage firms telling me if I would only invest a million, they would help me reach my goals.   If I had this information, how to make a lot of money, I would borrow every cent I could and apply it to making a bunch of money.   I’d not tell a soul. So, why are they trying to help me?   Well, t hey have a  YAT, yet another theory!   Phooey.

3/27/18. Now retired! Spend much time watching the stock market, where many of my $$ are invested. Last week was depressing. So, I watch the business news, a lot.   Fact about business shows: they trot in well dressed bull market advocates alternatively with equally well dressed bear market advocates. After enough of this, you are totally confused. What I've noticed about these "experts" is that each uses only a few parameters upon which they rely.   These are mixed with a rather heavy helping of intuition.  Just like us in every day living. Turning to politics, we are led to our leaders and which or what are the few parameters that guide them.   For Obama, it seemed that globalism and its corollaries were at the base of his thinking.   Namely, his desire to convert the world to a globalist Utopian dream.   Simple and idealistic.   For Trump, the parameters are not that clear, but he seems to prefers a more nationalistic view of the world where it remains divided int

The extensible spring.  Think of the shock absorber on your car.  You hit a bump, the spring is compressed and then releases its energy slowly to cushion the bump.  Now think of capital markets in the same way.  This time the bump is a constant barrage of regulations.  They kept coming during the Obama administration.  For good or bad, the spring kept compressing.  Under Trump, the regulations have been relaxed, and the spring with all its stored up energy seems to be releasing its energy in an explosion of expansion.  This leads us to believe the markets have expanded (30 new DOW records this year), not back to their reasonable expression, but far beyond.  It leads one to think a rebound is possible, as it returns to where it should be.  And “should be,” on the basis of growth and market, are the key words.  We are led to believe the markets will settle back to reasonable positions, and this may imply a correction is coming.  A bumpy ride may be afoot.  Analogy is a wonde

Stock market man.  Suppose I’m worth billions, and have a reputation for picking stock market winners.  What can I do without thinking too much?   A.  I could continue my work, carefully analyzing markets and companies to make my investment decisions.  Maybe too much thinking. B.  I could identify potential sectors or companies, possibly lacking in current market attention, but with some potential.   Then, I could take a huge position with millions upon millions.   The market would take this in advisement and while not really knowing why it is important, would try to pile-on, on the basis of what we’ll call a “position testimonial.”   While pundits would explain why, they and others would also buy, driving up the price even more.   My investment of $300m might increase almost overnight to $350m.  This is what you can do with huge cash reserves.  Change the perception. Change the market. Enhance your investment. This is a totally legal form of market manipulation.  No insid