Hi Jay, I am sitting at 30k feet in a … let me see … oh yes … aluminum tube, ah, here it is, a China Eastern Airbus 320-200 jet going from Shanghai to Hong Kong.
I just read the previously downloaded but subsequently misplaced posts, no doubt due to my PC memory fault, on racism, Zionism, ignore buttons, and a bet about whether the economy will recover this year. Saturday morning will prove to be busy, with issues I know nothing about and physical exercise with Apple, the beautifully athletic and built-to-last physical trainer, accompanied by troppo-coconut-calypso drums, strings, and nonsensical lyrics concerning liming in the office towers, fete at the stock exchange, and bacchanalian wining in the Jacuzzi.
Now I am back in HK and read a taunt from my friend Pezz.
Message 17169380
Let me take matters one at a time, lest the enthusiasm for ACF Mike’s Bull Part Deux, shifting paradigms in the morning, and hopes of salvation built on top of a sand castle floating within the gossamer of a shimmering mirage overtakes me.
Oops, I just did something naughty and mischievous, as usual. I put myself on SI Ignore. Perhaps not very surprisingly, I can no longer see myself. Like, gone, in a click.
Now I put the last ten posters on Ignore, and wham, very quiet in the arena.
Now I put myself on unignore, zoom, I have my private diary space, forever.
I put Maurice on unignore. Zip, I have a QCOM thread:0!
Technology, engineers and kids-at-heart:0)
Updating this BBR relevant subject matter,
Message 17012307
… and thus distancing from your previous and deliberate provocation on Indians and Muslims and such, I truthfully report that the NAV is down 0.21%, and all pretty much remain as it should, on money earth:
Cash 44.5% (37% Euro, 10% CHF, 8% AUSD, 3% HKD, 42% USD)
Bonds 22%
Gold and platinum metals 5% (80% gold)
Rental Real Estate 21% (value at lower of cost and market)
Non-income generating Thai beach land 1.3%
Equity 5.7% (AAPTY, AMGN, AOL, AU, AWK, CHL, CMCSK, CWT, NEM, SNE, SWC, Furukawa Electric, Hongkong & Shanghai Banking HK.5, …) w/ precious metal companies accounting for 2.3 out of 5.7%.
I have outstanding short positions in March NEM Put 20 & (insanely, but perhaps saved by ACF Mike types) covered Call 20, and NEM June (stupidly, but maybe not, because of CNBC watchers) covered Call 20.
Message 17046227
I also have a long position in RDN August Put 40 (plenty of time for that bomb to go off yet, just do not know which side of the hatch the bomb is on).
The music system is pumping out the lyrical cacophony of the happy calypso islands … incessant drumbeats, twangy string plucks, and nonsensical rants. I love it … “and we wine, we wine, we wine …” Ah, love it! I think Apple will be surprised at my vigor today.
Now to pezz’s taunt on gold. I do not care. Given that I have NEM covered calls and puts, I do not much care where gold heads to in the proverbial here and now, and as I commented to ACF Mike a few days ago, USD 150/oz is as good a price for me as USD 1500. I am looking and hoping to be able to accumulate more, much more. See here …
Message 17154865
How strange, I hear you say, since the recovery from a recession that never was is.
I am thinking recoveries from recession require increased capital investment of the productive and profit earning sort, generate by newly de-leveraged J6P hired by companies with a glimmer of a hope at expanding markets and margins. Rebuilding a bit of inventory stock alone does not make a robust recovery.
I am also pondering that housing recovery is also good for enforcing a recovery. Alas, housing bubble never left any foam in our faces, and so no recovery there, because you cannot recover from ‘perfect’ health.
So that leaves us with consumer spending, preferably by above mentioned newly de-leverage J6P. Yup, so far so good, piling on more credit card debt just as interest rate is heading up.
Interest rate is heading up, but then I mentioned that already. It is doing so in anticipation of a recovery, and in expectation of inflation, not forgetting that capital has been mis-priced, and now, with Japanese officialdom manipulation and pending trade wars, the twin catheters of trade and fiscal deficit are about to be ripped from the outstretched arms of the troubled patient.
My bet is that tax rate and collection urgency will soon rise. I am thinking that between the synchronized 'recovery' in Japan and Europe, along with the US, money will be needed everywhere at a cost.
Besides, CB’s concern, the hegemon status, is not a cheap tea party, and neither is preparing for baby boom retirement.
So, you see, the recovery came just in the nick of time, as if perfectly timed by the newly disbanded office of strategic influence, and the 60k newly employed is certainly good news.
The recovery will prove to be tepid, and thus unable to justify the current and fully good-news discounted equity market, especially in face of the rapidly discounting bond market.
Chugs, Jay |
