My Sick Mind

I try to stay modern. I'm holding onto the Internet, online stuff, and my iPhone with all 8 fingernails in an effort to keep up with those goddamned kids who find this stuff so simple that they can walk, text, drive, and talk on their phone at the same time.  By the way, if you think you can ... you cannot. I'm with you on a lot of this junk.  The whole "text instead of call" thing is right up my alley.  When my phone rings, I dread picking it up. "Just text me, or send an e-mail," is my usual response.  And this comes from a person who grew up on rotary dial phones and looking for change to use the phone when I was away from home. How quickly I learned your ways, Millennials. The one thing I cannot join you in is this movement back to vinyl records.  I don't remember what year it was, but at some point, somebody (probably Sony) invented the Compact Disc player.  I was so excited.  No longer would I have to store giant 12-inch recordings...

It's Earnings Season again.  And as such, it's a little daunting to keep track of it all, but I'll give it a shot.  So, how am I doing?  I write a lot about my investments, and I'll quickly tell you if I fail, but this last quarter and the last six months have been mostly positive. While I still eschew big-time growth names that I find over-valued, I tend to stick with stocks with one of two potential issues: 1 - There is a growth story, and we are at or near the beginning of it. 2 - There is value in a mature company. As in life, I don't like to over-pay for anything.  If I think a stock has run-up into a valuation that is either "priced for perfection" or just plain over-priced, I'll pass - and I'd advise you to do so, too.  It's not that I don't appreciate the risk, but I don't necessarily want to pay for it.  Tesla, Facebook, Nvidia, Google - are some of the names that, if I had a 5-year-old, I would happily invest in. At m...