My Sick Mind

I tried.  I really tried. I did the best I could with what I was given:  A job, lots of bills, and just myself and my wits to depend on.  That’s pretty much the bulk of it.  I put as much money into investments as I could, with the idea that I could have been putting it somewhere else - like, oh I don’t know, prostitutes, drugs, expensive cars, or clothes. I don’t crave sex, use drugs, drive expensive cars, or wear fancy clothes.  It’s a character flaw, I guess. The thing I could never figure out is how people who earn the same salary as I can have shore homes or live in a better place than I.  I always figured it’s because they are more comfortable in debt than me. So, this retirement thing is coming up, and coincidentally the stock market is tanking and the country is at full employment. Great timing.  I have less money than I had a year ago, and it’s going to be harder to find another job. Yeah, right - I’m going to have to find another job. I...

That’s a good question.  (I often ask myself questions) The market is up 2% one day and down 2% another day - but mostly, it’s down.  Way more than 2%. Over the last six months, the S&P 500 is down from 2600 to 2300 - which is a 15% decline.  Most “experts” say that 2019 will be difficult for the stock market, since earnings will be tough to match and “The Fed” and China tensions will weigh on the index, making investors nervous. If I was 25, I would be as happy as a pig in slop.  Markets are down, and I still have 40 years to invest.  I’d be giving up lifestyle enhancements to invest in this market.  Buy low, sell high and all. However, I’m a year away from retirement, and my perspective has suddenly changed from someone who has five years left to one who has less than a year left and cannot risk losing his nest egg over a big market downturn.  So ... If you have more than ten years before you will be tapping your investments, it’s full steam ahea...

Is it possible to like something and hate something?  New York City is that kind of place for me.  I anticipate my visits, but generally hate the experience.  Yesterday, I spent about 12 hours there.  I only go if I have to, and yesterday I had to.  I take the train because, if I had to drive, there would be nothing left of me but a greasy spot.  If the train doesn’t stop where I have to go, I can walk.  So far, it hasn’t been worth the taxi fare or Uber fee to keep me from walking - even as far as from Penn Station to Carnagie Hall. This year’s trip was similar. I bought a matinee ticket to Mike Birbiglia’s show "The New One" in midtown and Marc Maron’s show at the Beacon Theater later that night.  I made it to both shows from the train station on foot, going over 22,000 steps on my Garmin.  Both shows were great.  Two talented monologists and funny to boot. But, that isn’t my point. I live near Philadelphia, and regularly (and voluntar...

There is an election coming up on Tuesday. Surely, you’ve heard or seen.  Since I’ve been alive for many decades and have seen elections come and go, the process is similar every time: VOTE FOR ME. THE OTHER GUY SUCKS. HE (SHE) TAKES MONEY FROM BIG BUSINESS AND DOESN’T CARE ABOUT YOU AND YOUR PROBLEMS. Meanwhile, Election Day after Election Day goes by and ... do things ever get better?  No, not really.  They keep taxing and spending, and when they cut taxes (so they say) we wonder where the cuts are and how much we really get.  That’s the illusion - making us believe we are getting something when we are really getting nothing. It’s politics 101. So, here we are in 2018 - with another mid-term election that “they” say is the most important in recent times. OK then, show me.  Show me that the person I vote for will actually make things easier for me, because I pay your salary and all. Ronald Reagan said he would “take government off our backs,” but he was so old ...

"Nail in my hand, from my creator. You gave me life now,  Show me how to live."  - the late great Chris Cornell The thing that most big companies don't understand is - OK, we gave you this - now, what? And, it isn't as if I don't work for a "big company" because I do not - but that doesn't influence the way the people in charge view themselves. Big? Yeah - OK. Us? Maybe not so much. They have a department called Human Resources, but they often lack the Human part.  The Resources are there, but who is in charge? So --- I am faced with the third most important decision of my life tomorrow, and I have virtually no one to lean on to say whether or not I am making the right decision. As it has always been.

My company - out of left field - has offered an early retirement package to old-timers like myself.  They didn’t say it outright (because they cannot) but it appears that there is no future for those of us over 60.  The world has moved onto Millenials and their ilk who are content to earn a few bucks and move on.  People like me want to make a career out of our job and count on full employment until age 65.  Well, that’s out the window. As you probably do not know, I turned 61 last week.  As such, I’m a year away from claiming Social Security benefits and at least three years away from retiring securely.  As many of you know, I have been investing in growth stocks believing that I have some time left. Well then -  that has changed. WIth the company’s notice last week, I suddenly find that I am less than two years away from being “out of work.”  I have been working since I was 17 years old, and the prospect of being unemployed at 62 is not at all a...

I don’t travel much. In fact, I don’t often leave the house - so traveling is a luxury that I do reluctantly and usually at someone else’s expense.  However, once I commit to it, I’m enthusiastic about seeing new places and learning about them.  Lately, my advanced age has led me to being curious as to what life is like [here] and talking to locals, picking their brains and finding out if the place is as nice as it seems. Coming from New Jersey, almost anyplace I go is both different and interesting.  Perhaps people from other parts of the world feel like that about New Jersey, but if they spoke to residents, they’d discover what a crap-hole New Jersey is.  For example: When I go someplace, I work the conversation around what it’s like to live there, because I’m curious about whether it’s as nice as it seems. I ask about the cost of living, and what it’s like to be there on a day-to-day basis.  My new example comes from my latest visit to Alabama.  I went o...

My traveling anxiety exists in several levels, with the final level being zero - which I suppose is the ideal level. However, the overall average level of anxiety is many levels above zero, and therein lies the problem. The highest level exists shortly after I commit to the trip. Signing-into Expedia and booking the trip are exciting, since I get to choose when I leave and what sort of vehicle I am renting.  Shortly thereafter, however, I get the shivers thinking about all of the things I have to do before I leave, and how I have to arrange my schedule and alter my lifestyle to accommodate this trip. The main problem with having an ordered life is finding out what to do with the things that are part of that ordered life once the order is changed.  Perhaps I would be less anxious if I traveled for work frequently, or had some sort of oddball lifestyle that gave me the opportunity to travel more than once or twice a year for something other than work.  The only thing that...

Twice in the last month, I have traveled for work.  Lately, it’s the only sort of traveling I do. Fortunately, it is mostly paid for by my company - airfare, hotel, rental car, parking, meals, etc.; as long as it’s on what would normally be my time.  The only things I feel like I should pay for (and do) are extra meals or snacks and alcoholic beverages.  It’s the least I can do. My experiences with flying are limited, but improving. I have learned the subtle art of self-check-in, and uploading boarding passes to my cell phone - all of which are probably basic to those of you who travel frequently. I have had varied experiences with airports in Philadelphia, Birmingham, Nashville, and Phoenix to get a gist of what it’s like to be in different airports.  Mostly, it’s filled with people who want to get somewhere as quickly as possible, even though often, the effort is worthless. American Airlines boards flights in groups. I think the priority depends on how often you tr...

Sometimes, the best thing to do is nothing.  Such may be the case now.  The markets are in turmoil.  The Federal Reserve is hawkish on rates. The President says they are "crazy."  Bond yields are going up... At the same time, companies are reporting increasing earnings. Revenues are up, and the tax break has given them billions of dollars with which to buy back their own stock - which is now trading at a low compared to a year ago. Meanwhile, my favorite company Square (NYSE: SQ) has lost its CFO, and the sellers have bitten into our former $100 share price, taking it down to today’s $69.  But fear not (he said) Jack is still running the show, and they have multiple assets in house that are being run by other great leaders, so if you’re interested, there may be a time to get in over the next few days.  The Wayback Machine has been set to early summer levels. For the record (if there is one) I have sold nothing, even though the temptation is there.  I i...

Eh -- I don't know -- this whole Hall of Fame thing.  Aren't record sales and concert attendance enough? Do we need awards and enshrinement for artistic accomplishments? The nominees for the 2019 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are out, and I of course, have some opinions. Who would I be if I didn't? Opinionless. The slam-dunks on the list for me are Devo and Kraftwerk. That's right.  Both of them revolutionized a genre and are landmark musicians.  Isn't that what the R&R HoF is about?  (yeah, I don't know, either). I'd also vote for Rage Against the Machine .  There, I said it. Otherwise, my Honorable Mentions are Todd Rundgren and Stevie Nicks .  I'd guess that Stevie is in as a member of Fleetwood Mac, but her solo career also stands out and I suppose you could apply the "Landmark" label to her, as well.  My biggest kudo to Rundgren is that he co-produced Badfinger's "Stand Up" album, which is epic.  OK, so he a...

When I read the story today, I though maybe it was something from The Onion - or maybe I should check my calendar to see if it was April 1.  We're making a Space Force. The latest lunatic idea from the Trump Administration is called Space Force, which is an idea that would have been turned down by every producer of 1980s television, but is somehow relevant in his "Us Against the Universe" idea of government. As though it wasn't bad enough that he is a white-supremicist Nationalist, he has to go a step (or a Giant Leap) forward and proclaim that he is not only a Nationalist but a Universalist as well - if that's even a word.  Or, maybe it is now. Appropriately enough, he handed the announcement over to his Second-In-Command Mike Pence - who strangely, some people feel is a better choice given a Trump impeachment - but that's another story for another day --- and announced it in some strange fashion with a press conference that could have been cal...

I can’t get worked-up over nonsense. I have no idea why some people get crazy over who wins an award, a game, or some other so-called expert who proclaimed a champion prior to the game being played. As it is, I cannot get worked-up over any game or competition that does not involve me or my capability to earn a living.  As it is, the only things I can get motivated for are my job, paying my bills, eating, and exercising - which would appear to be the minimum requirements for living in the world today. Once I lose that motivation, you’ll see me on Broad Street, across from Wawa looking for a few pennies to get a breakfast sandwich or some coffee. Perhaps it won’t be long?  So, remember what I look like, and stop by and see me sometime next year when I’m holding a sign and squatting on a grate. It might represent the last thing I care about.

Listening to Michael Hedges' music always clears my mind. Similarly, a trip to the Hirshorn Gallery or the East Building at the National Gallery of Art, or MoMa -- you get the picture.  It's a cleansing experience, and makes me appreciate art and what good it does for us. On the other hand (it's always the other hand that gets in trouble) it clears things up for me and allows me to see the incongruities (geez) in life and the things that we take for granted.  Like today --- Hundreds (thousands?) of people s tood in long lines at Build-A-Bear Workshops to get a bear for the price of the age of their child.  For those of you doing math, that means that a 4-year-old could get a stuffed bear for --- four dollars.  Need I go further?  Inexplicably, more than half of the bear-enthusiasts were turned away because ... well, they ... um ... over-booked. Yes, the company did not anticipate that huge numbers of humanity would stand in line for several hours to...

Starbucks is closing 150 stores, and General Electric has been removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average.  That’s a big day. Perhaps Americans have enough coffee, perhaps Starbucks has achieved their growth target, or maybe it’s just a sign of the times?  After all, old brick-and-mortar retail is suffering, and while you cannot buy a cup of coffee on the Internet (yet) there is plenty of competition over the coffee space, and consumers might be tiring of paying eight dollars for a product that they can get at home with a Keurig or someplace else cheaper. Perhaps they are coming to their senses? Or, perhaps I give consumers too much credit?  Either way, the joke about a Starbucks across the street from a Starbucks is too real to ignore, and it might be time for them to step back and try to re-invent the company in some way.  It’s coffee, after all, and how much renovation can they make? As for investing in SBUX - if it gets to $48 start sniffing around.  Now,...

If you believe, as I do, that "The Star Spangled Banner" is a song about a war that we lost, and how the big positive of the deal is that "the flag was still there," then maybe you'll get this.  Whatever .... There has been a lot of bluster, screaming, outrage, and other stuff over the National Anthem and what people do while it is played - at sporting events, mostly - because that's where they play it, mostly. Stand, kneel, sit, take off your cap ... do whatever they tell you, right? And, for the record, I have stood at Fort McHenry and looked out at the place where " the flag was still there ," and yeah, I got a little chill thinking about it, but that's where it stopped.  Mostly, it's because of the ceremony of the thing.  Otherwise, it's just a song praising war.  But I digress... The kerfuffle started when a few NFL players decided to do something other than stand at attention while the song was being played.  That c...

I really hate to write about such mundane things as investing and life, because they don’t get nearly the page views of my rants on gun culture and the ridiculous state of politics in America - but here we go. What have I been doing lately, while the market has been going nuts (up and down) and some people have been scared out of it. I hate to sell and trade, but sometimes, it’s necessary. I sold my position in Extreme Networks (EXTR) after a double over the past year.  In retrospect, I could have sold it much higher, but I usually wait for earnings, and this latest report was absurdly negative, so I decided to cash-in my profit rather than wait for the upturn, which may take more than a year. I also sold 25% of my stake in Square (SQ).  As much as I love the company I felt like the stock had run-up to $55 from my purchase price of $26, so I felt it prudent to take some profits and watch it go, if it does.  There has been some selling over a recent battle with Pay...

Some things are just too hard to figure out with our small people brains. Lawn darts killed three children between 1970 and 1994, and as such, they were made illegal in the United States and Canada. On 19 December 1988, all lawn darts were banned from sale in the United States by the Consumer Product Safety Commission after they were responsible for the deaths of three children since 1970.  In 1989, they were also banned in Canada. In 1982, some nutjob poisioned  some Tylenol capsules.  As a result, we can’t open a bottle of pills or a beverage without going through a major operation, even though authorities never identified who was responsible. The Chicago Tylenol murders were a series of poisoning deaths resulting from drug tampering in the Chicago metropolitan area in 1982. The victims had all taken Tylenol-branded acetaminophen capsules that had been laced with potassium cyanide.  A total of seven people died in the original poisonings, with several mo...

It’s been a long time coming (as the song said) but finally, The United States (or parts of it) have come to the realization that marijuana isn’t the horrible evil our ancestors viewed it to be. In a quest to fund government, several states have found it convenient to legalize the “Evil Weed” and collect taxes on its consumption, much as they do with alcohol.  As it is with a lot of things, it’s a bad idea until we run out of ways to collect taxes.  Then, things that were once considered horrible - alcohol, gambling, and cigarettes - are now wonderful because the states can tax them.  Resistance is futile, and the resistance has met its match with marijuana.  States have run out of ways to tax us, so now, marijuana is no longer considered vile.  It’s a revenue source, which makes it ... well, a good idea. Today is April 20.  Once considered an inside joke among pot heads, it has now become a national media day of recognition.  As it is with a ...

The events of the past week are ridiculous on so many levels that it's almost funny. When I read Tweets about it, I had no idea what had happened - only that something shitty happened at a Starbucks in Philadelphia.  Being a scant 20 minutes from the location, I felt odd that I didn't know what was going on.  Well - we all know now, so there's no need to recap. The finger was pointed at Starbucks, but the real finger should have been pointed at the Philadelphia police department and the individual who called them to quell the so-called disturbance.  You see, Starbucks owns and operates 19,300 locations in the United States alone, and singling-out one for some racist behavior (so they say) is both unfair and ridiculous. Whether or not the two men violated store policy by asking to use the rest room without purchasing anything is minor.  Refusing to leave is the issue, and the cops needed to be sensitive to the problem.  Arresting them was the worst-case ...

So, you want to invest in the stock market?  Well, mama told you there’d be days like these - didn’t she?  If she didn’t, then she’s a fool, and nature abhors a fool. She also should have told you that nobody makes money panicing.  So, don’t join the crowd and sell over macroeconomic conditions that do not necessarily affect your individual holdings. Look at what you own and hold on, because you bought value companies at a good price - at least that’s what I’ve been telling you to do. The market is in “correction territory,” having dropped another 2.23% today, and closed at a level below the 200-day moving average for the first time since 2016. OK - that’s the technical stuff.  What’s going on? We have a President in the White House who Tweets his sick mind at 3 in the morning, blasting such stalwarts as Amazon and claiming that he has some grand idea that the US Postal Service is losing money because of them.  Here’s a clue:  The USPS has been los...

Perhaps you have enjoyed my posts about the stock market (mostly in the correct direction) or laughed at my good-natured jibes at modern America, or had a chuckle over my disassociated viewpoints about things and stuff. Well - I’m guessing that is about to come to a crashing halt. The most recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida - and by “most recent school shooting” it should alert you as to what is coming - has brought to mind several things that you humans have been debating but have brought upon yourselves.  What? The good-old Second Amendment to the Constitution, for one.  It was written by a group of white slave-owners who also believed that one shouldn’t vote unless HE was a land owner.  This came in a time when single-load muskets were technology, and militias were formed to fight-off British invaders.  Gain some perspective. Nowadays (I’m sure you’ve heard) we have semi-automatic weapons, and guns that can fire-off hundreds of rounds a second. ...

It's not much, time-wise, but this is a graph (I know, I said "charting") of the S&P 500 sectors' performance during the year so far. Unexpectedly (probably) the top growth sectors are coming from the riskiest areas, while the staid, old-guard stocks are underperforming.  Make of it what you will, but so far, the growth in our market is coming from some surprising areas. It will be worthwhile to look at this again after earnings season, which kicks-of on Friday with the big banks. OK, so here's your chart.   I took a look at this today and, even though I don't put much faith in charting, some things are too difficult to ignore. It's a five-year chart of one of my favorite stocks, Salesforce.com (Symbol: CRM) If we go back to May of 2012, and draw a line along the peaks in the stock, we can see that it has achieved higher highs, all the way through to late July of 2017.  In addition, during that same time period, the lows have ...