<p>I mention Australia because many of the lemmings on Wall Street say Australia is a safe haven, and unfortunately, there is no place to hide…China is not only slowing bigtime, but lying how bad it is…i see a big swoosh move on the horizon…</p>
<p>Yeah…</p>
<p>Some investment in a private company blew up very unexpectedly. I have been spending a lot of time on that. </p>
<p>I think my wife has only commented on my investment decisions twice in 30 years. She was right the first time. She is right the second time.</p>
<p>Invest in what you know. Make sure the management team is a strong one. Honest. Make sure your partners are well capitalized. Do your due diligence. </p>
<p>And then…investing in a private company you are not going to run…
Probably shouldn’t do it.</p>
<br>
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<p>GOOG and AMZN are not looking for profits in their tablet operations. If they make profits, that’s fine but they are really selling tablets to bolster their primary operations. GOOG apparently breaks even on their low-end model but the difference between parts/labor and price on the model with more memory is about $50. That could be eaten up in selling and warranty costs. So GOOG and AMZN might disrupt the market.</p>
<p>MSFT sells operating systems. The messages that I’ve seen from them have been mixed lately. Intel built a reference Ultrabook and gave it to their partners so that they had some ideas with which to build devices. It took a while but it worked. Microsoft said earlier this week that the surface is also a reference design but they want to manufacture and make them which makes their situation different from Intel’s. Microsoft is either pricing them to make a profit - but perhaps not a big one. Microsoft is mainly an OS company so they want to sell operating systems. The problem with Microsoft is the lack of apps.</p>
<p>I’m cutting my stock exposure today and that includes Apple. I’ve positioned my portfolio for some growth and a lot of dividends but the macro picture stinks and even though a lot of my stocks are around all-time-highs, I have concerns that they will come crashing down pretty hard in an environment where you have to hit earnings out of the ballpark just to hold your stock price. That sort of environment is prelude to a crash.</p>
<p>Our government is in gridlock, the Fed is on hold and doesn’t really want to do anything, and the rest of the world (not all but certainly enough) is teetering. It is really, really hard to part with my dividends though.</p>
<p>Australia (and Canada) not doing well is a bad sign for the world - they are a commodity country and declines in commodity prices means slowing growth or recession. It’s like copper as a future manufacturing indicator.</p>
<p>A good friend of mine, who is American Chinese and married a China Chinese woman, went to China 30 years ago. He was very optimistic about China and the people were optimstic.</p>
<p>He visited China recently. Not the two or 3 major cites. He visited slightly smaller cities and he went to places where only There were only Chinese people. No westerners. Did
not like what he saw in China. </p>
<p>People were depressed.
Amoral place.
No rules or regulations.
No safety net.
No traffc rules. </p>
<p>My friend likes everything…different places…eats everything but flies.</p>
<p>Disliked China.</p>
<p>The popularion had their heads down.</p>
<p>I went to China 30 years ago. Visited 8 cities - two big ones and a bunch of small ones; we had African Americans in our group and people in some of the cities had never seen African Americans before - I thought that was different. They all expected me to be able to speak Chinese and didn’t believe that I couldn’t.</p>
<p>I have many co-workers that go to China (and other asian countries) regularly. I’ll have to ask them about overall conditions. Those visiting for business purposes haven’t indicated major negatives about China - btw, they mainly grew up in China.</p>
<p>I just read an article on our new, local mall.</p>
<p>The tollbooth near the mall has a 116% increase in traffic.</p>
<p>One of the popular seafood restaurants has seen a 25% increase in business on weekends.</p>
<p>Hotels are reporting higher business levels on weekends.</p>
<p>There’s interest from bus companies to bring groups of shoppers from Canada to shop and stay for the weekend.</p>
<p>So it looks like the new mall is having a positive impact in our town. I haven’t noticed any traffic issues and I go fairly close by it to get to work. At the moment, this is looking like a net win for the town. I don’t see a lot of complaints by the abutters these days. I’m sure that there is some negative impact to them but much less than what they were protesting about many years ago.</p>
<p>Because my gig is about over, I am actually going to have to make money with my capital.</p>
<p>In this environment, I think that it is going to be very difficult to get decent returns. It is a little depressing.</p>
<p>But I am going to start trying to lose 10 to 15 pounds. :)</p>
<p>I think post 2084 is a good post. When you have a job, it is easier to accept lower returms. I understand not wanting to give up dividends.</p>
<p>BCEagle91, are you a Chinese American?</p>
<p>I like the information about the mall.</p>
<p>I have been 75% cash/bond since late April in my 401 k. Got in S & P at 1250 and out in high 1300. Waiting to get back in if S & P get to 1200 level. </p>
<p>The bond fund we have is pretty good. Gained 3% since mide April.</p>
<p>This is one of those rare period when a red market day does not feel too bad.</p>
<p>Most people that I communicate electronically assume that I’m white and have a hard time figuring out if I’m male or female.</p>
<p>No. you’re male.</p>
<p>I think that is obvious.</p>
<p>There aren’t that many Asians living in NH, are there?</p>
<p>The Asian population is low in my town but it’s about 6.5% in the city where I work. There’s a lot of high-tech work there. In my building, it feels like 1/3rd white, 1/3rd Indian, 1/3rd Chinese. MA has a big enough Chinese population so that they can run quite a few Chinese language schools. These are Fri/Sat/Sun classes to learn to read, write, listen to and speak Chinese and they typically run for 8 or 9 years for their students.</p>
<p>Interesting.</p>
<p>I don’t know if you remember, not that you should, but my dad was born and raised in the French Quarter of Shanghai.</p>
<p>And he does speak Shanghaiese…or whatever that dialect is called.</p>
<p>First-time unemployment claims 350K which is a 4-year low. Might have been due to the holiday.</p>
<p>BC, great to hear the new local mall is successful, but the money they are making are coming out of another business’s bottom line…It is a zero sum game…</p>
<p>WASHINGTON — First-time filings for unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level in more than four years, U.S. data showed Thursday, but the decline likely stemmed from fewer auto-sector layoffs than normal and other onetime factors that could soon be reversed.</p>
<p>I think that the mall could be generating additional spending. The stores in this mall are clearly for folks with discretionary income and carry goods that aren’t common to other local retailers. Those coming to shop here from Europe and Canada - they will certainly be using fuel, travel services and hotels where they might not if they didn’t come here.</p>
<p>The economy in New Hampshire certainly isn’t gloomy but wary. In MA, it has turned gloomier given a small business sentiment report that came out this week.</p>
<p>[Santa</a> Claus Fed and equity returns: James Saft | Reuters](<a href=“http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/12/us-column-markets-saft-idUSBRE86B0ND20120712]Santa”>http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/12/us-column-markets-saft-idUSBRE86B0ND20120712)</p>
<p>Hmm, the game isn’t rigged. ;)</p>