<p>LOL! What would you like to hear from me? I have been working more (my work “hobby”), traveling more, trading less and enjoying it much more lately!</p>
<p>I tend to track portfolio performance very closely when the market is going up, then close my eyes and step away from the computer when things fall apart. It’s a stress management tool. Sure sign I should be handing portfolio management over to a 3rd party, but why pay someone else to panic on my behalf?</p>
<p>LOL…</p>
<p>“LOL! What would you like to hear from me? I have been working more (my work “hobby”), traveling more, trading less and enjoying it much more lately!”</p>
<p>Then that is what I want to head from you. Nice. Where have you been traveling?</p>
<p>“I tend to track portfolio performance very closely when the market is going up, then close my eyes and step away from the computer when things fall apart.”</p>
<p>I know. You were my contrary indicator. But because you are conscious of this, the indicator will stop working. :(</p>
<p>The stock market can rise over 20 percent this year.</p>
<p>[The</a> WSJ is the latest in a long line of news… - Seeking Alpha](<a href=“Seeking Alpha | Stock Market Analysis & Tools for Investors”>Seeking Alpha | Stock Market Analysis & Tools for Investors)</p>
<p>I find the above disappointing</p>
<p>Apple should just go with Intel. Intel can provide all of the capacity it needs, Intel won’t compete with Apple and Intel can give them the best processors in the world.</p>
<p>We cant force aapl and intc to make a deal.</p>
<p>Doct, have a great trip and a great month.</p>
<p>Thanks - I leave on the 3rd for Australia, New Zealand and Moorea. Dstark: Good luck to you this month.</p>
<p>“The stock market can rise over 20 percent this year.”</p>
<p>I guess I won’t be watching the market much as I’m not going to have easy access to my accounts but if we do get a big correction, I still hope to somehow catch it. I’ve been slowly adding to positions as the market has come down and maybe have 20% in the market right now.</p>
<p>Doct, thanks. Enjoy yourself. Sounds like a fantastic trip. The market will be here when you get back.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reminder. If I don’t look at balances (and prices) this weekend when it is quarter end it becomes much more difficult to measure quarter end performance. </p>
<p>For the 2nd quarter the Dow was up 2.3%, ytd 13.78%
The S&P 500 was up 2.4% for the quarter, ytd +12.6%
IWM, my Russell 2000 proxy was up 2.7% for the quarter and is up 15% ytd.</p>
<p>My retirement accounts were DOWN 1/2% on the quarter, mainly due to my bond allocation. TLT, my long bond proxy was down 6.2% in the 2nd quarter and down 8.9% ytd. My biggest bond position is in 10 year zeros and they took a big hit recently.</p>
<p>The financials held things together this quarter, XLF +6.7% and ytd +18.6%</p>
<p>GOOG continues to star (I don’t own any), +10.8% for the quarter and +24.4% ytd.
AAPL of course is a drag, -10.4% for Q2, and -25.5% ytd, wow, the inverse goog!</p>
<p>MSFT, +20.7% for the quarter and +29.3% ytd
INTC +11% Q2, +17.5% ytd</p>
<p>My cash positions held up well… 
except for the checking account which gets drawn down at an alarming rate.</p>
<p>Rex Nutting’s comments about the wealthy using “rents” to do well is spot on. This is from his CBS Marketwatch article from this past week. Basically “rents” are about earning money without the use of labor - using your assets to generate income. Anyone familiar with the “millionaire”-type books is aware of this principle.</p>
<p>From the above article,</p>
<p>"…Bivens and Mishel’s research further shows that the horrendous widening of equality in America isn’t the result of benign and impersonal market forces, but of conscious policy decisions — for instance, lower tax rates and reduced bargaining power for workers — that increased the ability of a few to capture almost all the benefits of the economy’s growth over the past 30 years.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the next generation at the top will be, the friends, neighbors, classmates and children of the current crop.</p>
<p>The country that once boasted of equal opportunities has re-created a self-perpetuating aristocracy. And that’s not the America I dream of."</p>
<p>This is worrisome.</p>
<p>NJres, now that is a nice report. Thanks.</p>
<p>I wrote about this earlier…</p>
<p>When people see their quarterly bond statements…</p>
<p>[More</a> money may flee bonds in July, even if yields fall - The Tell - MarketWatch](<a href=“Opinion and Commentary - MarketWatch”>http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/06/28/more-money-may-flee-bonds-in-july-even-if-yields-fall/)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t buy it. It should be common sense that as long as we allow millions and millions of unskilled workers to cross the border into our country, the existing unskilled labor will suffer.</p>
<p>We’re getting to the point where skilled labor is suffering too.</p>
<p>The bigger issue here IMO is that one makes more money by “conscious policy decsions” than by hard work or market force thus rewading those who game the system. If that becomes prevalent, it doesn’t matter whether there are jobs or not. What anyopne makes working jobs will be miniscule by comparison. Done in third world countries all the time. I have a friend who inherited a publishing company from his father and lives off his inheritance. The thing is the company isn’t doing well, never has but at one point their government gave businesses favorable deals on real estates for development’s sake. They are living off the real estate deal not profits from the publishing company.</p>
<p>[The</a> new MacBook Air: Just how good is the new battery life?](<a href=“http://thenextweb.com/apple/2013/06/30/we-asked-8-new-macbook-air-owners-how-the-extended-battery-has-impacted-their-life-heres-what-they-said/]The”>The new MacBook Air: Just how good is the new battery life?)</p>
<p>I would buy one if they put decent resolution in those things. It doesn’t have to be Retina for me. There are many other companies (Samsung, Toshiba, Sony, Microsoft) making 13.3 or smaller HD notebooks. I do give Intel a lot of the credit for the battery life. The models that Samsung just introduced (but are not for sale here) have similar battery life and better resolution screens.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure that they’ll have a Retina MacBook Pro before the fall semester so maybe I only need to wait another month.</p>
<p>I just need any laptop. I dont need the macbook pro. The macbook air will work fine for me.</p>
<p>Seems like some people will be able to replace their ipad with the macbook air.</p>
<p>I want microsoft office though. </p>
<p>I am just in the thinking stage on what to do. I am always in the the thinking stage when it comes to buying laptops and investment property. I never pull the trigger. </p>
<p>I thought the responses in the article were interesting.</p>
<p>The iPad is a tablet which has uses that the MacBook Air can’t do well.</p>
<p>I actually haven’t used an iPad in a while even though we have two of them. I am doing more and more on the iPhone and use the Nexus 7 when I need a tablet. I love the concept of the MacBook Air but there’s just one thing missing from it for me.</p>
<p>Microsoft Office has a native Mac OS X version.</p>
<p>I setup my Mac OS X machines with a Windows Virtual Machine so that I can run any needed Windows programs like Microsoft Office, QuoteTracker or any other little tools I need, under Mac OS X.</p>
<p>It’s hard to pull the trigger on technology in many cases because the new stuff is replacing old stuff and the old stuff isn’t that bad.</p>
<p>On another note, I saw an article that there’s a hangup in Dell selling itself. Dell has $2.6 billion in overseas profits that it doesn’t want to repatriate because of US taxes and they’d need to resolve that before a buyout. It looks like they are stuck unless our nimble Congress can act (not).</p>