Open Positions (07-27-2017)

Why Negative Trump News is Good News

It's been seven consecutive months of anti-Prez accusations and seven months of higher prices. Should the accusations stop, I'll be bearish.

If the underlying fundamentals of the economy were deteriorating, then dems would simply sit back and wait til next election and campaign on Trump/GOP incompetence. Since that's not the case, dems are attempting via any possible means to discredit the Prez until any sign of economic weakness appears in the data. Given that, and the fact that 80% of journalists in US are democrats, any non-economic-related negative news regarding the Prez should be interpreted as proof of underlying strength in the economy - a positive sign for wage growth, employment, capacity utilization and the stock market.

Open positions (7-16-17)

QOTD

Words of wisdom from Munger:

“Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading; cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.” — (Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway)

"If you think your IQ is 160 but it's 150, you're a disaster. It's much better to have a 130 IQ and think it's 120."

"We recognized early on that very smart people do very dumb things, and we wanted to know why and who, so we could avoid them."

"Obviously if you want to get good at something which is competitive, you have to think about it and practice a lot. You have to keep learning because [the] world keeps changing and competitors keep learning. You have to go to bed wiser than you got up. As you try to master what you are trying to do — people who do that almost never fail utterly. Very few have ever failed with that approach. You may rise slowly, but you are sure to rise."

"You'll do better if you have passion for something in which you have aptitude. If Warren had gone into ballet, no one would have heard of him."

"What do you want to avoid? Such an easy answer: sloth and unreliability. If you're unreliable, it doesn't matter what your virtues are. You're going to crater immediately. Doing what you have faithfully engaged to do should be an automatic part of your conduct. You want to avoid sloth and unreliability."

QOTD

“In a bull market your game is to buy and hold until you believe that the bull market is near its end. To do this you must study general conditions and not tips or special factors affecting individual stocks. Then get out of all your stocks; get out for keeps! Wait until you see—or if you prefer, until you think you see—the turn of the market; the beginning of a reversal of general conditions. You have to use your brains and your vision to do this;
otherwise my advice would be as idiotic as to tell you to buy cheap and sell dear.” -- (Livermore, 1923)

QOTD

"If anything terrifies me, I must try to conquer it." -- Francis Charles Chichester

Open positions (7-10-17)