Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics:
| Last | Change | Percent | |
| S&P Futures | 1221.8 | 11.9 | 0.98% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 2313.7 | 41.960 | 1.85% |
| Oil (WTI) | 87.28 | 1.210 | 1.41% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 76.75 | -0.168 | -0.22% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 2.19% | 0.00% |
European leaders begin a 6-day summit on Greece and the banks today. Merkel and Sarkozy are having differences over the mechanics of the European Financial Stability Facility. The WSJ has an article this morning about the exposure French banks have to Greece. While a Greek default will not make them insolvent, they will have to raise capital and de-risk. Societe Generale’s stock has been cut in half over the last 3 months. EURIBOR / OIS spreads have retreated from their peak a month ago, but are still elevated.
In earnings, Mister Softee posted better than expected sales on strong corporate demand. It is now a value stock, sporting a single digit P/E. I remember when MSFT was a growth stock in the late 90s, trading at 56x 2000 EPS of .86. Earnings have increased 10% a year to a current estimate of $2.83. Meanwhile, the stock has been cut in half over the same time period. The gulf between the perceptions of growth investors and value investors is huge. And once growth investors decide the fizz is gone, it is a long long way down until value investors get interested. AAPL investors beware.
Filed under: Uncategorized |
All Things in Moderation 
Thanks Brent. Check out Watson Pharmaceuticals when you get a chance and tell me what you think. Don't worry, I take all advice with a grain of salt. I'm looking for another energy company right now anyway, one with a large natural gas exposure. I'm waiting for our daughter to finish her on site interviews and pick her brain first though.
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You, lmsinca. You're part of the 1%!My experience with my investments was like Stan on Southpark. I am the 99%!
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Shocking I know, I'm a capitalist. True story, in late 2007 we convinced our son to sell his house, prices were still high, and he walked with his $150k down payment plus about $100k increased equity. He was able to take half that and invest in his micro brewing business and the other half he used as a down payment on a foreclosed home two years later. So now he has a business and instead of a home on a half acre with a pool, he has one on two acres with a barn, horse stalls and an arena for about half the cost. We like money as much as the next guy. We have very little money in the market, only about 25%-30% of our retirement funds but we only invest in businesses and do it on our own, without the middle men. The rest of our retirement is in rental property (one), silver coins (a lot of them) in two safe deposit boxes, and hiding under the mattress.
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lms — are you planning on monthly cash flow from the rental property? just curious as we converted a condo into a rental. we're about break even (little less) on a monthly, but come tax time we make it up.
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NoVA, we paid ours off about 5 years after we moved out, it was our first home, so it's been solid cash flow entirely since '92. We've spent a lot of rent money over the years on improvements but otherwise it's about $1600/mo income right now. We also paid our home of here in about 17 years and only have a fairly modest line of credit we're paying off that we used to build our warehouse 5 years ago. I can't complain about our retirement, even though we lost equity (inflated) like everyone else. The thing that kills us every month is health insurance, even though we have enough money to pay for it. A lot of our friends in their early 60's have given up insurance. My husband's sister hasn't had coverage in two years.
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Oh and those five years with two mortgages were killer, we had negative cash flow and lots of expenses, but we made it. We literally dumped every extra penny into paying it off early, that's when we developed our love for camping instead of flying to fancy schmansy resorts.
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Nothing about the name 'mr softee' screams 'invest!' To me.A rental and blind luck in timing (1996-2005) served me well. Wouldn't mind getting back into it, if I didn't have to deal with tenants.
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bsimon, don't get me started on tenants, it can be a nightmare. We had one gal who started a fire with candles and tried to blame us for electrical and attempted to sue for damages. Luckily, the fire department backed us up, plus she left the burned bookshelf in the garbage which we photographed, lol.We actually bought another house as an investment but we just couldn't keep it waiting for positive cash flow, too many kids in college, and had to sell it. We broke even except for the $30K in upgrades……….yikes. We sold it just before the market took off, so we haven't done everything quite right with our timing.
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i lucked out with my tenant. she was my next door neighbor who was renting. when we moved out, she moved it. she's renewed twice for us. I'm afraid I'm going to lose her in a year or so, as she's planing to move back home and away from DC one day. she even fixed a broken sink once and just asked to be reimbursed for her expenses.
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Since it's a little slow today, I'll tell you my very best tenant story. We had a guy about 12 years ago who was a single father with three kids, and a mortgage broker. His mother is someone fairly well known out here in the real estate business. He was there about a year when we started noticing he was paying his rent a little later every month and so in December we gave him half off to help him get caught up. He said he'd been having some health issues, but I suspected he'd gotten into drugs, just intuition on my part. Then all of a sudden a new cherry red mustang shows up in the driveway and so of course we felt like suckers. Jan. 1 rolled around and no rent, no returned phone calls etc. In the middle of the month one of the neighbors called and warned us to read the local paper. He'd been arrested robbing the local sports bar, he was the get away driver. Who drives a red mustang as a get away car? Luckily, his mother moved his stuff out, as no one would post his bail. He had a shar pei that no one wanted so we took her and she was one of our best dogs ever.
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"Then all of a sudden a new cherry red mustang shows up in the driveway and so of course we felt like suckers."This has happened to me pretty much every time I've ever helped someone out, usually doing the helping when it has been a bad time for me to be trying to help anybody. I have since stopped helping out. Not the finding out the guy I gave money to had been arrested, but finding out that while we were struggling to make ends meet, certain people we'd been helping out when we couldn't afford it had been living the high life (usually on credit, so it eventually caught up with them, but still). We're still doing it in one case, because it's a brother-in-law (ex, I guess, since her sister has passed away),, and my wife doesn't like conflict. And he's smart enough to not let too much slip about the new cherry red Mustangs. Most of the time. Nowadays, I help out people if they are my Dad, my wife, or (to an extent) my kids. Everybody else–sorry, I'm not parting with my hard earned cash to help you pay a medical bill to have you show up with a 50" TV and a brand new laptop.
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"she even fixed a broken sink once and just asked to be reimbursed for her expenses."I've owned for years, but I was the kind of tenant who'd just fix stuff without mentioning it. Although, this has a bad side for the landlord, as occasionally it'd be a pretty half-assed repair. 😉
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Kevin:I'm not parting with my hard earned cash to help you pay a medical bill to have you show up with a 50" TV and a brand new laptop.You stopped paying taxes? 😉
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"I'm not parting with my hard earned cash to help you pay a medical bill to have you show up with a 50" TV and a brand new laptop.You stopped paying taxes? ;)"And stopped paying for health insurance and your health bills? Totally OT, but a friend forwarded this to me as the Quote of the Week:"Muammer Qaddafi, the dictator of Libya, declared that 'we'd be content and happy if Obama can stay president forever.' Such lavish praise…tells you much of what [Obama's] approach to foreign policy is and the audience to which he is playing," – Mitt Romney, in his book No Apology.
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BTW, since this is still the "Morning Report" and it's focused on the stock market and business, I thought I'd share a little anecdotal good news.Some of you know we sell wholesale across the country to thousands of small businesses and we all had a terrible summer, generally our busiest season, but the fall has definitely picked up. I haven't run our numbers yet for Sept and Oct (I'd rather goof off), but I'd say we're probably ahead month to month from last year. If we are, so are our customers or they wouldn't be buying.
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ashot:And stopped paying for health insurance and your health bills?Now, now. Don't make me go all Bernie on you and point out the false equivalence here.
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lmsinca: that's good news, indeed! Lots of little positive indicators out there, small and anecdotal, but definitely there. I'm trying to remain optimistic.
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"You stopped paying taxes? ;)"One thing to have a little of my taxes go to supplement the occasional (or frequent) abuser of government entitlements, quite another to voluntarily, under no compulsion of the law, hand my money away of my own free will to folks who use such underwriting to buy themselves nice, new things that I, myself, can ill afford. Such charity is off the table. 😉
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Wait? We can't use false equivalence arguments here? I'm leaving.
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"Muammer Qaddafi, the dictator of Libya, declared that 'we'd be content and happy if Obama can stay president forever.' Such lavish praise…tells you much of what [Obama's] approach to foreign policy is and the audience to which he is playing,"Who misread BHO more – muammar or Willard?
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"Nothing about the name 'mr softee' screams 'invest!' To me."Mister Softee is the nickname for Microsoft
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As a fan of Mac OS Ken (the podcast), I well know that Mr. Softee means Microsoft, and The Deathstar means AT&T. I don't think he ever uses their actual names. 😉
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"Mister Softee is the nickname for Microsoft"Duh. Shoulda recognized MSFT.
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bsimon, I thought it was soft serve ice cream or something, lol.
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All of the ice cream trucks in Manhattan are Mister Softee.
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