BAGAKOAA; 4 October 2011 What A Difference An Hour Makes 

Post 514 CLICK HERE To See Past PostsOctober/2011

Today we did not have to sanitize any part of home. Dogs did not have exploding bottoms. Devin, after taking them to Vet yesterday weaned them off of their food and we fed them gingerly last night. It worked except for Captain who was hungry about 5:10 am this morning. To be sure I took him out and let his run around and do his thing. I brought him back to Jack's room and then the other two big dogs assumed it was their turn.

 

Jaycee and Max went about their business and I was back in bed by 5:30. Captain started singing this sad song about no food and no friends so I got up again and let him out back. After a while I had a feeling he was hungry. The feeling came from his constant chewing on my hand.

hand in dog

Despite all the attention I was giving him, by 6:15 I knew nothing would work but food. I gave him a bit of dog food and then he tried to jump in my lap and personally me for feeding him by doing a brain probe with his tongue in my ear. That was immediately followed by French kissing.

 

I then put him back in Jack's room and got a well deserved shower. Then it was off to Bruegger's Bagel and then work.

 

I promised Devin that I would mention a comment she made last night. As it was time to say Goodnight John Boy, I asked Devin if she had said good night to Jack. She said, "No but I gave Captain his medicine.", like that was a good thing. It just cracked me up. Sometimes she is funniest when she is not trying to be.

 

Anyway today was a good day to get caught up on projects and read financials on our company and put a dent in my 39 item list of things to do. But I think tomorrow will be a better day to do all that. We actually did get a few things done, then I had to go home and help move a piano.

baby grand

You see we lost our nice Yamaha Digital Piano in the flood of '10. We replaced it with a Boston Baby Grand which is like replacing a Gremlin auto with a Maybach. This is a great instrument and is part of the Steinway Family. I can only play the first 8 bars of Chariots of Fire, but its cool to have people walk up to the house and I run to the Piano and play the 8 bars just as they ring the doorbell. Cool. But I digress.

 

We had some window treatments (do you know the difference between window treatments and drapes? About $2,500) replaced in our living room so we had to move the piano. When I heard "WE" had to move the piano, I was confident Devin had an army of guys ready to help move the beast. "WE" is wife speak for you, us, or someone that I have to find.

I got clever and found out that if I put my back under the piano and did a bench press kinda thing I could lift the 333 pound beast high enough off the coaster pad so we could roll it. "WE" managed to do it. It was an Advil Moment.

 

We have heard from the Honeymooners and here is a picture for you to enjoy. They are on their way to St. Emilion in Bordeaux today. I got to move pianos?      

kristin and ryan 

 

What A Difference An Hour Makes

stock market close

Yesterday we told we had all but sold out of everything having seen the vigor that Mr. Market chased the falling knife below 1,100 on the S&P 500. (As a reminder, since we were recently asked-we follow the S&P 500 as it is a broader index then the DOW. There are only 30 companies in the DJIA, there are 500 in the S&P, including the 30 that are in the DJIA.)

 

At one point the index was at a scary 1,077. We added to a couple of positions like GLW and XOM. Then when Bernanke hinted that we might see more quantitative easing Gold fell of about 2% and we picked up some more for the postfolios.

 

(Yes I did say we sold everything off. Please remember we have 17 portfolios we are either directly managing or assisting. We did not sell all of them off as some are accounts who enjoy longer time lines or in my case accept higher levels of risk. For the most part we, we executed about 70 trades yesterday and they we almost all sell orders.)

In the last hour of trading, value investors (and by the volume recorded these were the BIG BOYS) stepped in and went bargain shopping. That is a good sign, but all it means is that parts of the market are oversold. This is sometimes called a bounce rally or ricochet rally. We doubt it will hold, but take a lesson from the big boys and if your time line is long enough, look for the bargains.

 

Continuing our message from last night about patience, there was a great piece on street.com this morning from Dan Passarelli regarding being patient. He shared an off hand comment from a floor trader at the NYSE, who once said, "To be a successful trader, you have to be good at losing money". It is in the category of William O'Reilly (Founder IBD) strategy to take your losses early and let your profits run. We have not been strict with that rule this year and it has take its toll on my and other's portfolios. Some of the sell off's yesterday included 12%, 17% losses. That should not have happened.

 

In yet another article, a timely article We might add, this time in the IBD by Paul Whitfield, titled Ignore Your Ego. It reminds us that we will never know all we need to know to make the perfect decisions. The best we can do is to listen to the market and make the best decisions we can make based upon the information we have.

 

The article has a few simple suggestions, at the risk of pladgerising the content:

 

Avoid bottom guessing. Mmmm I think I did that in a paragraph up above.

baboon butt

Baboon if you were guessing!

 

Be very careful (they say DO NOT) buy on the way down. It is called catching a falling knife. Mmmmmm, might IO be doing that with GLW?

falling knife

If you see a trend in the market, Don't Fight It. We are in a confirmed nasty correction at the moment. This would not be the wisest time to start a great big new position on a stock.

 

The market does not think you are a great investor no matter how great you think you are. EGO has lost more money in the market than any other factor. Because you bought a stock does not make it a winner. Be proud of your losses. Heck I tell 47 people a day how badly we are doing.

 

What will tomorrow bring?

 

We did get the factory order number correct today and that did keep the market low most of the day. Tommorows ADP number, as we said Sunday should be a nice surprise and we also think we will have some good news from the ISM Non Manufacturing report. That should bring the market back to where we started today. Look for an S&P below 1,100 again. Gold should bounce back a bit tomorrow once everyone figures out Bernanke does not have much ammo for more QE.

 

How Good Are You At Loosing Money

 

I was talking to one of our readers who was concerned about the recent drop in their retirement account. The said they were down XX,XXX dollars. It sounded like a lot of money, and it was. How ever I asked the next question which was how much was in their account. They said XXX,XXX dollars. When I did the math, they were down 6.9% from their high in their account. I explained that based upon what has gone on in the market, a 7% drop is not too bad.

We bring this to your attention just so you can remember to look at your entire portfolio and measure wins and losses as a percentage of the whole. Then you can measure that percentage against the year before or the overall market index. That implies you have an overall investment goal. For example our goal for the Salve Lucrum is double the 10 Year Treasury Yield, which currently stands at 1.82% So our goal is 3.64, well we would say 4.00%. 

 

I will leave you with a parting shot to show this dog stuff is all owrth the effort.

dogs in a row             


From top to Bottom

Max

Captain

Lady

Jaycee

 

Salve Lucrum

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Brian Ireland
BAGAKOAA;

I am not a professional investment advisor. Anybody reading my blog and investing accordingly must be out of their minds. I have made more money than I have lost. There are many more qualified people than I to actually tell you how to invest your money.

BAGAKOAA=Boys And Girls And Kids Of All Ages

Salve Lucrum=Latin for Hurrah for Profit.

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