I talked to three readers today (Friday) and somewhere in the conversations they managed to remind me I have not done a blog in a day or so. People, I know when a blog gets published. I am the one who writes and publishes them.

You all wait till I get my right hand back. I will punish you with two or three a day.

Ya see, besides having some challenges in typing and posting, all the other things I do are taking a bit longer. Here are a few fun examples.

Devin was running late this morning and inadvertently used the end of a roll of toilet paper. Now normally that is my crime. When I worked, the TP fairies would come in at night and viola, we have perpetual rolls of TP always in my commode. (yes, I had my own commode). At home, the TP fairy is very busy with all kinds of other stuff. I have learned to help the TP fairy as often as possible.

Today, I changed the roll. I could not believe how hard it was changing a roll of TP with one functional hand. I dropped the spindle three times, (once in the toilet-don't tell Devin). Getting the paper on the roll was easy, but setting the axle of the spidle in the wholes, was amazingly hard.

Picking up gonkers were a blast today. A wet (yes it's raining in California) bag in my good hand and barbeque tongs in me bad hand. The bag would stick close every time I had tonged (not tongued) a respectable quantity of gonkers. I would then drop the gonkers out of the bag to begin the process again.

Just pulling keys out of the ignition of a car makes me look like I am hosting a one person twister competition.

That reminds me, I can't believe how much it is costing me to keep my son's Prius on the road. I filled his car yesterday with premium and it cost $29.80. Bringing the total cost of fuel for this car since we picked it up, to $29.80. (I think I spilled that much on the Escalade's last fill up.)

As I was gonker wrestling this morning, I got to thinking about how my milestones have changed since retirement. (Almost coming up to my 6th month being retired.)  

When I was working, some annual milestones were the closing of the books in early February, the 20 year plus employee lunch, trade shows, strategic planning meetings, the Christmas party, employee annual reviews, to name a few.

Now it's Taxes and birthdays.

Every quarter it was board meetings, each offices financial reviews, 401 K updates, and critical success numbers.

Now it's portfolio reviews, blood draws, doctor visits, echo stress tests

(more like very six months), the every pleasing prostate probe, and changing smoke alarm batteries.

Every month when I worked, we had cash flow analysis, office and department meetings, articles to write, office video conferences, and office update reports for the partners.

Now its car washes, portfolio forensics, and wine inventory.

I guess what I am saying is everyone has milestones.

S&P 500 At 1,500

Folks, that is an impressive number. What makes it even more amazing is that 1,500 was broken while one of it's major components took a bath this week. AAPL accounts for 3.2% of the S&P 500. The stock was as high as 514 and closed at 439 today. (Actually hit 437 after hours.)

While should be cause for adjustment in AAPL's value, we feel its been over done. Regardless what traders and investors should note, if AAPL were trading at a more reasonable P/e of 14, the stock would be at or near 800 a share. That would move the S&P to about 1,550. There is major technical resistance on the S&P at 1,565.

I have always prided my self at getting out of a rally way to early and into a rally way to late. (The last rally, 09 I got in too early.) That bad timing has always served me well. Now is no different.

We will be spending the weekend determining where to take profits. Our basic plan will be to trim the existing profits by their current gain amounts. For example, BOFI is currently enjoying about a 40% gain in most portfolios. We will be trimming that position by the dollar amount we are head.

If we see a yellow flag, soon, he will trim all positions by the same amount again.

If we see and confirm a red flag, we will be very aggressive in out cutbacks.

Salve Lucrum  

Since 12/31/2012

I am not a professional investment adviser. Anybody reading my blog and investing accordingly must be out of their minds. I have made more money than I have lost. Except for a nasty VXX trade is 2012.   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.

Brian's estimate :

2013 Year Ending

Dow 14,361

S&P 500

1,610

2012 Year Ending

Dow 13,073

Actual 13,104

S&P 500 1,358

Actual 1,426

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