Winning With The Dow & Avoiding Morons

Imagine this: 16% on your money. That's right! 16%.

The market gave some of us a nice Christmas gift.

That is the return you could have enjoyed if you own the stocks - or better yet, bought an ETF! - that are in the Dow Jones Index. For the year (2006), the "Dow" as we like to call it, turned in a handsome return of 16%.

To be sure, if you own stocks in general, you probably could not have lost, unless you were a fool and traded in and out of stocks at precisely the wrong time, thereby creating commissions and buying high, and then selling low. (typically, day trading is a loser's game)

I have met a ton of losers this year. Take for example, the guy who was getting over 5% on his cash who decided that it was better to sell out of that and buy Ford which has a dividend yield of oh, 0.00% the last time I checked. Because he is not paying me for advice, I was not going to save him 500bps (5.00%). In the end, by next year, he will be behind inflation. Moron.

Then there was the amateurish degenerate who popped up on a finance forum trying to impress everyone claiming that he makes hundreds of dollars a week simply "buying low" and "selling high" and that this simple strategy has worked "everytime". I told him that if his strategy worked everytime then he ought to be running money for Goldman Sachs and Jay-Z and typing his comments from his yacht. My point was that he was lying and that buying low and selling high is a moot point. The challenge is finding the exit, which can be different for everyone depending on your objective among other things.

I am not going to torture myself with recalling all of the jackasses that I have encountered over the past year who have made "the big mistake" as it relates to investment decisions, but alas, their names are legion. Moreover, I am sure that wherever I end up New Year's Eve, I will meet someone who, once they learn what I do, will ask the inevitable stupid cocktail question, "what do you think about the Market?" What I think doesn't matter, because if I gave them sound advice they would not take it; if I told them what I thought, they would argue or merely want to give their opinion. But more to the point, my advice is not free, so whether I am sipping a martini or cognac, no piece of trash with a paltry $100k sitting in a money market account is going to pluck my brain for free advice just because we are wearing tuxedos!

The scoreboard reads: 16% - 0% guess what side most investors are on?

Good News Against The Odds

"Everything went well."

And with those three words from the surgeon, all 7 of my mother's children - all adults now - hugged and cried out of sheer relief. The mass that was removed was not cancerous. "Now, you won't be able to see her for at least 2 1/2 hours, but everything is fine..", the doctor assured us.

The reality of her predicament was very clear to us; either the mass would be cancerous or it would not be. There was no middle ground. And the fact that the procedure was done in a renown cancer hospital, Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, Pa, had earlier led me to believe that the odds were not really in mother's favor.

I cannot imagine how we would have reacted if the news was different. What would he say to us then? How would he say it? And how drastically would our lives change, knowing that our 68 year old mother had basically been given a death sentence. "But, it turned out good", my wife said to me as I ruminated over the other possible outcome. She was basically telling me to accept the good news and be appreciative.

I also realize that mother's situation might be a good metaphor for obstacles that face a lot of people; you may think that the odds are not good, but somehow, some way, the news comes out favorable. And I think that mother's outlook on everything - her optimism - created a sense of optimism amongst her children who were so vulnerable for 3 hours while the doctors worked on her.

In the end, I learned that sometimes good news can come out of something that seems so awfully futile. Cancer is an awful thing, but sometimes we get lucky and for now, the odds are in our favor.

Getting Knocked Down..And Getting Up..

Gee, you talk about closure on one topic and then something else comes up and smacks you right in the face!

Awful. Just awful.

But you have to find a way to get back up, again and again.

My employer required me to take a special state exam since they would not accept the a license from my previous employer, even though they would be accepted at other employers within the same industry. The exam is very complicated and legalistic; 2.5 hours long. It deals primarily with state securities law. In my opinion, it is for securities lawyers.

They gave me 1.5 weeks to study for it.

I passed, but was very annoyed about the politics surround this. I will leave it alone for now....

It has been very, very difficult for me to just sit down and try to post. I am not sure if I want to say this because of the holidays; the crap at work or just some internal struggle with realistically trying to find closure with the lost of Bianca. I think we/I did find closure. I mean, we have two wonderful kittens - Bailey & Leo - now who have added so much zest around here. But alas, there seems to be this unconfirmed void. When we lost Ricky in February, later, I would have these dreams about him. So far, no dreams about Bianca. But we miss her...and we are definitely recovering...remembering her..

Time heals, but how much time? I am inclined to believe that the majority of people who make that statement, don't know the real magnitude of pain that suffering can inflict.

Consider:

Mom is going into the hospital for some major surgery - hysterectomy - and at the age of 68 it doesn't seem like something the doctors are eager to do. Moreover, the fact that the procedure is being done at a renown cancer facility makes matters even more frightening for me and my family. I am told that the lump they are removing is the size of a tangerine. It will be immediately tested. Again, the fact that she is having the hysterectomy in the cancer hospital is not by accident.

I am not stupid.

So, in less than 2 months, I lost a pet I have owned for 6 years; spent a week of my vacation time preparing for a securities law exam that is basically a duplicate of another license I hold; and now within 48 hours, I will go see my mother prepare for her hysterectomy and hope that the tangerine-size mass is not cancerous.