Thursday, October 30, 2008

On Leaf Blowing

Outside my window, the subdivision landscaping crew is blowing leaves down the street.

Who told them to do that?

I like leaves, outside my window. They look nice, in keeping with the season. I think those leaves belong to me. I had plans for those leaves.

Who wants a neighborhood with no leaves?

What kind of country am I living in?

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

I shun the In Crowd

Apple gets better press than Google. Cramer's girls don't gush over Google.

Last night, Cramer said that Apple was the key to the universe. And then he said it again, and again. And again. At the end, he said, "Oh - Google's good, too".

So today, AAPL goes up and GOOG goes down. It's a law of nature.

Great.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

A Google Opinion

Let's pretend that I'm a knowledgeable person.

I might think to myself, "What is it with GOOG, then?"

I think very much about GOOG. Quarter before last, wise persons were saying that GOOG had saturated the market for clicks. Henry Blodget was running up and down, screaming, "The GOOG has fallen! And it can't get up!"

What happened then was, the Short Squeeze Heard 'Round the World. The earnings were up. Way up. New reserves of clicks were being found every day. In the time it took me to go to the bathroom, GOOG was up a hunnert. Which sent me back to the bathroom, for I had nothing in the game. In a moment of terror, I had sold everything.

I asked myself, what would Cramer do? So I bought it all back, paying up. Way up. I told people I had missed a $30,000 opportunity. Since then, Yahweh has shorted GOOG all the way down to 300. My squandered $30,000 opportunity quickly became a real $50,000 loss.

This quarter, GOOG was due for a big one. And they got it. But the response was tepid. Probably because nobody was short this time. Perhaps, I thought, Yahweh has relented.

So now I am at peace with GOOG in the middle 300's. Probably, GOOG will always be undervalued.

I mean, traders know about charts and balance sheets, but they don't understand software. They don't understand what Google is trying to do and they don't appreciate how well they have been executing. Plus, most traders accept the principle that the World should not be ruled by two young, goofy-looking guys.

But GOOG will get there. My feeling is that next Quarter GOOG's earnings will defy gravity. A perfect storm of everything, kicking in at the same time - mobile, display, YouTube, and several things we don't know about, yet. Overcoming the long, withdrawing tide.


I want to say one word to you. Just one word.

Plastics?

No...

Scale.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Love in the Time of Diminished Expectations

"Are we still going to get rich?"

"I don't know. Possibly."

"Possibly?"

"If we live long enough."

"Oh."

"We might not be able to get into the nursing home of our dreams."

"I wouldn't mind that, as long as we could be together."

"Definitely. In the same room."

"Definitely."

"I might have to grease the guards."

"Oh."

Thursday, October 16, 2008

There is a Yahweh

Or maybe there isn't. There was none of that trickster stuff this time. A clean beat.

But the rush for the ticket line was orderly. GOOG just ambled up 50 points. We'll look back on this one.

Cramer posted: "...Google is a general unto itself. That's why it is good. Because everything else is bad. So enjoy the gap up. Treasure it, even."

Ay, Cramer is Cramer.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Google Eve

It's Google Eve and the world is filled with exuberant pessimism. I'm strangely cheered, however. What more can they do to me? What fresh humiliation can they visit upon my corpus delicti? Whatever happens - blowout? blowup? - GOOG goes lower.

Is Fred Hickey to be vindicated, at last?

Well, then, I'll stand in line to give him his due, saying, "Fred, my boy, you're a better man than I am!"

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Off the Golden Gate Bridge into China Bay

Cramer says, in 2000, technology stocks all fell off a steep cliff and then kept on falling off other, steeper cliffs. Message: Cramer is through calling bottoms. He has reformed. He must be in therapy somewhere.

But I can relate, having bought JDSU all the way down, congratulating myself at the bottom for reducing my cost basis to $60. I rode MSFT from a double at $58 to despair at $15.

But I think Cramer is wrong to say, as he did, that it could happen again to the same bunch of tech stocks plus GOOG. I don't think so, and everybody is entitled to an opinion.

Back then, the tech stocks were way inflated by the Internet mania and Y2K. PE's were astronomical. I rememember hearing somebody on the Stock Channel say, "Maybe Microsoft deserves to have a PE of a hundred because of its Internet Division." Back then, these stocks needed to be taken down. But not now. There's no air in any of them, now.

If you want air, we've got it. This time around, its the financials who've been letting out the funk of 40,000 years. The most unusual suspects - Bear Stearns, Merrill, Goldman, AIG. And the poster child for geometric compression, Lehman, doing the honors from 66 to nothing. So we're seeing the horror, but it's not tech.

Last time, a lot of companies came through OK. Bloody, but unbowed. Tech will get its lumps, this time, like everybody else, but it won't be singled out for execution.

But I wish Cramer would stop talking about it. He's giving me the willies.

Are you ready, brother?

Rev Shark and Doug Kass are both saying that the bottom is nigh. Cramer is screaming, sell everything! Surely, these are the last days. Forget the bottom. I suspect that the Rapture is imminent. I'm giving all my worldly possessions to those who are short and needier than I. I'm getting ready.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Sunday Homily

Forbear ebullience. I read that somewhere, today.

It's no longer an economic problem. It's religious. Boom and bust, ordained by God. And we must all forbear ebullience or we will fall like the high and mighty.

Shoot. It's not religion. It's an engineering problem. The fastest way to get the dang machine going again.

Aldrin was asked what he would do on the moon if the LEM rocket motor didn't fire. He said he'd start learning everything there was to know about that motor.

Markets have failed. Now, astronauts everywhere are studying that motor. A great global buzz is going up. If the Internet is ever going to get its chops as an empowering device, now is the time.

I feel better already. Hallelujah.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

tremulous cadence slow

Son, this ain't a dream no more
It's the real thing.


Capitulation is near. I can feel it in the air, tonight. Dover Beach, ringing in my ears. The tide goes out, but it doesn't come back for a long time. I'm ready. Hand me my confession. Tell me where to sign.