Phantasmix (aka Re: money)

When you’re unsure why your stocks are going up or down, keep this in mind:

Source: Boston Herald

Here’s a few things that caught and held my attention for a few minutes today.

Mexicans are being encouraged to reclaim a piece of Texas, more than 150 years after they lost the Lone Star state to the United States.

Texan estate agents are heading south of the border to drum up the interest in buying cut-price land and property in the foreclosure-hit state.

Source: Telegraph

Funny.

The debut of powerful atom-smasher

The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on in August.

This collider, called the largest scientific experiment in history, is expected to begin test runs in August.

But some critics fear the Large Hadron Collider could exceed physicists’ wildest conjectures: Will it spawn a black hole that could swallow Earth? Or spit out particles that could turn the planet into a hot dead clump?……

….CERN team this month issued a report concluding that there is “no conceivable danger” of a cataclysmic event

Can’t you tell that the lawyers wrote this report? So these scientists have no idea what might happen, but there’s no “conceivable danger”. In other words, there is danger, they just can’t imagine what it might be.

I can’t stand any of the current U.S. presidential candidates in the running, disgusting lying puppets. Today I learned that Obama’s election campaign slogan is “Change you can vote for”. It’s really a pretty loaded and clever sentence “change you are allowed to vote for” is another way of putting it (but I’m biased).

Still can’t believe Americans don’t vote directly for candidates. Supposedly un-democratic Russia or just about all ex-USSR member countries have a system where you can have 15 or 20 or whatever number of candidates from numerous parties in existence there. And you vote directly for the party, and directly for the candidate. Not for a representative of the representative, and not one of the two available parties, often having to pick “the lesser of two evils”.

And some people call me paranoid… It’s all true.

Jim Cramer on Market Manipulation: In His Own Words

Going into the long weekend here in Canada, I want to summarize (mainly for myself) what’s going on with our stocks:

FCO.TO - Formation Capital
Long term hold

CML.V - Crowflight Minerals
Long term hold

BN.V - Blue Note Mining
Long term hold and trade to bring down ACB

SLW.TO - Silver Wheaton
50% long term hold, 50% trade in and out

PBX.V - PBX International
This one’s not going anywhere for a few years, will sell the remaining 50%

PWT.UN.TO - PennWest Trust
Have been in and out a few times. This time holding a small position for a longer term. 12% distribution is nice, 9% after taxes.

(FSLR: 253.65 +2.34%) - First Solar
Still shorting. I don’t hate solar energy, though I do think this is just ugly and a waste of land. It’s just that I believe FSLR’s valuation is very much out of whack at the moment.

Why does “leaving money on the table” hurt more than even losing it?? Oh the greed!

I keep reshorting (FSLR: 253.65 +2.34%) here and there, and today I covered some of it. And then it just kept dropping. All I can do is repeat to myself:

• I made money
• 2.7% profit in 2 days is not bad!

Photo credit: gnuf

My friend and I have bet on oil price: he says oil price will drop to $100 first, and I say we see $200 before $100.

Should I win - and of course I will - my reward will be cheesecake.

I’m late to the party with my recession talk, because if you believe the news “there’s no recession” and we’re back in the bull market:

Image © waɪ.tiː

But, here it goes anyway. A typical recession-proof portfolio consists of:

• large-cap companies with stable growth and solid dividend
  ha, banks were supposed to be like that
• consumer staples stocks (food, alcohol, tobacco, household and personal care essentials)
  frankly, alcohol is so expensive in Canada, in case of a recession it would be the first to go for us
• healthcare
  this should be in the above category among “consumer staples”, because that’s what Valium and Viagra are by now; but seriously, Healthcare REITs might be a smart move
• bank deposits (cash)
  not too much, if inflation is running high and interest rates are low
• foreign investments
  you’d have to rely on analyst opinions with these, and that’s just not a good strategy; however I don’t mind Switzerland and their money