Day 762

I had another quarterly review with my financial adviser today. These periodic reviews have been pretty depressing for the past several years. I'm a conservative investor by nature, and for many years my portfolio had a solid foundation of municipal bonds, treasury bills, and very predictable equities. All that is out the window now. The interest rate on treasuries is near zero. Municipalities are defaulting on their debts. Even the best blue chips can drop ten percent in a day if somebody sneezes in Europe. What's a guy to do? We ended 2011 right where we started, even though there were innumerable ups and downs along the way. People like me don't make money in the market anymore. There are very few attractive options. Day traders make money. Day traders lose a lot of money too. That's why I'm not a big fan of short-term trades. It's all a big gamble now.

I finally got the Dalmatian Rescue website updated today. I found time to write another watch article as well. Since it was a holiday, there weren't as many messages from clients. There was a message from the Shop NBC folks though. It said to hurry up and finish the demo I promised them. I've been avoiding doing this demo because I know I don't have the time to do it right. It's going to be a one take wonder when the time comes. Apparently that time is coming very soon. I had to promise them something by tomorrow. What the hell. Tomorrow doesn't look like a very busy day. I'm definitely not an on-air talent, but most of the people on these shopping channel shows aren't either. I just need to remember that they were the one to ask me to be on the show. I certainly didn't ask them. My goal is just not to embarrass myself too badly.

Quarterly estimated taxes are due tomorrow. I need to remember to send mine in this time, especially since I completely forgot about the last quarter. Oh well. I'll catch up on things tomorrow. It's not like I owe the government a lot of money or anything. I just didn't make that much last year. Maybe this year will be better. It would be nice to make enough to offset the loses my financial adviser told me about today.

Shelby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 580

I did my regular quarterly re-balancing with my financial adviser today. This is a lot harder than it used to be. I've come to realize than in good markets, it's easy to feel like a financial genius. As they say, a rising tide raises all boats. In uncertain markets, it's equally easy to feel like the entire system is rigged against you. You've got to stay invested though and keep making decisions, because it's impossible to tell exactly when the tide is going to turn again.

Once, when I was in Las Vegas, I played the same nickel slot machine almost all day. Somehow, this gave me a better sense of probability and the random nature of events than almost anything I've done. I learned that if you keep doing anything long enough, you will eventually wind up as a winner. Good fortune is almost inevitably followed by misfortune however. Time passes, and then you win again. This cycle goes on and on until you run out of money. If you have enough money to keep the cycle going, you will probably get more. If you run short before the next big payout, the game is over. This is, in essence, why the rich get richer. They just have a higher chance of ending the game on a high note. It's not how long you play that's important. It's when you choose to quit. As soon as you hit the jackpot, you really should get out of the game.

What does this have to do with investing? Everything, actually. During the dot.com boom I noticed that I was doing a whole lot better in the market than I usually did. The normal ups and downs I was used to didn't seem to apply anymore. I wasn't smart enough to realize that this was a jackpot though, and I didn't get out. I lost a lot, but eventually made most of it back. Just before the 2008 crash, I once again started thinking that I was doing a lot better than the law of averages said I should be. The crash caught me by surprise, but it shouldn't have. The signs were everywhere. Hopefully, I've learned my lesson. I'm slowly and methodically building my base again. The next time something unexpectedly good happens, I'm not going to "follow the tape" or let my winnings ride. The next time I meet my target, I'm not going to get greedy. I'm just going to get up and walk away from the table.

It wasn't all about the market today. I made a bunch of website changes with a client who rarely changes anything. It's a good thing these folks don't change things very often. When they do, they like to tell me the changes they want over the phone while I'm making them simultaneously in Dreamweaver. I can't think of a better way to make typos and spelling errors if I tried. It's hard enough getting all the syntax right when I'm just sitting here sipping my morning cup of coffee. Having a conversation while I'm coding isn't something I'm very good at. I always try to please however, even though I suspect that there are still spelling errors in what I did this morning.

You guys who are still wondering what Google+ is all about ought to give it a try. I like it. Google+ is especially useful if you happen to have a Blogger blog. One of the first things I discovered when I set up my account was an editable folder containing every single picture that I had ever posted on my blog. That alone made the whole sign-up process worthwhile.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day