Dan Miley

Commentary for the first 2 weeks of 2022

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Well, the first 2 weeks have been rough for the Growth Fund.  Recognition of inflation is finally showing up in the market, leading to a tech sector selloff.  I think much of the selloff is unjustified, particularly in the chip sector like LRCX, AMAT, and NVDA.  I think that these stocks will recover and exceed expectations by the end of the year.  So be patient, I think that these stocks represent buying opportunities – in fact, all of the stocks in the growth fund represent good values right now.  And Amazon is bargain priced now, I never thought I would say that about them but with AWS and the retail sector recovering, I see the stock at about 4,000 by year end.   It is a top pick now. read more

Review of 2021 and Picks for 2022

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My 2021 picks for the Growth Fund did pretty well, didn’t they?  Fortinet and Nvidia hit the ball out of the park!  But they were balanced out on the downside by BABA, OLLI and VIPS.  The fund would have down so much better without the losers, but hey, I still beat the S&P.  And I did advise taking profits in BABA and VIPS when they were up substantially.  OLLI never did get any traction, did it?  For 2022, I hope to do better (no Chinese stocks for me!), so here are my stocks in order of preference (some are carry overs from last year): read more

Enron Bankruptcy “Anniversary”

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Enron filed for bankruptcy 20 years ago today:

 

Enron Files For Bankruptcy – HISTORY

 

Enron had a lot of good ideas but corrupt management ruined it. I actually bought Enron shares in the 1990’s because I liked the idea of deregulation (which has saved consumers money). Fortunately for me, I sold my shares in 2000 and early 2001. The bankruptcy was a lesson for employees to NOT invest all of their retirement savings in their employer! I limit my stock exposure to no more than 5% in any one stock, regardless of how allegedly “safe” an investment is.  Just think about General Motors, Sears, JC Penney, Kodak, Polaroid, etc.  In 1975, if someone said GM would go under, they would be laughed out of the room!  So, protect yourself from the fate of Enron employees who tied up most of their retirement savings in one company! read more

A hedge for Inflation

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Some of you may remember that I touted the virtues of I-bonds back in July.  Now CNBC finally sees my wisdom:

 

Sweating inflation? This risk-free bond pays 7.12% for next six months (cnbc.com)

 

Also note that you can buy up $5000.00 in paper bonds if you get a tax refund.  Finally, note that boring old EE bonds are still guaranteed to double if held for 20 years – that works out to be a 3.5% rate of return (considering that a regular 20-year Treasury only pays 1.87%).   read more

Commentary for the week of 11/29/2021

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Well, another week, another COVID variant.  This one is called “Omicron”.  Biden is banning non-Americans flying in from South African countries starting today.  Americans can enter assuming that they test negative for a COVID test (which is not always accurate and the incubation period is variable).    I guess that the virus must be smarter than we thought.  Apparently it can check a person’s passport and not infect Americans!  Utter nonsense.  The virus is probably already in the US so the ban will probably won’t do anything.  The real answer is to help those countries get vaccinated ASAP – Africa is the least vaccinated in the world.   read more

Commentary for week ending 11/06/2021

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Well, Congress has finally passed the “hard” infrastructure bill – something that they could have passed many months ago, if not for the progressives insistence on coupling the bill to the “soft” infrastructure bill.  It defies my imagination as to why they couldn’t come to the quite logical decision that something is better than nothing.  I guess that is why I will never be a politician.  To me, even if I was a member of the progressives, I would have voted for the first bill, and then break up the bigger “soft” bill into component pieces that would be easier to swallow.  I am sure that are some parts of the large bill that would find support among Republicans and more moderate Democrats.  Again, something is better than nothing! read more

Commentary for week ending 10/23/2021

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My commentary for this week will be relatively brief.  But I need to say something about Facebook (FB).  There have been a lot of comparisons to FB to being the “big tobacco” stock of 2021 because of the threat of legal actions.  Personally, I think that is fallacious as FB is a vital part of small business and I doubt that any legislation will stop it from collecting ad dollars.  I regard any weakness as a buying opportunity – not a reason to sell.  But let’s suppose that FB is like Altria ( née Phillip Morris).   Many years ago I bought 1,000 shares of Phillip Morris at about $18/share.  That 18,000 dollar investment netted me thousands of dollars thru growth, dividends and spin-offs.  Of course FB doesn’t pay a dividend but it makes it up in growth.  My point here is that hated stocks which fulfill a want like tobacco in the case of Altria or advertising in the case of FB, they often overcome adversity, thrive and grow.  read more

Commentary for week ending 10/16/2021

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There are five essential principles of management. These include planning, organizing, directing, controlling, and leading.  Why did I start with these sentences?  Because I believe that this administration (and frankly, most of the previous ones) do not follow these basic principles.  They all seem to be good at directing and controlling but are sadly lacking in skill with the other principles.  A current example is the Biden administration’s energy policy.  Some of his first acts were to cancel the Keystone pipeline and to ban new drilling on federal lands.  But there was no coherent plan on ramping up clean energy policies while basically “keeping the lights on” with fossil fuels.  The administration is now reacting to high energy prices by recognizing that fracking may not be as bad as it seemed and asking the Saudis to increase production!  Jeez!  How about having a plan first instead of being reactive rather than proactive?  Here is a simple analogy (but I think illustrative) example from my prior life as a manager:  a direct report (read: a resource like energy) is being transferred to a new manager but they still have projects to complete under my responsibilities (read: “administration”).  Did I transfer the person and hope for the best on their projects for me?  No, I worked out a plan with the new manager to gradually shift the person’s responsibilities to the new manager while completing the projects for me (read: organizing and leading).  I think that if the current administration had followed these basic principles, we would be in better shape today with our energy situation. read more