What’s A Girl To Do?

Drama. The “investment industry” is a real flop and its own worst enemy. When the actress, Mila Kunis, decided that she’d had enough of no interest and zero interest bank accounts and savings certificates, and decided to invest her money (of which she has a lot), her way, in the stock market, this is what they said:

“When people like @FoxonStocks and @RealMilaKunis start talking stocks, we are normally at the very end of a bull market” and “If she was giving up acting to become a day trader, we’d have (a) great contrary indicator!” –  CNBC, March 15, 2013, Mila Kunis rotates from cash to stocks.

That feeble quip and jab is not even original. As the story goes, when his shoe-shine boy offered him earnest tips on what to buy in the bloated stock market of 1928, John D. Rockefeller decided that it must be time to sell everything and get out of it – which he did (Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow, Random House Incorporated, New York, 1998).

Moreover, Mr. Rockefeller’s style of investing in the stock market was unique. He owned a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and traded only for his own account, as a kind of amusement. If a large position, or positions, opened up in a stock for sale, possibly because an insurance company or bank or owner needed money, he bought them all at the asking price, and when there was renewed buying interest, perhaps the same day or a day later, he held his position until the price began to rise, and then sold it all to fill the orders. Some things he didn’t sell which is why he ended up owning most of the massive Mesabi Iron Ore Range in Minnesota and later founded the Great Lakes Towing (Shipping) Company to move it to Cleveland and Buffalo for his railways.

What would he think now of an ETF? An Index Fund? Big companies only? Small companies and emerging markets funds? Gold and silver and such funds? A mutual fund? Funds of funds? A hedge fund? Alternative investments? And one begins to realize that the “investment industry” has nothing to offer him or anyone else (please see our recent Post, The Central Banks “Discover” Equities, April 2013).

For more on the peccadillos of the investment industry, please see our recent Posts, The Silly Season For Investment Advisers, April 2013, or O’the Slings And Arrows Of Outrageous Fortunes, March 2013 (and Shakespeare, thank you, who was also an excellent investor in such far flung and uncertain projects as The Virginia Company celebrated in The Tempest).

And for more positive information on how we invest, please see any of these Posts, or for the current markets and real investments in real companies in real time, S&P TSX Winners & Losers, April 2013, The Dow Transports, March 2013, or The Wall Street Put, March 2013, or The Risk Adjusted Dow, March 2013, or The Canada Pension Bond, February 2013.

Postscript

We are The RiskWerk Company and care not a jot for mutual funds, hedge funds, “alternative investments”, the “risk/reward equation” and every other unprovable artifact of investment lore. We have just one product

The Perpetual Bond™
“Alpha-smart with 100% Capital Safety and 100% Liquidity”
Guaranteed
With No Fees and No Loads on Capital

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Disclaimer

Investing in the bond and stock markets has become a highly regulated and litigious industry but despite that, there remains only one effective rule and that is caveat emptor or “buyer beware”. Nothing that we say should be construed by any person as advice or a recommendation to buy, sell, hold or avoid the common stock or bonds of any public company at any time for any purpose. That is the law and we fully support and respect that law and regulation in every jurisdiction without exception and without qualification to the best of our knowledge and ability. We can only tell you what we do and why we do it or have done it and we know nothing at all about the future or the future of stock prices of any company nor why they are what they are, now. The author retains all copyrights to his works in this blog and on this website. The Perpetual Bond®™ is a registered trademark and patented technology of The RiskWerk Company and RiskWerk Limited (“Company”) . The Canada Pension Bond®™ and The Medina Bond®™ are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Company as are the words and phrases “Alpha-smart”, “100% Capital Safety”, “100% Liquidity”, ”price of risk”, “risk price”, and the symbols “(B)”, “(N)” and N*.