I believe the definition of par is the number of strokes an expert golfer requires to complete a hole. The par for a 72-hole tournament’s completion is four days, which may have to succumb to Mother Nature’s par for the skies of New York lo these many days.
Instead of delivering buttery bucketsful of sunshine, she has deemed it necessary to strap kegs of Poland Spring to the gray clouds. Our promising tan is fading, and the makers of sunblock lotion must be laying off thousands.
In the meantime, Mother Nature’s niece, Miss Market, must be obeyed as well. We cannot bend them to our will. Even Tiger Woods, 11 strokes off the lead after 36 holes as we write, must bow every now and then to the vagaries of nature.
Miss Market will increasingly inflict pain or rain riches according to the broad-brush data released every week. That’s because stock prices will more and more respond to news about the general health of the economy than the efforts at political jockeying on legislation. Change in financial sector regulation is a given, as is health care reform, deficit spending and money supply growth. Barking about reforms being too much or too little is quibbling. Too often, we seek the perfect at the expense of the possible. Recovery is baked in the cake.
Last week, the Conference Board reported that its index of leading economic indicators rose 1.2% in May, the second straight monthly increase. And the Philly Fed index rose to negative 2.2 in June from negative 22.6 in May, the best business condition in the Philadelphia region since September. New orders and shipments improved, as employment remained very weak. Those who still have jobs are running faster on the treadmill.
We will have to run a little faster this week to make up for the baseball picks last week. We picked the wrong day to take the Floridian fish over the pinstripers, the same day we foolishly believed the Coors Field tall boys would turn chilly against the plucky Bucs. Earlier, we put our faith again in young Vin Mazzaro of the Elephant patches against the old Brooklynites in southern California.
Mother Nature and Miss Market can be obstinate, but patience will bring them around. Stay long equities and oil, short bonds. The U.S. Open will crown a champion sooner or later. Here’s hoping it’s later, as Kev has a Thursday ticket good for Monday if they can’t finish today. Long shot investment tip of the week: Go long Duval, short Barnes.
Showing posts with label Pittsburgh Pirates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pittsburgh Pirates. Show all posts
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Decoration Day
Heard a bunch of good jokes on the golf course on Monday, none of which can be repeated in a family column. Enjoyed stories from the “oldest members of the club” (see P.G. Wodehouse). These honorable fellows were gracious enough to permit this hapless duffer to invade their muni preserve and enjoy their company in an aged and hallowed tournament in the county of Kings. I learned much, far more than just how to manage a golf course or wave a wand with conviction. You had to be there.
But, though my group would recoil in horror, I have to admit that putting bores me. Three- and four-putts – among other flubs – doomed me, but I just can’t get interested. I have this superstition that you only have so many good putts or base hits in any one stick, and that you shouldn’t waste them on the practice green or in the batting cage. This is perverse, I know. Other than a lack of the requisite motor skills, it explains why I will never make the senior tour or learn to hit a breaking ball. Therapy is called for and I will seek it immediately.
That confession made, Miss Market seems to have the same malady. She leaps at “green shoots” (a soaring drive to the middle of the nicely cut fairway) then Dutch elm disease (insouciant putting) in the form of a record drop in home prices in the first quarter blights the promising foliage. Yet consumer confidence as measured by the Conference Board surged last month and hope springs anew on the next hole. We understand each other, Miss Market and I, which is to say we are goslings who have lost mom and dad to golfers with shotguns in their bags and must waddle about figuring out on our own what to eat and how to find it.
Now, the consumer confidence readings are notorious for inaccurately predicting future spending, but they do, at least, give us an idea of whether animal spirits are stirring. The onus is on Obama and the Democrats to deliver. Americans know stimulus is coming. Whether it does the trick, “only time will tell,” as the TV reporters say in concluding their stand-up recitations of “news.”
For now, I can’t let loose of PALM yet. If consumer confidence is rising and the Pre phone lives up to the hype, the stock could be worth well more than at midday May 26. Ford, which will soon be the only American car company left standing on its own two feet is a keeper, too. AMD still has value, we think. Sticking with Novavax in the biotech sector for no other reason than a New Delhi-native golf partner on Saturday assured me it was a solid Indian company (HQ in Maryland) on the right track. Though I wonder if this is tantamount to Cubs manager Lou Piniella sending in pitcher Carlos Zambrano as a pinch-hitter last night. The ploy failed, much to Kev’s delight since he took the Bucs, but it was original.
Cashing in on SLV and DXO for the bucks they’ve made so far and to keep the wolf from the door, but for the long run, precious metals and oil should pay off when inflation gets going again if you want to stick with them as summer and the driving season begins on what has come to be known as Memorial Day.
In 1866, the ladies of Columbus, Mississippi, are said to have been the first to honor the fallen in the recent War Between the States, decorating graves of the rebel dead and then strewing flowers on the scorned Union graves moldering from the Battle of Shiloh, but Waterloo, New York, is also said to be the site of the first Decoration Day. It matters little, of course, who began the tradition, but it has evolved into a universal nod to the United States and its sons and daughters, whether they be descendants of the Grand Army of the Republic or the United Confederate Veterans, who have covered themselves with glory.
Played golf, took profits, grilled ribs for the family and picked up potato salad and baked beans at the deli last night, got a good night’s sleep. Nobody has it better.
But, though my group would recoil in horror, I have to admit that putting bores me. Three- and four-putts – among other flubs – doomed me, but I just can’t get interested. I have this superstition that you only have so many good putts or base hits in any one stick, and that you shouldn’t waste them on the practice green or in the batting cage. This is perverse, I know. Other than a lack of the requisite motor skills, it explains why I will never make the senior tour or learn to hit a breaking ball. Therapy is called for and I will seek it immediately.
That confession made, Miss Market seems to have the same malady. She leaps at “green shoots” (a soaring drive to the middle of the nicely cut fairway) then Dutch elm disease (insouciant putting) in the form of a record drop in home prices in the first quarter blights the promising foliage. Yet consumer confidence as measured by the Conference Board surged last month and hope springs anew on the next hole. We understand each other, Miss Market and I, which is to say we are goslings who have lost mom and dad to golfers with shotguns in their bags and must waddle about figuring out on our own what to eat and how to find it.
Now, the consumer confidence readings are notorious for inaccurately predicting future spending, but they do, at least, give us an idea of whether animal spirits are stirring. The onus is on Obama and the Democrats to deliver. Americans know stimulus is coming. Whether it does the trick, “only time will tell,” as the TV reporters say in concluding their stand-up recitations of “news.”
For now, I can’t let loose of PALM yet. If consumer confidence is rising and the Pre phone lives up to the hype, the stock could be worth well more than at midday May 26. Ford, which will soon be the only American car company left standing on its own two feet is a keeper, too. AMD still has value, we think. Sticking with Novavax in the biotech sector for no other reason than a New Delhi-native golf partner on Saturday assured me it was a solid Indian company (HQ in Maryland) on the right track. Though I wonder if this is tantamount to Cubs manager Lou Piniella sending in pitcher Carlos Zambrano as a pinch-hitter last night. The ploy failed, much to Kev’s delight since he took the Bucs, but it was original.
Cashing in on SLV and DXO for the bucks they’ve made so far and to keep the wolf from the door, but for the long run, precious metals and oil should pay off when inflation gets going again if you want to stick with them as summer and the driving season begins on what has come to be known as Memorial Day.
In 1866, the ladies of Columbus, Mississippi, are said to have been the first to honor the fallen in the recent War Between the States, decorating graves of the rebel dead and then strewing flowers on the scorned Union graves moldering from the Battle of Shiloh, but Waterloo, New York, is also said to be the site of the first Decoration Day. It matters little, of course, who began the tradition, but it has evolved into a universal nod to the United States and its sons and daughters, whether they be descendants of the Grand Army of the Republic or the United Confederate Veterans, who have covered themselves with glory.
Played golf, took profits, grilled ribs for the family and picked up potato salad and baked beans at the deli last night, got a good night’s sleep. Nobody has it better.
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