The Real Charlie

XM Fun

Back in college I was a DJ for three and a half years at the college radio station, a typical sort of 80s/90s "indie rock" sort of place, cool in a very self conscious, very elitist way. It was great fun and my main extracurricular activity, behind drinking beer of course. Since college I have steadily drifted into a sad sort of Rip Van Winkle-like state musically, listening to  mostly the same set of CDs that I owned a year after I graduated, not accessing many new bands much.

Getting XM two years ago (thanks to Abby, who wanted to spare herself listening to my reenactments of the idiocy on WEEI after my commute each evening) changed that, and now I actually get to hear some new music as well as some much older 60s and 70s rock, along with two stations full of the old school indie rock I love, plus another one full of great punk and hardcore from across the decades (that sounds like a K-Tel ad). I also love to play around jumping from station to station, playing at being a DJ again. I had a great moment of this on the way home Friday, switching from the final chords of "Day In The Life" by the Beatles on XM 46 to the opening chords of "Holiday In Cambodia" by the Dead Kennedys on XM 44 almost perfectly. Damn, I wish I had tried that with actual vinyl and a mixing board back in the day.

I have fun with my XM and Roxanne during our morning nursery school and work commutes. Lately she has been enjoying some jazz, and seems to favor Coltrane, Seriously. I did have one awkward moment when the radio went on as soon as I turned on the car to reveal "God Save The Queen" by the Sex Pistols. Anyone interested in explaining that song, and punk rock in general, to a nearly four year old is welcome to try.

Less I damage my no longer so indie cred too much, I will note that Roxanne reminds me to "check the markets" at a certain landmark in our commute (Boston area drivers: the big hill going into Newton on Route 9 eastbound), at which point in time we listen to four minutes of Bloomberg Radio. After I switch back to music Roxanne asks "how are the markets?" If I tell her that they "look good," she cheers. If I tell her they look bad (as I have a lot lately) she tells me "they'll be okay, Daddy, don't worry." What a kid.

Lashed To The Mast

This has been a very, very tough year for the equity markets, all twenty days of it thus far. I have felt it, and some stocks that I have loved for a long time (Bank of America, my ishare portfolio) and others that I have held for shorter periods but had great hopes for (Barclays, Novartis) have gotten pounded. The temptation is to pack it in. I had two colleagues approach me at work last week and ask about "getting out" of the market. One of them was really overexposed to small cap, and is seventy, so I helped him pull back a little bit. The other is much younger and was really overreacting. She was looking at going 50% cash, 30% bonds and 20% equity. I congratulated her on her imminent retirement, then explained that she had described a classic retiree's portfolio. She has decades of work ahead of her.I think that I talked her down.

I feel the temptation, too, not to run away but to stay too much in cash  ( as I told you late last year, I fired a manager and have 60% of what they used to work with in cash right now) and to break away from my long-held value & income bias. My ishare portfolio, which I've mentioned before, breaks out at 25% S&P 500 Growth, 25% S&P 500 Value, 20% "DVY" Dividend Achievers, 10% Mid Cap Value, and 5% each Mid Cap Growth, Small Cap Value, Small Cap Growth and REITs. Only the large growth did well last year. I was tempted to readjust, take on more of a growth bias going forward. But no. I will rebalance in early February, to the same standards as always. I will keep looking at some of the new opportunities out there in terms of alternative managers and in terms of some stocks that I've long wanted to own that are now, finally, pretty cheap.

I am lashing myself to the mast, and trying to ignore the sirens' song. So hang in there, and unless you are about to retire, try to stick to your long term plans.

The Birds of Palm Beach County

Sorry for the blog hiatus since New Year's. I had a business trip, my first (not counting driving to Sturbridge) and also my first ever visit to Palm Beach, winter roost of the rich and philanthropic and those who love them. Many interesting experiences, most of which I will keep off the blog (Ground Rule #2 and all, you know). The wealth and opulence in Palm Beach is indescribable, the poverty miles away in West Palm Beach (where I got lost on my from the airport to my hotel) shocking by contrast. I met a few unpleasant people and tons of very nice, very generous ones, wealthy and not so.

But let me tell you about birds. While driving to the West PB post office on Sunday afternoon with my boss (long story)  she asked me about the white birds on the side of the road. I had not been looking at the birds but noticed them now. Little cattle egrets, no taller than a dog, picking through the drainage ditches and tall grass in search of morsels. There were hundreds of them, and they were everywhere I looked while I was down there, especially in the scroungier areas , since neither tall grass nor mucky ground lasts long on Palm Beach island itself.

A few hours later we were driving to see a client in Palm Beach and were passing through the most opulent and luxurious of neighborhoods, where massive mansions line the roads. Up ahead we could see dozens of birds in the air. My boss, a non-birder, asked me if they were sea gulls. No, I told her, based on their size and flexed wingtips they were vultures. As we got closer we saw hundreds of turkey vultures circling in the air and roosting in the trees in front of some of Palm Beach's most distinguished  homes. She asked me if one could "get rid" of vultures, and I explained the finer points of the Migratory Bird Act. She was horrified.

So let that be a lesson: live in scroungy old West Palm Beach, and you get to see adorable little egrets pecking away on the median. Build a mansion on Palm Beach, and buzzards will roost in your trees. If you, the reading public, wish to force the metaphor, have at it. And welcome me back home, while you're at it. I missed my girls so much.

Poopa and Total Return

Happy New Year, reading public. I've been doing some cooking the past few days from "Aromas of Aleppo ," a beautiful and very usable new cookbook from the fabulously named Poopa Dweck. Abby and I've made a couple of deserts, a green bean dish, a great baked kibbeh, a beef and rice stew and a few other things. The recipes work, the ingredients are accessible (aside from a few spices I picked up at the local Arabic market, but they have most of them at Whole Foods too) and the book is full of interesting facts and stories about the Syrian Jewish community. If you cook, especially if you cook kosher, I recommend it highly.

I am still waiting for year-end data on my overall investment returns, but my individual equities and etfs were a pretty mixed bag, redeemed in part because I hold a lot of dividend paying securities with cushions the blow when capital returns are low and down. I had eight double digit total return gainers: Apache (62.6%), the EEM emerging market etf (33.4%), the EWC Canada etf (28.4%), Exxon Mobil (24.1%), Verizon (21.7%), Microsoft (20.6%), the Reaves "UTG" Utility Fund (12.9%) and the IJK MidCap Growth etf (12%). I had five big losers: Sysco (-13.0%), Cognex (-14%), Bank of America (-18.2%), the ICF REIT etf (-19%) and Barclays, which I bought last January, down 28% since I picked it up.

Verizon is one of my larger positions, so that was great, but Bank of America is a larger holding as well, so that hurt, even though I had sold some of it early in the year. I was pleased to get out of Home Depot and Comcast with single digit gains, as they tanked later in the year. Cognex has been a poor performer for me for a few years, but is a very small position that I may yet hold onto. I like Barclays longer term and may yet add some more to my position. BofA is a longterm core holding for me. The Sysco I might dump at some point, I am up long term on it but am no longer especially excited about the stock or the company. I am looking at all sorts of interesting new ideas - vehicles, managers and allocation schemes -  for 2008, and I'll keep you posted.

As far as resolutions go, see this post from last year? Delete the desk cleaning (I am better on that), make it "10 pounds or so" and keep the rest, all under the header of "Don't Be Lazy, Glassenberg." Sigh.