Thats because ot makes things go stiff

Just as an update, I re-jigged my portfolio to streamline and now it looks a bit like this:

- Fundsmith
- Google
- Facebook
- McDonalds
- Dominos Pizza
- Chipotle
- Walmart
- BP
- ARM
- Imperial Brands

and I have open buy orders on:

- FB
- ARM
- Walmart

Since I've almost run out of cash, I'll be limited to tweaking allocations and will likely to focus on (in this order): Facebook, ARM, Walmart.

Thoughts?

Mortgage the house

I'm not so sure about GOOG.
If AAPL is a one-trick pony (which they are often claimed to be, but which isn't really true), GOOG is in a much worse position.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/...th-no-results/

IMO, they've nowhere to go but down, as their traditional business is eroded by Apps and portals like TFB (whose own raison d'être isn't entirely clear to me either).
They're throwing a new piece of dirt to the wall every year in the hope that one will stick. None hasn't so far.

AAPL doesn't spend as much on acquisitions usually and also doesn't fubar them to such a degree.

I just bought John Deere, DE. It is a strong Company trading
toward the lower end of its range.


Also, I like CMI - Cummins Diesel as well as Caterpillar.


I have been thinking about buying Wal Mart as well.

John Deere is pretty much dependent on the mood for investment in agriculture, and this in turn is pretty much controlled by politics (subsidies, tarriffs etc). But it's a company that has an absolutely solid technology base and incredible know how and the thing about tractors is, that you can defer buying new ones but not forever, so the fewer tractors you sell now, the more you will sell down the road.

The problem with GOOG is that it is run by engineers and puts too much focus on technology. They spectacularly fail to execute. So far they were lucky in that search was too good for even them to screw up.

AI and self-driving cars may also be too good for them to screw up. So it is a bit of a gamble, but hopefully they will get something else to stick to the wall. I also see that in years to come chromebooks will cannibalise a lot of windows market share.

I think that sort of company needs to run by engineers. It's very difficult to create a proper business case for anything as speculative as what Google develops. Their strategy is to try out lots of cool ideas and hope that some of them take off.

Chromebooks is not a business.
A business - as Steve Balmer very aptly put it - a business makes money.
Chromebooks don't make money. For nobody. They're loss-leaders at best.

Cheap products attract cheap customers, who usually want everything for free.
Who is going to pay for advertising space on these products if the target audience doesn't have money?
Already, GOOGs traffic acquisition costs are increasing every quarter. It's harder and harder to get people pay for ads and get other people to click on those ads.

Calling that a "strategy" is a bit far-fetched ;-)

I don't doubt there are great engineers at GOOG.
But somebody has to give them direction (I'm more of a sysadmin than an engineer - but even I get that). Else it ends like Nest (article above) or Motorola.
Any outcome where Nest doesn't end on the firesale-table would really surprise me.

Some of you might be interested in this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/p...the-gurus.html

Sure, maybe they need them to make the things. Then maybe have other people manage the project and make it a commercial success.

It's still in the investment phase. Facebook and Google Search made no money at the early stages either...

Facebook is on a PE of 80, so hardly making bundles of cash, what could possibly go wrong

Well, I guess technically there could be a small chance that it doesn't quadruple it's earnings in the next couple of years...

This pundit thinks FB is good for the long term, but expecting a dip later this year when reality gives expectations a smack in the face.

http://www.radiofreemobile.com/faceb...ing-policeman/

Looking closer to home (in CH):

VTX:SYNN will return you nearly 20% tax-free in less than a year IF the merger goes through (and probably won't fall much if it doesn't, and there are still suitors out there). The dividend yield is currently an 'OK' 2.81% (still better than stashing cash under your mattress or in the bank).

VTX:ZURN is looking cheap right now and has great growth potential but even if not, its dividend yield on the current share price is almost 7.5% tax paid.

What percentage of your net worth are you planning to allocate to those 2 stocks?

Why do you ask?

As you know, I have a goodly chunk in my house here, some in pensions and other retirement vehicles, some in (literal) vehicles of the automotive variety, and a portion in stocks. I identified the two above as they hadn't been mentioned before (afaik). But don't worry, I'm not 100% invested in just two stocks.

To see how much your conviction you had in your recommendation or if it was just noise. As Warren Buffet said, if your not prepared to invest everything you have in a company, it's probably not worth investing anything.