Never Quit Doing Your Homework -- Cramer -- Or It Mostly Luck? September 24, 2024

Locator: 48389COPPER.

For the archives: several years ago I started a position in both SCCO and Freeport-McMoRan -- the reasons should be obvious. I held both positions for awhile, although I was lukewarm about Freeport. Finally in 2022, or thereabouts, I had to make a decision, one or none, but no longer positions in two copper companies. For what it's worth, I decided to keep one copper company. My research suggested SCCO would do better over the long term. I chose SCCO over Freeport. I sold Freeport, and kept adding to my SCCO position on a regular basis. It's unlikely I will add much more to that position. It will be transferred to one of the grandchildren, I will forget all about it, and move on to something else.

Mostly luck, I would say. But, wow, the chart is amazing. In addition to the long-term difference, SCCO seems the better choice for volatility, something benefiting traders, which I am not.

Locator: 48376COPPER.

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The Book Page

Christopher Isherwood, Inside Out, Katherine Bucknell, c. 2024. Notes here.

Wow, what a book. Connects a lot of dots. 

729 pages. 

The author is the editor of four volumes of diaries by Christopher Isherwood; The Animals, a volume of letters between Isherwood and his longtime partner, Don Bachardy; and W.H. Auden's Juvenilia: Poems, 1922 -1928. She is the director of the Christopher Isherwood Foundation as well as a founder of the W. H. Auden Society and co-editor of Auden Studies. Bucknell is also the author of four novels: Canarino, Leninsky Prospekt, What You Will, and +J. She lives in London. 

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Marketing

I recently posted a short note on Apple's marketing. The more I see Apple Intelligence commercials the more I see how incredible Apple's marketing is / was. 

The new iPhone is so revolutionary, Tim Cook realized consumers would not be able to "absorb" it all -- so he opted to roll it out slowly. The early adopters have already upgraded but the vast majority of us are waiting ... and mostly learning what Apple Intelligence is all about. 

This one I particularly enjoy / find fascinating.

The "face" of the new Apple Intelligence commercials: 

Link at Adweek.

Apple Intelligence will launch on iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices along with the iPhone 16 release. The tools work across apps to help generate movies, search photos and videos, clean up images, transcribe audio, and prioritize emails.

Additional features will roll out throughout the year, including the ability to access ChatGPT and an updated version of Siri that will work across Apple and third-party apps.

This is going to be awesome. 

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Land of the Free

The phrase was made famous by Francis Scott Key, but one wonders where he got the phrase. I don't think it originated with him. It just doesn't fit what I know about global "politics" at the time. The phrase came out of the War of 1812 and more specifically the Battle of Baltimore, 1814. That certainly wasn't a war for freedom. It was a war for territory. Wasn't it? 

I think Francis Scott Key "stole" the phrase from some other source. 

I think Susanna Ashton stumbled across it without knowing! It practically jumps out at you in her new book, A Plausible Man. One link here.

The irony: the land of the free was not what we think.