Locator: 48933BNSF.
A day late, a dollar short. Not gonna cut it.
No guts, no glory.
A reader, earlier today, asked me my thoughts regarding the Intel issue. I think the Intel story is a fascinating story but I have never had any thoughts whatsoever about investing in Intel. It didn't fit my investing plan. I made that decision some time ago.
Then it dawned on me.
Years ago when talking, writing in the USAF, I came across a rule that I tried to live by. It has to do with filters. I didn't understand the concept of "filters" then but, nonetheless, I was instinctively using them. If I was questioning whether something I might say/write might offend somebody, I erred on the side of letting it slide. Didn't say it / didn't write it. There were a million other things to say; I didn't need to write / say something inappropriate. Often I did not know if something might be construed as inappropriate but there was generally no need to test it. That usually had to do with jokes or sarcasm.
That "rule" transfers to investing. I get a kick out of all the time some analysts take trying to decide whether to invest in something or not, or whether to sell or not. Most investors only have a handful of stocks in which they are interested. If after an appropriate amount of time one can't decide whether to buy or not, my advice, don't buy it. Move on. For heaven's sake, there are thousands of publicly traded companies from which to pick for investing. If after a reasonable time of studying, evaluating, if you can't decide what to do, skip it, move on. I would think that even mediocre investors should be able to tell relatively quickly whether to buy something or not. And in this age of investing, in which there are no commissions, let's say you have second thoughts after buying something. Sell it. At worst, you can share your loss with the IRS.
[See alpha-beta pruning as described by David Shenk in The Immortal Game: The History of Chess, p. 216.]
Jim Cramer's "lightning round" serves as a good example, I guess, regarding what I'm trying to say.
Rule #2. Once you've made your decision, don't look back. Keep moving forward. Study it if you want to see if you might learn something but I'm not sure in this age of "lightning rounds," if that's even necessary.
It seems a BNSF - CSX merger is a no-brainer but apparently one party or the other sees something they don't like. So, that's it. Move on. Speak in platitudes; talk about a partnership. But move on.
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A Musical Interlude
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A Musical Interlude
