It’s a tough time to be a long term investor. It’s like believing in peace during the Nixon administration or being a big man with great low post moves in the modern NBA. You just feel old telling people to be patient and ride it out because what if you’re wrong? What if the stock market declines for the next decade? What if Vladimir Putin gives himself the title World Emperor? What if Brittney Spears never produces another album?
The only good thing about this market is what’s happening to crypto. As much as your stocks are down, at least they’re not down as much as the idiots who invested in crypto. We still have that going for us. And, to be honest, it feels good. I have no problem using someone else’s pain and suffering to make myself feel a little better when it comes to crypto losses. Why do we need an alternate currency again? What is an NFT and why would I use real money to buy something in a meta-world I have no interest in? We can’t get the world we have right, why are we trying so hard to create alternate ones?
Every day I wake up and see the declines I know I should be buying. The problem is a) I don’t have unlimited sums of new money to invest b) I don’t want to sell anything now at a steep loss to create cash to buy more and c) No one knows when we’ll reach a bottom. But if we are somehow able to find the strength to keep eating our vegetables during the apocalypse, it would be helpful to know which stocks are really on sale and simply must be purchased.
Because I’m a neurotic Jew, I often spend 5-10 minutes in the mornings playing the ‘What if’ game. Today’s version was ‘What if I had bought Microsoft in 1988 at .38/share?’ I think back to 1988 when I was a senior in high school. At the time I was worried about sex, basketball and sex, in that order. I had no idea that Windows would become the dominant computing platform. I doubt that I had any idea what a computing platform was. I blame my parents. Why didn’t they know? Anyway, had I invested $25,000 in Microsoft in 1988, today it would be worth $16,842,105. Had I done that, I would not be writing this post for my 6 readers in China and 4 readers in Russia. Privet!
Anyway, the point is there are undoubtedly some companies on sale right now. The question is, which ones should we buy today and every month until the market turns around? Here’s a few on my radar.
Stock: AAPL
Current Price: $137.09
PE: 22.31
Why It’s Worth It: The iphone is the most addicting piece of technology ever created. Think about it. Name another technology that you start sweating over if you don’t check it every 10 minutes. Think of how you feel every time you misplace your phone somewhere in the house. It’s horrible. If someone kidnapped your dog or your kids, it’s not as big a deal as when you can’t find your phone. Because at least if you have your phone you can call the police and tell them someone has kidnapped your dog or kids. Without the phone, you’re fucked. And that’s why Apple is a buy during any down market. You can’t lose money on the stock. Not over the long term.
Stock: AMZN
Current Price: $2,150.36
PE: 51.63
Why It’s Worth It: Because there’s no one else out there in the world that can send Girl Scout badge sticker adhesive material to your house in 24 hours when your Girl Scout is going on a retreat this weekend and you’ve been so lazy over the course of the year that you haven’t sewed on a single god damn Girl Scout patch and now you’re up against a deadline and if you don’t get those badges on tight your kid will hate you for the rest of her life and you’ll end up in one of those nursing homes with those thick bullet proof windows you see in NY cabs where the glass is so gray you can barely see that there’s a human in the front seat driving. Talk all the shit you want about how Amazon put small businesses out of business and then see what you do when you don’t know how to sew and you need 12 patches to somehow magically adhere to a vest overnight. That’s why you buy Amazon and you never sell.
Stock: AMN or ANTM
Current Price: $88.45 and $492.80
PE: 10.51 and 19.40
Why It’s Worth It: These are two health care companies that I’ve owned for a long time. And no matter what happens in the world, they always do well. Wanna know why? Because people always get sick and die. Seriously. What more sure thing in life is there to bet on than people getting sick and hospitals figuring out more ways to charge you more for their services? You can be the most positive, uplifting, good vibes person in the world. All your relatives and friends love you. “Ohh, she’s such a bright light in the universe.” It’s beautiful. And guess what? In a couple of more decades, that bright light is gonna get really sick and die but before that happens, she’s gonna need some serious medical care. Well run medical companies are like compound interest. Once you understand the way it works, you’d be a fool not to take advantage of it. Now seems like as good a time as any.
Stock: GS
Current Price: $306.95
PE: 5.96
Why It’s Worth It: It’s Goldman Sachs. Didn’t they basically invent the idea of making money with other people’s money? Sure one of their traders is going to jail for stealing 3$4.5 billion dollars from the people of Malaysia but that’s water under the bridge. Are you telling me that at some point down the road when the war is over and the pandemic isn’t raging that Goldman Sachs won’t figure out some way to make more money with some new product or service that does nothing for humanity other than boost first year associates pay to $220,000 from $180,000?
Stock: HA
Current Price: $16.02
PE: Sadly, they don’t have one
Why It’s Worth It: I’ve been holding Hawaiian Airlines since the start of the pandemic. I bought it then, and I hold it now, for one reason. The guava juice. Drinking that sweet guava juice on the plane, on the way to Hawaii, is better than any orgasm I’ve ever had. It’s one of the best experiences in life. I highly recommend it. And I will hold onto this stock until the war ends, the pandemic subsides and people finally start traveling, en masse, to Hawaii again. Unless climate change kills us all first. Then this is not a good stock to own.
Stock: WM
Current Price: $154.50
PE: 34.11
Why It’s Worth It: If you look at Waste Management’s chart, it’s like they have no idea we’re in a bear market. Want to know why? Because no matter how bad the world gets, people still want their trash picked up. Think about it. Russian could send nukes over tomorrow and if the trash wasn’t picked up before 7Am on Tuesday morning, you’d be pissed. I know I would be. What am I going to do with the extra bags that won’t fit in my bin if we miss a week? No way I’m letting WM charge me $14.00 extra for a week. No way. I don’t care if we’re in a nuclear war situation. The trash has to be picked up.
There are a bunch of other stocks. I’ll try and write about others next week. In the meantime, I hope to somehow find the strength, and the money, to continue investing. Now is the time to be a buyer.
