We lost a great one yesterday in Leslie Neilsen. Two of my favorite lines in the movies were from airplane (I don’t remember them exactly, so I’m paraphrasing here) ” Surely you’re joking? I’m not joking and don’t call me Shirley!” and “Tell the captain we have to land the plane now, this women has to go to the hospital!” “The hospital! What is it, Doctor?” “It’s a big building with patients, but that isn’t important now!” Always loved the way he started as a leading man in the 50s, 60s and early 70′s, then turned to comedy and really made a mark for himself.
We are still waiting for congress to do something about the expiring Bush tax cuts. A lot of talk so far, but nothing has been done. I’m sure people will find a way to tie expiring unemployment benefits to the cuts, but we will see.
I am not an investment advisor and don’t claim to be (although I did have my series 7 and 66 securities licenses at one time); I use an investment newsletter for my stock selections. Something I do tell people is that to be successful over time in stocks is to limit your losses and know when to sell. The way to do this is to limit your positions and use trailing stop losses. Don’t invest more than 4-5% of your portfolio in any one idea and use either a 20% or 25% trailing stop loss (This means your stop loss follows the high of the stock – if you start at 10 dollars a share and the stock goes up a dollar, with a 20% trailing loss, you start your stop loss at $8 per share and raise it to $8.80 when the stock is up the dollar. This way you know when to sell.) Using these two methods means you will never lose more than 1.25% of your portfolio on any one idea. If an idea goes way up, as soon as it starts to drop back you will at least keep 80% of the high of the stock.