June 30, halfway through the year, halfway through a year of promises which means promises have less time to be kept. Here’s hoping they don’t all wait until December 31, 2023.
This year has been a tough one for keeping track of “So Much Going On – Quickly“. Yes, the pandemic is supposedly over – unless you’re look at the data. AI was supposed to reach this level closer to 2040. Russia was expected to probably continue to degrade because of corruption and demographics, but that looks to be accelerated by the war. Politicians are finally going to court. We’ll see if any of them go to jail. Sooner is clearer than later because elections are approaching. Many of the things I track have lost patience and have decided to get busy now. Oh yeah, and the climate is changing faster that before.
Why watch? I don’t do much else with my investments. I am a fan of Long Term Buy and Hold. (See my book, Dream. Invest. Live. for details.) I track the news because I am curious, and realize action may be required with some of the current events. I track my stocks because I am invested, but also because small businesses are their own stories, their own reality shows that are really real.
The first half of this year has been encouraging and discouraging.
WNDW and SOLO hit major crises. SolarWindow (WNDW) had a crisis as a major partner made it difficult to report financial data to regulators. Electramecchanica (SOLO) had car recalls, new management, abandoned their main product, just spent a lot of money of a new factory, and are in the midst of assurances that they can survive.
LTCX and GERN both made the kind of progress that can be cheered in biotech: working on FDA application for approvals, which could lead to treatments, which could also lead to healthier people, which could lead to healthier companies, which could lead to profits. Somewhere along there the investment community can step in and decide a premium price is in order.
MVIS, oh, MVIS. It is tempting to simply copy what I wrote at the end of 2022, so I will; then, I’ll add more.
“Oh, MicroVision; will it be yet again another 6-9 months, or 9-18 months, or longer? Well, it hasn’t been any of the previous hoped-for periods for the last twenty years – though there was that time of flirting with hope about a year or so again.”
Supposedly, they plan to make $10M-$12M in the second half of 2023. That may be their biggest year ever, but it doesn’t cover cash burn (I believe). Ah, but someone will extrapolate from ‘very little in 2022’ to ‘$10M-$12M in 2023’ to ‘Wow! OMG! Yay! in 2024!’. Or not.
Math matters. I can only lose 100% on a stock. I can make multiples of 100%. The balance encourages me to look for the optimism in some, and makes it easier to cope with the pessimism inherent with large percentage losses.
I continue to hold. The stocks that have fallen were small investments. Selling them now doesn’t raise much cash. They may be more significant as tax losses. The three that have potentially very good news also continue to have significant risk, so I am reluctant to buy more. Buying more is moot, anyway.
Yes, within the last six months Tom Got A Job, but as one observer observed, the title is great but the pay is less than house cleaners make. My personal finances have the excess income, but taxes, septic repairs, and interest on debt eliminate much of my financial expectations.
Patience. More patience. Maybe invest some more, eventually. In the meantime, income and assets are up, expenses and debt are, too. Working harder is the traditional approach, but portfolios have a power. My portfolio grew as much today as a month’s wages. Despite the news, my house’s value continues to rise. There’s reason for hope that seems more real and less ephemeral.
And, I still buy lottery tickets.
For more details about the stocks, here are links to various discussion boards where you can find my synopses, as well as others’ points of view. For more details about how I do what I do, there’s a book that I wrote at the request of several friends: Dream. Invest. Live. Maybe you can help my personal finances by buying a copy – though the frugal part of me recommends checking one out from a library.
The following links are to various discussion boards I follow. Many of the independent investors who contribute to the discussions provide in-depth analyses that either aren’t available elsewhere, or would cost too much to buy. The other advantage is the diversity of perspectives. Unfortunately, I don’t engage as much as I did before. Some discussions have degraded due to lack of moderators, or overly zealous moderators (oxymoron), or have too many immoderate voices. Some boards are effectively ghost towns, or feel like cavernous empty warehouses. Regardless, here are the sites I continue to visit, even if it is only to lurk and listen.
I encourage you to tune in, because more voices (as long as they’re mature) make for a better conversation. Maybe I’ll read you there.
Investor Village (widest range of boards)
Motley Fool (This had the oldest boards, but recently those links no longer work. They have yet to reply to my query about what happened. This is a good example of why it makes sense to keep copies someplace that you control. That is one reason I post to this blog, and also why I post to several web sites because it is harder to lose everything that way. Alas, those first posts for MVIS may be lost.)
Silicon Investor (Relatively older boards, less trafficked, but populated with informed investors)
Reddit (many will cringe, but there’s impressive quality within the impressive quantity of posts and voices)
Trimbathcreative's Blog (Tom Trimbath) 