THINGS That Interested me this Week.

---China has 20% of the world’s population but only 7% of the world’s fresh water and 60% of that supply is contaminated to UN standards. The Great Lakes in the USA alone contain about 84 percent of North America's surface fresh water and about 21 percent of the world's total supply. About half of the global population could be facing water shortages by 2030 when demand would exceed water supply by 40 percent, says United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

---Ayn Rand famously said, "You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality."

---Paleontologists recognize a total of five documented extinctions whereby over ninety percent of all species disappeared.

---At the height of the Dot-com boom, just before the crash CISCO (CSCO) was trading at 61 times earnings. Today’s high flyer is APPLE (AAPL) and it trades at a modest 16.7% P/E and sports a dividend of 1.52%.

---Texas created 40% of all the jobs created in the USA since 2009 while maintaining the 7th lowest tax burden in the country.
As a stand alone country Texas would be the 14th largest economy in the World. It’s exports were more than New York State and California combined.

I know your eagerly awaiting an entry point for the market. My advice is to be patient, you'll get one. We came close with the very short lived 3.6% swoon in the last two weeks but waiting a bit will give you a great outcome.

Here's a little trivia to ponder about the length of historic, long lived BULL markets,
---December 1987 to March 2000; 4494 days
---June 1949 to August 1956; 2607 days
---October 1974 to November 1980; 2,248 days
---CURRENT BULL MARKET, 2, 210 days as of 3-16-2015
---July 2002 to October 2007; 1,904 days

We are ripe for a pullback and major equity purchases are problematic in MHO. That being said I do nibble a bit in my personal account on what I think might be special situations; I recently bought a round lot of VISA (V) because its balance sheet is sterling, It signed a contract with Cosco to replace Cosco's present card (American-Express) and it has announced a 4 for split effective on March 18th, 2015. The stock pays close to a 2% dividend and is 90% held by institutions I.E. mutual funds, ETFs and such.

I know that splits do not add value but the fact is that most stock splits increase the stocks NAV by 20% in the year after the split because when you lower the per share price from $200 plus to say $50 you bring in a bunch of retail investors who haven't the cash to buy at the higher price. I know it sounds hooky but it works, I've ridden this train before.


Take it slow and wait for the right opportunity.
Murray