FSX Friday Update

Another week, another parade of new highs for the major stock market averages.  I don’t know when this rally will end, but I know it will end badly when it does.  The economy may be improving—and I believe it is—and stock valuations may not be nearly as stretched as they were at previous market tops, but it won’t matter.  The Federal Reserve is driving this equity bull market, period.  The Fed is spending $85 billion a month buying bonds; thus there is always a bid in the bond market regardless of the piddling rates bonds now pay; thus the Fed is crowding out any and all investors who want to buy bonds for the interest income; thus investors looking for returns (i.e., everyone) have no place to go but equities.  What else can you do?  You have to have large amounts of excess capital to buy real estate, so that’s off the table for most folks.  Commodities—another option—are in a grinding bear market and don’t provide interest or dividend income to cushion the price declines.  It’s stocks or nothing, so as long as the Fed is distorting the bond market, stocks will rally.  This is the reason stocks are rallying, and once the Fed slows the rate of bond-buying, the S&P 500 will drop ten to twenty percent, no matter what the economy is doing.  If the Fed shuts down quantitative easing altogether, it’ll be more like 30 percent.  If the Fed actually gets worried about inflation and raises short-term rates, we’re looking at a 50% drop.  I’m not saying that investors won’t rediscover fundamentals after the rout is over, or that stocks won’t subsequently regain much of the ground they lose—that will depend on the state of the economy and the effect the rout has on investor psychology.  But make no mistake: there will be a rout.  Bernanke’s grand plan to stimulate the economy may work, and it may not; if it works, the labor market will improve and GDP will rise—and the market will crash anyway.  Maybe Bernanke accepts a crash in financial asset prices as the cost of reviving the real economy—that seems possible.  If that’s his thinking, he certainly can’t say so.  It would be nice if he could get some help from our elected officials, but I doubt he’s holding his breath.  In fact, if the Republicans make gains in next year’s midterms, that $85 billion a month is more likely to go to $185 billion than to $0.

Wait…isn’t that exactly what I wrote last week?  Why, yes, it is.  Stocks turned in yet another week of steady gains (S&P +2%) for no real reason other than why not?  When the market gives me something—anything—new to write about, I’ll be happy to write about it.  Every single word I wrote last week about stocks, bonds, fiscal policy and monetary policy is true to the exact same extent that it was (meaning if you thought that analysis was crap, this is crap to the exact same extent).

Does Europe even still exist?  Someone should check.

The Family Stock Index broke through 16,000 for the first time on Thursday, with this latest milestone coming just two months after our first close above 15,000.  Internals were favorable (19 advancers to 6 decliners) and the number of new 52-week highs within the index—a whopping ten—is the largest I remember seeing in a single week.  How far have we run?  Consider this: the FSX could suffer a greater than six percent correction right now and still hold above the 15,000 level—a level we only reached for the first time two months ago.  Is there any reason to be concerned we’re nearing a top?  Reagan did hit a new all-time high on Tuesday before rolling over and closing down on the week, but that’s it, and that’s not much.  True, we need a boatload of awesomeness to come through for us in the back half of the year to justify this six-month rally, but with this kind of momentum, you’d be crazy to short the FSX here.

Katie’s handling the advancers & decliners this week (with my comments in parentheses) because I’m very busy listening to ‘Heart Attack’ on repeat.

Advancers

• Jenny (JNY) +5.4%. – Because, you know, unexpected Great Wolf Lodge trip? What more could a Jenny want? Not much. Except for some music.
• Zondro (ZQK) +4.3%. – Maybe he’s planning to go hang out with the Fig dogs while they’re gone. I think he’d like some new friends. Wilson isn’t exactly the most playful friend a dog could have.
• Marcus (MCS) +3.8%. – Generation X is the best.  (Mr. Sensitive: Because of the chromium cover?)

• Charlotte (ICE) +3.1%. – Only about three more weeks of school, and then the girls will be ready for summer visits at Aunt Charlotte’s. Hopefully Charlotte’s ready too.  Really she’s up because she knows how good Grey’s Anatomy and Nashville were this week.
• Mario the Elder (MGEE) +3.1%. – Because we’re finally into summer weather. Dad likes it, and Mom apparently only really likes it when it’s hot.  And if mom’s happier, dad’s happier.
• Katie (CATY) +3.0%. – I’m taking a day of vacation on Monday to hang out with my family and that seems like (Mr. S: seems like?) cause for celebration.  (Mr. S: And she’s going to a blogging conference on Saturday—I kid you not.)
• Justin (SCI) +1.9%. – He’s hoping he can get back to this look: http://www.flickr.com/photos/catori_inteus/8731314699/in/photostream If he can, he’s definitely a winner. It would require a little more chub than he has these days though.  (Mr. S: Did you not see how fat Justin’s gotten when he was here two weeks ago?  He left dents in the kitchen floor when he was walking through.  Unless that was Brinky.)

Decliners

• Ed Winston (ED) -1.3%. – Mario and Nicole are entering a phase of being perhaps a little distracted and less into the life of Ed Winston than they have been up until now.
• Reagan (REGN) -2.4%. – No Great Wolf Lodge. And if we didn’t remind her, no good grades because she can’t remember to walk out the door with things like major projects she just set down on the table five minutes ago in order to pick up her backpack and then completely forgot.
• Zero (ZAGG) -4.0%. – Life as a blonde isn’t as great as expected, I guess. I think it looks good though.   (Mr. S:  What?)
• Jodi Ann (JOY) -5.0%. – You know what the heat of summer means in Jodi Ann’s condition? Swelling. More swelling than you can ever imagine. I hope you remember to take off your wedding ring before it’s stuck forever.  (Mr. S: You can always get another wedding ring; I think I’m on my fourth.)

 

Name	Ticker	5/17/2013	Change
Brinkley	BCO	$26.98	+0.28
Charlotte	ICE	$177.41	+5.31
Dustin	DST	$71.36	+1.27
Ghost Marisa	MOLXA	$25.33	+0.35
Icarus	FAST	$51.10	+0.32
Jenny	JNY	$15.12	+0.78
Jodi Ann	JOY	$56.74	-2.97
Justin	SCI	$17.27	+0.32
Katie	CATY	$20.63	+0.60
Lee	TGI	$74.52	+0.69
Lisa	LNCE	$26.72	+0.04
Lucas	LEI	$1.27	+0.01
Lulu	LULU	$81.05	+0.64
Marcus	MCS	$14.04	+0.52
Mario T.E.	MGEE	$56.73	+1.71
Mario T.Y.	MAR	$43.73	-0.24
Namilita	NL	$11.86	+0.32
Nicole E.	NICE	$36.63	+0.17
Nicole M.	COLM	$60.49	+0.97
Reagan	REGN	$266.97	-6.53
Ruby	RJET	$10.96	-0.04
Wilson	WILC	$6.93	+0.08
Winston	ED	$60.79	-0.78
Zero	ZAGG	$5.03	-0.21
Zondro	ZQK	$7.68	+0.32

I’m Sorry, Demi Lovato

Demi, my wife tells me that I heard your song ‘Heart Attack’ several weeks ago and I said that it was “boring.”  I don’t believe her lies, but in the event I did say something that stupid, I am so, so sorry.  I should have known that several years of questionable hair and makeup decisions didn’t mean the girl who gave the world ‘This Is Me’ from Camp Rock was gone forever.  ‘Heart Attack’ is just wonderful, and I love you again.

Know that however much I may have offended you, I’m the one who truly suffered.  After all, you have been able to listen to ‘Heart Attack’ on repeat all day for months, whereas my life has been empty that entire time.  Completely empty.

You are, of course, crazy, but aren’t we all, really?   I blame Joe Jonas.

Joel Stein Is Right About the Millennials

So here’s the cover of Time

which does a terrible disservice to Joel Stein’s article.  I say that Stein is right in his conclusion about the so-called Millennials for the simple reason that he doesn’t really come to a definitive conclusion.  The cover hints at some degree of balance in the assessment–lazy narcissists, yes, but they’ll save us?–but it skews negative, whereas the article itself is shockingly (to me) positive.  I came out of it feeling much better about the generation that’s following my own, and that’s not at all what I expected.  I understand that the purpose of the cover is to be provocative and arresting, but I also think it might be a test; a great deal of of the criticism of the article floating around the Internet is clearly based on the cover alone.  Doesn’t Stein realize every generation has complained about the morals of younger people, the Internet laments?  Yes, and he even includes a nice, big graphic about exactly that straddling pages 30 and 31.  Shouldn’t he try to appreciate the positive qualities of Millennials?  In fact, he tries a lot harder to appreciate them than I do, and he largely succeeds.  I highly recommend reading this article, if you haven’t.  Alas, it’s pretty long by Internet standards, which brings me to something which really concerns me: the pervasive inability and unwillingness to read, absorb, and process arguments and analyses of any significant length and complexity on the part of pretty much everyone.  The criticism of the Stein article itself reflects that problem, as there are obviously plenty of folks who read the cover and maybe the first few paragraphs (in which Stein reiterates negative stereotypes, setting up a subsequent reversal) and stopped there.  This state of serial distraction isn’t a Millennial problem–it’s an information technology problem.  The problem is that technology provides us with far more information than we can process productively and we haven’t–as a civilization–developed the discipline to judiciously slow the flow.  Ah, but we didn’t have traffic lights once upon a time–we’ll figure this out, too.

What is really amazing to me about the article is how eerily accurate the seemingly arbitrary line between Generation X and the Millennials seems to be in the context of my own family.  According to Stein’s article, the Millennials were born after 1980 and before 2000, meaning that my siblings and I straddle the line between generations.  If Stein is right, Marcus (’80) and I (’77) belong in Generation X, while Charlotte (’82) and Justin (’85) are Millennials.  (Yes, Marcus could go either way; I say he’s an X-man).  I’ll be damned if I don’t think that’s absolutely right.  It’s not as simple as Justin and Charlotte are Facebook people whereas Marcus and I are not…except it really is that simple.  Of course there are other significant differences between the four of us: the timing of our dad’s death (1993) meant that we grew up in (sometimes drastically) different circumstances; also Charlotte is a girl and girls are weird.  Nevertheless, Charlotte and Justin clearly have a different relationship with the outside world than Marcus and I do, and it didn’t occur to me before that some of that may be generational.  I’m not being critical, just making an observation.

I mean I absolutely am being critical, because that’s apparently something my people do.  Another takeaway from the Stein article: he doesn’t think much of Generation X.  He belongs to that generation, as do I, so we know lots of other Gen X people, and, in fact, we do mostly suck.

 

 

FSX Friday Update

Another week, another parade of new highs for the major stock market averages.  I don’t know when this rally will end, but I know it will end badly when it does.  The economy may be improving—and I believe it is—and stock valuations may not be nearly as stretched as they were at previous market tops, but it won’t matter.  The Federal Reserve is driving this equity bull market, period.  The Fed is spending $85 billion a month buying bonds; thus there is always a bid in the bond market regardless of the piddling rates bonds now pay; thus the Fed is crowding out any and all investors who want to buy bonds for the interest income; thus investors looking for returns (i.e., everyone) have no place to go but equities.  What else can you do?  You have to have large amounts of excess capital to buy real estate, so that’s off the table for most folks.  Commodities—another option—are in a grinding bear market and don’t provide interest or dividend income to cushion the price declines.  It’s stocks or nothing, so as long as the Fed is distorting the bond market, stocks will rally.  This is the reason stocks are rallying, and once the Fed slows the rate of bond-buying, the S&P 500 will drop ten to twenty percent, no matter what the economy is doing.  If the Fed shuts down quantitative easing altogether, it’ll be more like 30 percent.  If the Fed actually gets worried about inflation and raises short-term rates, we’re looking at a 50% drop.  I’m not saying that investors won’t rediscover fundamentals after the rout is over, or that stocks won’t subsequently regain much of the ground they lose—that will depend on the state of the economy and the effect the rout has on investor psychology.  But make no mistake: there will be a rout.  Bernanke’s grand plan to stimulate the economy may work, and it may not; if it works, the labor market will improve and GDP will rise—and the market will crash anyway.  Maybe Bernanke accepts a crash in financial asset prices as the cost of reviving the real economy—that seems possible.  If that’s his thinking, he certainly can’t say so.  It would be nice if he could get some help from our elected officials, but I doubt he’s holding his breath.  In fact, if the Republicans make gains in next year’s midterms, that $85 billion a month is more likely to go to $185 billion than to $0.

The Family Stock Index lagged the broader market this week…at least until Jenny and Reagan decided they’d had enough of the shameful lollygagging and subsequently drove us to a new all-time high within sight of 16,000.  For the week, the FSX added 2% to close at 15,812, with more than half of those gains coming on Friday.  Internals were much improved: advancers outnumbered decliners by a 4-to-1 margin and five FSX members notched fresh 52-week highs.  Should we be trading at 20 times forward earnings?  Heavens, no.  So either earnings estimates are too low (yay!) or stock prices are too high (boo!), and I believe we’ll know which it is by the end of next month.

Advancers

• Zondro (ZQK +9.7%) and Icarus (FAST+6.1%).  In the broader market we’re beginning to see a rotation out of the rally’s early-stage leaders (pharma, consumer staples) and into sectors that have thus far lagged (industrials, tech, financials).  Could we be on the verge of a similar rotation out of fast dogs and into slow dogs?  Looks like investors aren’t selling speed this week, so it’ll take new money to move the less-athletic canines of the FSX.
• Jenny (JNY +5.6%.) and Reagan (REGN +2.8%).  Last night we watched old YouTube videos of Reagan and Jenny performing Rilo Kiley, Cheetah Girls, and High School Musical songs, circa 2008.  I’m not sure how that came about, but it did remind me of something my daughters sometimes forget: they’re best friends, and they have been since Reagan was born.  It’s pretty awesome.
• LULU +5.3%.  Lulu was the worst performer in the FSX last quarter, but a furious six-week rally has taken her from -18% on the year to +6%.  I should be happy for her.  I’m not.
• Lisa (LNCE) +5.2%.  Lisa’s going to Hawaii, and that’s the sort of thing that people really enjoy, or so I’m told.  As for me, I’d like to visit the U.S.S. Arizona memorial, absolutely, but that’s about it, and there are a lot of sharks between here and there.
• Marcus (MCS +3.8%) and Jodi Ann (JOY +3.6%).  That first ultrasound image of your baby is exciting, sure, but one day you’ll look at the calendar and realize you’ve only got a year left to finish the basement you promised her she could move into when she turns thirteen.  What will you do then, I wonder?  Seriously, if you’ve got any idea, I’m listening.

Decliners

• Mario the Elder (MGEE -0.8%).  Grandpa’s hitting the gym, trying to get ready for Brinky’s first visit to Hilton Head.  It won’t be enough.
• Ruby (RJET) -3%.  Boo-boo’s planning to go to Brinky’s gymnastics class tomorrow, so she’ll find out what drove Grandpa to try and up his reps on the bench press: Brinky’s a lot stronger than he looks, and he looks pretty darn strong.
• Winston (ED -3.3%) and Wilson (WILC  +0.1%).  Nope, no new money here.  The slow-dog sector of the FSX still has a lot of catching up to do.

 

Name	Ticker	5/10/2013	Change
Brinkley	BCO	$26.70	+0.26
Charlotte	ICE	$172.10	+0.08
Dustin	DST	$70.09	+0.73
Ghost Marisa	MOLXA	$24.98	+1.10
Icarus	FAST	$50.78	+2.92
Jenny	JNY	$14.34	+0.76
Jodi Ann	JOY	$59.71	+2.08
Justin	SCI	$16.95	+0.21
Katie	CATY	$20.03	+0.26
Lee	TGI	$73.83	+2.44
Lisa	LNCE	$26.68	+1.31
Lucas	LEI	$1.26	-0.04
Lulu	LULU	$80.41	+4.05
Marcus	MCS	$13.52	+0.50
Mario T.E.	MGEE	$55.02	-0.47
Mario T.Y.	MAR	$43.97	+0.96
Namilita	NL	$11.54	+0.13
Nicole E.	NICE	$36.46	+0.41
Nicole M.	COLM	$59.52	-0.73
Reagan	REGN	$273.50	+7.34
Ruby	RJET	$11.00	-0.34
Wilson	WILC	$6.85	+0.01
Winston	ED	$61.57	-2.09
Zero	ZAGG	$5.24	+0.24
Zondro	ZQK	$7.36	+0.65

FSX Friday Update

I totally forgot to watch the release of the employment numbers this morning, and do you know why?  I was busy cleaning bathrooms.  I was afraid Mr. Market would put me in time-out for putting bleach ahead of business.  Luckily for me, he was too busy driving the Dow Industrials and S&P 500 to new all-time highs on the back of payroll numbers that weren’t as bad as was feared.  The official consensus projection was for an increase of 150,000 jobs, but the market was expecting an even lower number (for perspective, +250K per month is considered healthy).  When we got 165,000 and an upward revision of 114,000 for the prior two months, it was off to the races.  The Dow and S&P topped 15,000 and 1600, respectively, for the first time, and the Nasdaq rose to a 12-year high.  What’s the bottom line?  Good things happen when you put bleach first.

The Family Stock Index managed to eke out a new all-time high Friday morning before Zero and I dragged it back down.  The FSX gained 1.3% on the week to close at 15,505, and advancers outnumbered decliners more than 2-to-1.    Nevertheless, there are clear signs that the rally may be topping out, as only three FSX members made new 52-week highs (Reagan, Charlotte, Mario TY) even as the index itself set a fresh record.  The broad participation we witnessed last week just isn’t there, and I continue to believe that there’s only so much that Reagan can do to push us higher (three years of evidence to the contrary notwithstanding).

Advancers

• Reagan (REGN) +23%.  This is getting pretty ridiculous.  Reagan is now up 56% in 2013, having gained 208% in 2012 and 67% in 2011.  This week she added nearly $50 when rival eye-drug maker Allergan reported disappointing clinical trial results.  Reagan wants to beat everyone at everything; she would appreciate that her latest all-time high came at the expense of a company foolish enough to challenge her.
• Charlotte (ICE) +7.8%.  Charlotte is doing the best she can to balance the depredations of Zero, and the effort is certainly appreciated.  She’s having a spectacular year—up nearly 40% in four months—and this week’s move contributed more than 50 points to the FSX.  Was it enough?  Not even close.
• Nicole E. (NICE) +5.3%.  The market is counting on Justin to secure and retrieve the Brinky Bowl when he visits the Pfaff this weekend.  Expect a selloff on Monday; not only will Justin fail to take the Brinky Bowl, he’ll almost certainly leave one or more of his belongings here.
• Ghost Marisa (MOLXA) +4.6%.  I’m pretty sure Marisa is haunting the southeast corner of Brinky’s room.  If she’s half as excited about her accommodations as Brinky’s laughter indicates, the stock could have a lot more room to run.
• Zondro (ZQK) +3.7%.  Zondy gets to play with Justy!
• Mario TY (MAR) +3.5%.  Is the market clamoring for Mario to come out of the FSX bullpen in relief again?  If the chants get loud enough, I may have to step aside for a week sometime in the next month or so.

Decliners

• Icarus (FAST) -3.3%.  Icky doesn’t get to play with Zondy or Justy.
• Lee (TGI) -10.5%.  Ugh.  Investors are coming to terms with what I realized more than a month ago—I have no idea what to do with my book now that it’s all but finished.  After this week’s drop, that uncertainty is priced in.  But I also have no idea what to do with myself now that my book is all but finished, and I’m afraid that isn’t reflected in the stock.  Yikes.
• Zero (ZAGG) -27%.  Zero now has an excellent chance of finishing at the bottom of the FSX standings for the third consecutive year with a third different stock, a Bizarro feat no less impressive than what Reagan has accomplished over the same period.  He’s found a most able squire to aid in his quest in the form of Zagg CEO Randy Hales.   Management guided analyst expectations up in the last quarter only to deliver a shockingly bad report yesterday.  Analysts were expecting EPS of $0.21; ZAGG reported $0.11, a decline of 35% versus the prior year quarter and slightly more than half the expected number.  If you think that’s bad, just wait.  Earnings per share can be impacted (read: manipulated) by a number of things, including share buybacks, accounting reclassifications, and even simple rounding.  Revenue, on the other hand, can be manipulated through accounting tricks (is there anything in business that can’t be?), but usually only temporarily through delayed or accelerated revenue recognition.  In general, revenue is what it is, and Zagg reported revenue in the quarter of $51.5 million, 7.2% below the prior year quarter and an unbelievable 23% less than the $66.57 million median analyst estimate.  I don’t like the overuse of the words unbelievable and incredible, but in this case, it’s actually hard for me to believe that management could be this clueless about sales trends in their business, and they certainly have no credibility going forward.  The stock was halted after hours as market makers tried to bridge the enormous gap between bid and ask prices; when it opened for trading it plunged 25% immediately.  It looks for all the world like Zero has done it again.

Name	Ticker	5/3/2013	Change
Brinkley	BCO	$26.44	-0.02
Charlotte	ICE	$172.02	+12.51
Dustin	DST	$69.36	+0.83
Ghost Marisa	MOLXA	$23.88	+1.04
Icarus	FAST	$47.86	-1.61
Jenny	JNY	$13.58	-0.49
Jodi Ann	JOY	$57.63	+1.03
Justin	SCI	$16.74	+0.28
Katie	CATY	$19.77	+0.32
Lee	TGI	$71.39	-8.41
Lisa	LNCE	$25.37	+0.61
Lucas	LEI	$1.30	+0.03
Lulu	LULU	$76.36	+2.22
Marcus	MCS	$13.02	+0.32
Mario T.E.	MGEE	$55.49	+0.15
Mario T.Y.	MAR	$43.01	+1.44
Namilita	NL	$11.41	+0.22
Nicole E.	NICE	$36.05	+1.82
Nicole M.	COLM	$60.25	+1.33
Reagan	REGN	$266.16	+49.56
Ruby	RJET	$11.34	-0.04
Wilson	WILC	$6.84	-0.03
Winston	ED	$63.66	+0.82
Zero	ZAGG	$5.00	-1.83
Zondro	ZQK	$6.71	+0.24

Is My Son Autistic?

Brinkley is twenty-eight months old and he doesn’t talk or point at objects to indicate interest.  He loves to play with string, dental floss, and even spaghetti noodles, wrapping them around his fingers in elaborate, intricate patterns; nothing captivates him so completely.  These characteristics—repetitive behavior and lack of communication—are, according to developmental psychologists, two key autism markers.  The third primary marker—impaired social interaction—could not fit Brinkley any less.  He loves to make eye contact, he laughs and smiles all the time, he’s very friendly when he meets new people, and he’s not the least bit shy or reserved in social situations.  So is my son autistic?  More importantly, do I give a damn if he is or he isn’t?

What is autism?  The fact that Katie and I have read about it and discussed it as much as we have and I still can’t give a definitive answer is, to me, more telling than any answer I could give.  As I understand it, there are three major autism markers—impaired communication, repetitive behavior, and impaired social interaction.  Brinkley clearly meets the first two requirements and just as clearly does not meet the third.  So then he isn’t autistic, right?  Not so fast.

It seems now that we have an autism spectrum, and a child can be placed on that spectrum if he or she meets some of the requirements to some degree or another.  This is, to my knowledge, a fairly recent development; certainly the extent to which parents are aware of the ‘autism spectrum’ is new.  Now you can have a diagnosis for your weird kid no matter what—if you don’t know what else to do, you can place him or her on the ‘spectrum.’

Well, I think that’s a load of crap.

As far as I’m concerned, my kid is weird.  He’s weird, but he’s healthy and he’s happy.  As my friends and family know, I’m an alcoholic.  I’ve been sober for more than four years now, and I bring it up in this context only because this ‘autism spectrum’ brings to mind a maxim I heard when I was in rehab: if it causes problems, it is a problem.  I had a lot thrown at me in rehab and not all of it stuck, but that one did.  Long-time alcoholics are masters of denial, and one of the most common things we do is create our own criteria for classifying a person as an alcoholic—criteria that we then conveniently fail to meet.  For example, I told myself that alcoholics drank all day (many do, of course), and since I didn’t start drinking until after work, I was not an alcoholic.  Did I drink too much?  Yes.  But was I an alcoholic?  No, because I didn’t drink in the morning.  Driving drunk was another criterion I used: alcoholics drive drunk, I never drove drunk, therefore I wasn’t an alcoholic.  I could admit that I drank too much, but not that I was an alcoholic—why did that classification matter so much?  It mattered because alcoholism is a disease—at least how I reckon it—whereas drinking too much is simply a bad habit.  Habits are quirks that a man can deal with on his own and in his own time; a disease is something else entirely.  If I was an alcoholic, it meant that I was sick and that I needed help.  It meant coming to terms with the terrible things I’d done to myself and to others, and accepting my weakness and failure.  There’s another false criterion for you: alcoholics fail, and I’d never failed, so I wasn’t an alcoholic.

What does this have to do with autism?  I’m getting there.

As an inveterate alcoholic I was driven to avoid that definitive diagnosis at all costs.  Why?  Because if I accepted the diagnosis, there would be no question of what I had to do: stop drinking immediately and get help to do it.  The ambivalence and uncertainty I’d used to avoid taking responsibility would be stripped away, and there’d be no more hedging or equivocating.  That stark certainty was scary as hell, and I didn’t face it until my family forced me to.  But what if the tables were turned?  What if the uncertainty was what frightened me?  In my case, there was no uncertainty.  My mind, my body, my family—it was all coming apart.  Soon I would be alone, and soon after that I would be dead, and I knew why.  I knew exactly what my problem was.  More importantly, I knew that I had a problem.   Only the disease allowed me to repress, deny, and project.  But what if I didn’t know?  What if I wasn’t sure?

Brinkley isn’t doing everything his sisters did when they were his age, and he’s doing some things they didn’t do, mostly weird things.  But they were day care kids; he’s stuck here with me.  They’re girls; he’s a boy.  They’re two-and-a-half years apart; Brinkley is seven years younger than his closest sister.  Moreover, I’m in a position to notice things now that I might have missed before, back when I worked for the bank every day and drank every night.  My gut feeling is that my son is fine—peculiar and obstinate, but fine.  I trust my instincts as a parent, but I can imagine what I might do if I didn’t.  If I didn’t know that my son was going to grow up to be happy and healthy—and let’s face it, no doctor can promise me that about any of my children—and I didn’t trust my own character and judgment as a father, would a diagnosis of autism make me feel worse, or would it be a relief?  It would be a challenge, of course, but the next steps would be clear: behavioral therapy, psychological evaluation, possibly some medication or another.  More importantly, I wouldn’t have to figure it out on my own, because the doctors would guide me.

What I’m hinting at is uncomfortable to suggest, but here it is: I suspect that the autism spectrum has, in some instances, been extended and improperly applied to children because their parents can’t handle having a weird kid that doesn’t act like every other kid.  Parental micro-management relying on cookie-cutter developmental milestones and unsubstantiated Facebook boasts (‘my eight-month-old is fluent in three languages!’) is a fast track to madness.  Worse still, it can make you overreact to developmental lags that would otherwise correct themselves, inviting the medical community to slap a label on your child for no reason other than that you can’t be happy if your kid doesn’t hit the proscribed milestones when your friends’ kids do.  If my son is happy doing things his way, but I’m bent out of shape about his way of doing things, is he really the one with the problem?

That brings me back to the rehab maxim: if it causes problems, it is a problem.  What the counselors there said was that it doesn’t matter what name you give it, if alcohol is destroying your life, it’s a problem.  You can’t hide behind semantic distinctions and arbitrary criteria: you’re miserable, everyone you care about is miserable, and alcohol is the cause of that misery.  You only need the one criterion: if it causes problems, it is a problem.  Well, the inverse is true as well: if it’s not causing problems, it’s not a problem.  If Brinkley is autistic, the disease will disrupt and degrade his life and mine to the point that I won’t need a doctor to tell me things are very, very wrong.  If you have to ask a doctor if there’s a problem—not what the problem is, but whether there is a problem at all—with an otherwise healthy and happy child, the child may not be the one with the problem.

None of what I’ve said should be interpreted to mean that I don’t believe that autism is a real disease—of course it is.  It is a disease, but it’s slowly becoming a catch-all diagnosis for weird kids.  I don’t want my kids to be like everyone else—everyone else is already like everyone else.  In a world like that, a little weirdness can take Brinkley a long way.

FSX Friday Update

So I just couldn’t get into the update this week and Katie graciously stepped up to write it.  It takes her about 20 minutes to do the whole thing as opposed to the three or more hours I take.  I have issues.

The market overall this week? Well, I checked CNBC for a wrap-up of the week, and it said this:

(Ignore all those Sporcle tabs. Unless you want to challenge us on some Sporcle quizzes, which we would love. Because we would win.)

So the stocks were mixed. Boring. Amazon tumbled. Apparently because of slowing international business. Whatever. I still love Amazon.

JC Penney surged. I mean JCP. Also whatever. I assume that’s because they got rid of that sucky Apple guy who was trying to turn JC Penney into an Apple store. I wasn’t really a fan of JC Penney before he was there, and I probably won’t be a fan after.

So that’s the market. Exciting, right? On to the FSX.

Overall

• S&P 500 +1.7%
• FSX +2.9% (new all-time high Thursday) – Go us! Yay for proud members of the FSX!

Advancers

• Zondro (ZQK) +11.2%. – Um, the market thinks good things are coming for Zero when he turns 30 in a couple weeks, I guess. Sure.  (Mr. Sensitive: Katie read this as Zero instead of Zondro because she’s been falling asleep on the couch all afternoon.  Ask Jenny if you want to know the truth because Katie lies about her Machi drowsiness.) (Katie: I’m back to say “Whatever, rudeface.” I read it wrong because of some other reason. I only almost fell asleep once this afternoon and I hardly ever do that anymore. I accidentally read it as Zero, okay? And then I said, “Well, Zondro relatively recently celebrated a birthday, and he’s getting close to 30 in dog years. So there.)
  
• LULU +8.4%. – Fat cat Lulu. She’s been sleeping with Brinky sometimes at night, which is so much less annoying than her creeping creeping up on us in bed. Yes, I meant to say creeping twice. Because she creeps and creeps and then creeps some more until she’s pretty much on top of my face.
• Namilita (NL) +6.8%. – I just don’t know anything about the Charlotte and Zero cats. Maybe they’re not creepers.
• Jenny (JNY) +6.0%. – Jenny is actually starting out with good grades this quarter. I don’t mean to sound surprised, but the previous two quarters didn’t start so well, so it’s pretty awesome. She likes the substitute she has for the rest of the year – she actually told me she looks forward to math class every day, and we definitely weren’t hearing that before. I mean, really she’s up because she started watching Dawson’s Creek.
• Brinkley (BCO) +5.5%. – When Lee asked me earlier in the week what would be causing Brinkley to be up, I sent him the following email as explanation: My beloved baby boy is up because he’s had some bonus time with me this week while we share allergy misery with each other in the middle of the night.   Also, he is a smart boy and is getting closer and closer to talking. He has started saying “MOM MOM MOM MOM” in a voice that can only be called Gremlin.   And just today he’s also started saying Dada again, in not quite as Gremlin-y a voice, so maybe he’s for real ready to talk.
• Justin (SCI) +5.4%. – Uncle Science will be here next week for a visit, so of course he’s up.
• Marcus (MCS) +5.2%. – And Uncle Teacher won’t be here next week, but he will be celebrating a birthday. I get the feeling Jodi Ann does a good job with birthdays, so I’m going to go ahead and say it’s going to be a great day for him. We will hopefully remember to at least call.
• Lee (TGI) +5.0%. – Toogie’s up because I’m going to finish reading his book in the next 3 days and it’s cool stuff. And because Brinky’s kinda sorta calling him Dada.
• Jodi Ann (JOY) +4.4%. – Because she had her own birthday this week, and hopefully it was awesome. Reagan thinks Jodi Ann would like to know that she’s decided to start speaking Italian because, you know, Jodi Ann’s Italian.

Decliners

• Lisa (LNCE) -0.2%. – It’s been a rough week in Blacksburg, clearly. And it’s true. Lucas’s first hospital stay (I think it’s his first as far as I remember) has been rough on the whole family, I’m sure.
• Nicole E. (NICE) -0.6%. Poor Nicole won’t be visiting us next weekend (I don’t think).
• Lucas (LEI) -0.8%. – I swear you won’t miss your appendix, Lucas. I’m doing okay without mine. At least I think I am. I hope you’ve had a sandwich by now.
• Dustin (DST) -1.3%. Who knew Lucas’s hospital stay and surgery were hardest on Dustin? The market knew.

P.S. For real, challenge us on Sporcle. We would love it. Our username is euresrule. Because, you know, we rule.

P.P.S. My Microsoft Office doesn’t recognize Brinky as a word. It should. So I’ll be adding it to my dictionary. We all should.

Name	Ticker	4/26/2013	Change
Brinkley	BCO	$26.46	+1.39
Charlotte	ICE	$159.51	+5.13
Dustin	DST	$68.53	-0.88
Ghost Marisa	MOLXA	$22.84	+0.12
Icarus	FAST	$49.47	+1.33
Jenny	JNY	$14.07	+0.80
Jodi Ann	JOY	$56.60	+2.39
Justin	SCI	$16.46	+0.84
Katie	CATY	$19.45	+0.54
Lee	TGI	$79.80	+3.81
Lisa	LNCE	$24.76	-0.05
Lucas	LEI	$1.27	-0.01
Lulu	LULU	$74.14	+5.76
Marcus	MCS	$12.70	+0.63
Mario T.E.	MGEE	$55.34	+0.52
Mario T.Y.	MAR	$41.57	+0.23
Namilita	NL	$11.19	+0.71
Nicole E.	NICE	$34.23	-0.20
Nicole M.	COLM	$58.92	+0.42
Reagan	REGN	$216.60	+4.02
Ruby	RJET	$11.38	+0.36
Wilson	WILC	$6.87	+0.08
Winston	ED	$62.84	+0.36
Zero	ZAGG	$6.83	+0.23
Zondro	ZQK	$6.47	+0.65

FSX Friday Nope-date

There will be no update tonight, in the unlikely event that it matters to folks out there.  Brinky’s sick and so am I, and it’s hard to say which of us is being a bigger baby about it.  If my head clears tomorrow I’ll write it then; if Brinky feels better first I’ll make him do it.

FSX Friday Update

This was a rough week for a stock market coming off all-time highs: gold and silver prices collapsed on Monday, with gold suffering its largest one-day drop in over three decades; the Dow Industrials slid 250 points on Tuesday, with most of the losses registered even before news of the Boston terror attacks crossed the wires; the widely-followed VIX (volatility index for the S&P 500) jumped 40% through Thursday; and then there were the ugly earnings reports.  Again and again, this was the story: Company X beats profit expectations; Company X misses sales/revenue expectations; Company X stock gets crushed.  From eBay to Bank of America to IBM to GE, the street wasn’t buying the expense management/margin expansion/ cost cutting story.  Listen to the market, S&P 500 CEOs: corporate America is lean enough, and if you can’t grow your business, the market will punish you no matter how carefully you stage-manage quarterly earnings.

As an investor, I wouldn’t touch the big banks with a ten-foot pole.  Why?  Let’s see: fairy-dust balance sheets; broken lending cultures; arrogant, overpaid executives (I’m talking about you, Jamie); contracting net interest margins.  Is that enough?  How about this narrative: banks are too timid and/or incompetent to lend, so they can only boost revenues by taking operational and market risk, and they can only goose profits by cutting non-revenue-producing staff in areas like operational and market risk management.  Add to that the aggressive push-back against any and all banking regulation (I’m talking about you again, Jamie) and you have an industry that is less profitable and less capable than it was in 2007, but hardly less risky.  Get ready for TARP: The Sequel, coming sooner than anyone thinks.

The Family Stock Index underperformed the broader market this week, pulled down by long-time laggards (Zero, Brinky) and bull-market leaders (me, Justin) alike.  Decliners swamped advancers by a margin of 22 to 3, and eight of those declining stocks suffered losses greater than four percent.  The FSX ended the week at 14,884, down 2.9%, even after a 148-point rally on Friday.  After a long period of relative quiescence, volatility is back in a big way: the FSX was down 422 on Monday, up 172 Tuesday, down 265 Wednesday, down just 80 Thursday, and then up 148 today.  Is it time to panic?  Always.

Advancers

• Ruby (RJET) +4.6%.  Grandpa drove to Richmond and then to Philadelphia; Boo-boo didn’t.  I’m told that Grandpa sings along with his bad music when he’s driving; I’m told he doesn’t sing well.  These rumors might be baseless, of course, but the market’s buying.

Decliners

• Justin (SCI) -4.2%.  I don’t know what this is about.  Justin’s coming to the Pfaff in a couple weeks for his NCSA board meeting, and you know the Pfaff is always jumpin’.
• Ghost Marisa (MOLXA) -5.3%.  If Marisa is still haunting Brinky’s room, she’s got to be jealous of his light-up turtle and dog—who wouldn’t be?
• Brinkley (BCO) -5.4%.  A consensus is building here that Brinky’s something of a doofus, with his devoted mother the only holdout.
• Jenny (JNY) -5.7%.  Jenny’s been spending more time with her parents this week; is the market trying to say we’re not cool?
• Zondro (ZQK) -6.9%.  Still an outside dog.  Still not convinced he should be.
• Lee (TGI) -7.0%.  I was due for a pullback after hitting an all-time high last week.  Besides, my cheek swelled up for no reason on Monday and I’m not convinced the spiders didn’t lay eggs in my face when I was clearing the thorn forest last weekend.  Reagan has another theory.  When she asked how her stock was doing, I told her she was about the same as the market, and she replied, ‘well, you’re about the same as a snarket.’  I think that’s code for ‘spiders laid eggs in your face.’
• Zero (ZAGG) -11.5%.  Quoth the Reagan: ‘Zero doesn’t have long hair right now and I really need a picture of him with long hair.’  So there you have it.
• Nami & Lita (NL) -14.9%.  It was a tough week for the cats.  Here’s an artist’s rendering:

Name	Ticker	4/19/2013	Check
Brinkley	BCO	$25.07	-1.44
Charlotte	ICE	$154.38	-3.82
Dustin	DST	$69.41	-0.93
Ghost Marisa	MOLXA	$22.72	-1.27
Icarus	FAST	$48.14	-1.35
Jenny	JNY	$13.27	-0.80
Jodi Ann	JOY	$54.21	-0.26
Justin	SCI	$15.62	-0.69
Katie	CATY	$18.91	-0.30
Lee	TGI	$75.99	-5.68
Lisa	LNCE	$24.81	-0.45
Lucas	LEI	$1.28	+0.05
Lulu	LULU	$68.38	-1.22
Marcus	MCS	$12.07	-0.46
Mario T.E.	MGEE	$54.82	-0.90
Mario T.Y.	MAR	$41.34	-1.25
Namilita	NL	$10.48	-2.03
Nicole E.	NICE	$34.43	-0.63
Nicole M.	COLM	$58.50	-0.62
Reagan	REGN	$212.58	-3.26
Ruby	RJET	$11.02	+0.48
Wilson	WILC	$6.79	-0.05
Winston	ED	$62.48	+0.57
Zero	ZAGG	$6.60	-0.85
Zondro	ZQK	$5.82	-0.43

 

 

I Just Won the War, Unless I Just Lost It

I opened the pond for the season two weeks ago, and there were two major surprises awaiting me.  The first surprise was that the filtration system worked on the first try; the second surprise was that the thorn forest behind the pond was hiding a large tree growing sideways into my fence.  One surprise was obviously more welcome than the other.

This was a big tree.  I’m talking six inches in diameter at the base—not the sort of flora that could have gone undetected without the assistance of the thorn forest.  Not only did the thorns hide the secret tree, they also pushed it down, channeling it to the side and into the fence.  My first thought: how could the Yard Dominion of the Spiders possibly be behind this dastardly attack on my fence?

My second thought: how could the spiders not be behind it?

We are now three years on from the Great Basement War and the Yard Dominion has had ample time to recover from that historic defeat.  Last summer passed without incident, and the spiders adhered to the 2010 treaty with uncharacteristic zeal (a few kitchen interlopers notwithstanding).  I don’t believe they are aware that their basement hunting privileges will be revoked when the Apple Floor Room is turned into Jenny’s room next summer, and at any rate, the losses should be minimal; after all, their insect prey won’t be welcome in the finished basement any more than they will.

As an aside, I promised Jenny her own room when she turned 13.  She turns 13 next summer.  Holy crap I’m old.

As I said, neither I nor the spiders mounted any major military operations last summer.  I executed my seasonal bleach-blitz in the Apple Floor Room in March, then again in October, both times without encountering notable resistance or inflicting significant casualties.  I even made a show of helping a fairly large web-spinner of the non-widow variety out of a dust pile and into the yard before I unleashed the bleach in October.  I’m not a butcher, regardless of what the Dominion propagandists insist.  Alas, I had no idea that the Dominion had developed the technology to transform trees into living battering-rams.

We are exiting what has doubtless been a deep and difficult winter for the spiders, with overnight freezes continuing well into April.  As a consequence, their customary spring mobilization was delayed, and I was ready to open the pond for the year well before they were ready to defend its approaches.  The pond is positioned in the far southeast corner of the yard, between Jenny’s birth-tree and the furthest point of the fence; it is sovereign Imperial territory, an exclave of the Empire fully encompassed by the Yard Dominion.  The triangle of land between the pond and the fence is covered entirely by massive, thorn-covered blackberry plants—or it was.  The stalks of those plants were as thick as two-thirds of an inch in diameter and as long as twelve feet, easily able to grow over the fence.  The wind blows steadily to the southeast here, and the thorn stalks thus grew away from the pond and into the fence.  When I’ve open the pond each year, I’ve cut back the thorns to create a path for walking around the edge of the pond, but I’ve left the thorn forest alone.  It was when I was clearing the perimeter two weeks ago that I discovered the spiders’ arboreal fence-wrecking apparatus.

Why would the spiders want to knock down my fence?  I don’t know the answer, but my sense of foreboding as I considered the question was answer enough.

The thorn forest was old and formidable.  A thorn stalk is like a stiff, barbed cat-o’-nine-tails; the smaller, more numerous thorns at the end of the stalk hook clothes and skin and pull the dagger-thorns behind them.  These things are nasty, and I’ve long suspected that the capital of the Yard Dominion must lie in the heart of the thorn forest.  I had no desire to enter the forest, and no reason to do so—until this year.

This past Saturday, I prepared a preemptive attack on the secret tree.  I meant to leave most of the forest intact, really I did.  I put on pants for the first time since we went to Jill’s wedding last fall—not suit pants this time, but the camouflage canvas pants I bought at the Dollar General three years ago.  I sharpened my machete and my axe for a solid half-hour.  I double-gloved my rending hand and single-gloved my sword hand.  I attacked from the west.  I was forced to cut down far more of the thorn forest than I’d intended in order to gain access to the tree’s trunk and then to pull its branches from the ensnaring bramble complex.  I forgot sunscreen; an hour passed; I became bewildered.  By the time I’d cut the tree loose and chopped it down, a third of the thorn forest was gone.

And that made it lopsided, which was no good at all.

I decided to even things out, circling around to assail the eastern ramparts.  Another hour passed.  At some point, the thorns made the mistake of slashing my chin and cheek.  What could I do?  I pressed the attack.  After four hours, the secret tree and the entirety of the thorn forest were piled up on the curb in front of the house.  To my amazement, my legs had been protected.  To my chagrin, my arms had been shredded.  I returned to the house, drank a pitcher of water, coated my arms with antiseptic spray, and reflected.  This might work out nicely; I’d wanted to plant a garden with the girls, and the area behind the pond should be an ideal spot.  And yet, something wasn’t right.

I had not seen a single spider.

I don’t know what to make of it, really.  The thorns themselves put up no less resistance than I’d expected, but where were the spiders?  Did they evacuate ahead of the onslaught?  It seems unlikely; they couldn’t have known that I was planning to clear the thorn forest since I wasn’t planning to clear the thorn forest.  Was the forest not the Dominion capital to begin with?  It may not have been the capital, but it was certainly held by the spiders, and held in strength, as recently as last October.  Where did they go?  Why did they leave?

I don’t like it.

It’s possible that the depredations of winter made my preemptive strike extraordinarily effective.  Preemptive strikes can be spectacularly successful; when Israel launched its preemptive attack against the massing forces of the Arab League in 1967, it was able to destroy the Egyptian air force on the ground, achieving such complete air supremacy that it won the subsequent war in just six days.  On the other hand, a preemptive strike that fails to destroy the enemy’s second-strike capability can be tantamount to long, slow suicide—witness the fate of Japan’s nascent Asian empire when the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor missed all three American aircraft carriers.  So I could be Israel, I could be Japan, or I could be Frederick the Great’s Kingdom of Prussia.  Prussia invaded Saxony in 1757, preempting an attack by Saxony’s powerful allies, France and Austria.  What followed was the Seven Years’ War, a conflict which Prussia was able to survive only because of the timely death of Russian Empress Elizabeth.  I’m not trying to slug it out with the spiders for another seven years.

I sure hope I’m Israel.  If not, the Battle of the Thorn Forest will live in infamy.