Twitter and Nepal




 

NepalI’m not really certain which Tweet it was, but I got my first website hit from Nepal, as a result of Twitter on Sunday.

For no meaningful reason I check my various sites analytic reports to see where visitors are coming from, how long they stay and whether they return to the site.

I don’t have great aspirations for selling tons of Option to Profit copies in Nepal, but I love seeing the website visits, especially when people linger and come back

Seeing the Nepalese flag icon appear on the analytic report was veryTweetdaeck Icon inspiring to me. In fact, in my completely incapable of detecting similarities in shapes portion of my mind, one of the Nepalese flag symbols looks just like the TweetDeck icon.

It’s that kind of difficulty in interpretaion of visual cues that excuses Eddie Murphy’s solicitation of LA transvestites.

Honest mistake.

Also explains the difficulty I have with those on-line IQ tests.

Back when I ran the original iteration of the Szelhamos Rules blog in 2007-8, I had a daily dedicated reader from Vietnam.

The very idea always amazed me. What was it that the reader could possibly find interesting enough to come back day after day. I felt a very tiny pang of guilt when on the first anniversary of the blog, I ceased its publication.

But not too big of a pang. My final blog re-directed readers to a new site called “Csokolj meg a seggem,” which was a Hungarian expression that was one of Szelhamos’ favorites. If you’re too lazy to try a translation program, you can visit the “Rebus Puzzle” page.

Now, in its second iteration, that Vietnamese reader hasn’t returned.

Is he still alive? Has his life changed? Maybe for the better? I’ll never know.

But now, in the second iteration, I also hold you, the dear reader in higher esteem.

Not high, just higher.

I also don’t know if the Nepalese reader will be back, but I’ll try to make the blog more Nepalese centric. More and more each day would be my aim, but don’t worry, I’m used to failed expectations.

It’s also amazing where inspiration can come from. Ultimately, if your eyes are open widely enough and you suspend rational thought processes, inspiration can come from anywhere.

Coming off a horrible week in the markets, with the worst weekly loss since late in 2008, I received inspiration from an unlikely source.

Silver.

Back in 1978 or so, a friend had convinced me to buy a silver bar, just prior to what would become an incredible rise in price that eventually bought an ounce up to $50, back when the Hunt Brothers tried to corner the market.

That bar sits somewhere in the basement, I suppose, unseen for the past 30 years.

Following a brief time playing with commodity futures in the very early 80’s, I’ve completely ignored metals, not wishing to repeat some costly mistakes.

But for some reason, probably because I remembered the hysteria of 30 years ago, I was in disbelief of gold and silver prices. But that disbelief just kept getting discredited.

In fact, my oldest son took my advice and sold 3 of his five gold coins that he received as his collegfe graduation gift. The advice was a bit premature at about $1500 an ounce, but it’s hard to let a 70% profit ride on irrational pricing. Still, there was that pang of guilt again.

My disbelief finally manifested in buying those leveraged silver short ETF’s.

The first iteration of those were at about $17 and had 12% options premiums. I was assigned when silver went down to about $35 and the ETF went to $20 back in May or June.

Since then, as silver started its bizarre and unwarranted climb back, I’ve been slowly re-assembling the ETF holding. So much so, that very quietly it became nearly 10% of my portfolio. Given that I typically own about 20 stocks, a 10% share is a little out of proportion, especially since this one is more than a bit speculative.

And I don’t like to speculate.

Normally, I buy and sell shares of stocks with conviction and arrogance.

All at once.

That’s often not a good idea, but I like spending my money and limiting the number of different holdings to about 20.

But the short silver ETF was different. Everytime I got some extra options income, I just plowed it into more shares of the ETF. When I got some more Option to Profit royalties? Same thing, more ETF shares, as silver just kept rising.

So after this week, as the market and metals both plummeted, I am still breathing, thanks to the metals that I swore to eschew years ago. Although I didn’t take profits, instead selling enriched call options, it was like getting a big royalty payment.

I guess that being short, and leveraging to boot, is consistent with the earlier stance.

Come Monday, instead of being shell shocked, I’m ready to do battle, thanks to the anti-silver, almost like Kryptonite, except that anti-silver stopped evil.

Instead of writer’s block, I have inspiration from an unknown reader in Nepal.

Well, that’s all fine and good for yesterday, but we’ll just have to see what will bring inspiration in time for tomorrow’s blog.

Like an addict needing more and more to get the same effect, I may need something a lot more exotic than Nepal.

Maybe something like getting Paul Kedrosky or Jane Wells to follow me on Twitter, or even write a guest blog when I’m away.

But then what?

And that’s exactly the problem. That’s the human condition. Maybe if I went to Nepal and hiked up some lofty mountain to seek spiritual meaning, I might find some. I might find that inspiration comes from within and that we don’t need to enslave our souls by seeking inspiration outside of our souls.

Spirituality sounds great.

Nah.

My guess is that upon meeting my spiritual mentor wannabe and being proposed the deeper benefits of meditation, I’ll be pleased to find that my specially chosen mantric phrase is “Csokolj meg a seggem”

Thank you Twitter.